The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-06-07
THE aeaANDFArzEas PLAN.
MT, Miller of wilcox 0iveG Some In-
 formation About It.

formation About It. On the subject of lineal descendants of soldiers and sailors and of citizens who could vote or 1st of January, 1887, in Alabama. we have been furnished by MT. Jos. N. Miller of Wilcox with the following information:
 Judge Cooley says: But, ae shown in the first citation from Judge Cooley, suffrage Is given not so much for the benefit of the individual as for the benefit Of the community at large. and rationally, should be bestowed on those. and upon all those, who possess the requisite qualifications. however obtained"
 MT. Roundtree of North Carolina says: Now it is a fact, which every candid and thoughtful man will ad- init. that the faculty of self-govern- ment-the capacity to participate in- telligently in the conduct of public af- fairs. is one that is capable of being inherited: indeed, 1t may be said that 1t is the best, if not the only. method of acquiring it.
 John Stewart Mill in his book on Representative Government makes this very clear. He shows that government depends almost entirely upon their traditions, habits and cus- toms. and he observes that e free and enlightened government could scarcely be imposed by force upon the peoples of the East, or upon many of the peo- pies of Europe, and that q despotio government could not possibly be im- posed upon such a people as the de- scendants of the founders of the American states.
 Edmund Burke insists that work able constitutions are growths, the re- suits of evolution. not of manufacture: and his chief criticism upon the work of the Constituent Assembly was that 1t broke entirely with the past-with the traditions of the French people; and the result seems to justify his France. composing the most intelli- gent people of Europe, is even now demonstrating how little fits citizens understand the first principles of free institutions when the trial of an indi- vidual produces such unseemly com motions and threatens to destroy the very republic itself.
 And. Sir, have not each of us known men, many men, unable SV read and write, who are as capable of understanding and discussing political questions as we are? certainly have.
 That the faculty of self-governmenr
 
 heritance Is not only shown by our personal observation and asserted by philosophical writers on government. but 1t is fully recognized by the best and most thoughtful of writers on con- stitutional law.
 Judge Hare. in his work on 'Ameri- can Constitutional Law page 5, says: The art of seif-government cannot be taught by school masters or learned from books. but must be acquired through the accumulated experience of generations handed down traditionally. It is tb such a cause. rather than to any original superiority of the Anglo Saxon people over the Indo-Germantc tribes that we may attribute the suc- cess of free institutions in England and the United States
 See also Ordronaux-P
 Hon w. A. Guthrie, an able lawyer in North Carolina, was requested to prepare a brief on this subject. and among other things he said:
 ''In my own judgment, it Is the nov city of the idea of conferring the right of suffrage on 'lineal descendants rather shan the constitutionality of 1t, which provckas criticism adverse to it. True 1t IS. the right of suffrage is valuable privilege and franchise, but we have seen that according to the decision of the highest court, it is a right or privilege which is not inherent in citizen alone. but it must be con- ferred upon the citizen by legislation in some shape, either constitutional pr statutory. The right to vote being one conferred only oy our State constitu- ton. why cannot the people amend 1t within the limits of the prohibition of the Fifteenth amendment to the United States constitution?"
 Mr Roundtree further said: "In at tempting to solve the problem we are confronted on the one hand, with the Limitations Imposed by the Fifteenth amendment of the Federal constitution and on the other by the fact that there are in this state large number of H. literate White voters. the descendants of men who founded the state, who have inherited the race instinct of self-government. and have learned its principles, among the best citizens of the state. and are as qualified by in telligence to cast their ballot, MT. Speaker, as you or I, and whom 1t would be impossible as 1t Is undesir 8 ble to disfranchise.
 Tn looking for a precedent-a model ito guide us in this difficult under taking. we have. examined the work of ConstitrSional conventions of Mississ- ippi, South Carolina and Louisiana. After careful. even painful, considera- tion. your committee selected as model the constitution of Louisiana, because in their opinion it is self-exe- cutting, it is what on it's face it pre- tends to be. and leaves nothing to the juggling manipulation of election off, cers."