The citizen. (Frederick City, Md.) 1895-1923, 1905-03-31

been repeatedly held by the Supreme
Court of the United States to have no
application whatever to the question of
suffrage, and this must now be treated
as absolutely settled.
As to the second section of the Four
teenth Amendment, the utmost that has
ever been suggested is that an educa-
tional qualification may subject the
State imposing it a reduction of its rep
resentation in Congress and in the Flee
toral College, but Judge Cooley clearly
shows in his Principles of Constitu-
tional Law, page 292, that to require
ability to read is no denial of suffrage
and hence that such denial cannot be
violation of the Second Section of the
Fourteenth Amendment.
! All objections to this educational test
clause as contrary to either the l4th OF
10Th Amendments being thus elmi-
mated, we have only to consider its cope
dtency under our existing political con-
! ditions in Maryland.
To judge this properly we must ascer-
tain whom it will reach and control and
how it will operate.
Taking it in connection with the
other sections of the proposed amend
ment, it is clear that it does not affect
or touch in the registration Of the year
1906 any native born white man whom
soever who voted anywhere in the Union
on January |, 1869, or earlier nor the
llneal descendant of any such native
born white man. 1t will not and cannot
apply to or exclude any such men.
Nor will it apply to any naturalized
citizen of the United States who on
January |, 1869, or earlier. voted
anywhere in the Union, nor to the lin
cal descendant of any such naturalized
citizen.
Nor will it apply to any black man
who voted anywhere in the Union on
January | 1869, or earlier, or the lin
cal descendant of any such black man.
Tn problem presented to the Demo
cratic Senate and House of Delegates
at the session Of 1904, was this: How
can We frame an Amendment to the Con-
stitution of Maryland, which, while not
violating either the letter or the spirit
of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amend
ments to the Constitution of the United
States, will rescue our State from the
evil and peril of ignorant negro suffrage?
The proposed amendment solyes this
problem.
Suffrage is valuable privilege but it
is not natural right. Anderson VS..
Baker, % Md. 531.) Here no inius-
tice is done by Withholding it from per
sons who are not liable to appre,at
ami exercise it with discrimination and
moderate intelligence, and the condition
upon which it is offered, viz: an ability
Ia un ierstand and explain sect IL Of
the Constitution. is certainly not rig
orous. exacting or harsh condition
iuieed it is small price to demand
for so large boon
The e{Gcated negro who wiShe, to
an in the elevation of his race shoul
hail with satisfaction the effort which
this amendment will require from the
g,cd"coted negro to learn to read in
orler to qualify himself as IL voter. ani
the Adoption Of the Amendment will put
into the han'ls OF the better class Of our
coored population power ami influence
for good with the illiterite Of their race
which they have never thus far pos
sesSed
The most generous offers of the oppor-
tunities Of education furnished by our
public schools for more than thirty
years have not borne the rich fruit
which was hoped for, but when our
colored people realize that if they
cannot read they shall not vote, it will
not be long before the evils under which
our elective franchise suffers unto deg
radiation will be greatly lessened.
Indeed one of the strongest argu-
ments in favor Of this amendment is,
that so far from being injurious or
unjust to our negro population, it will,
on the contrary, if adopted, be pro-
motive of their best interests.
While protecting our white electorate
from the contamination of debased and
ignorant suffrage, it will necessarily
stimulate the uneducated negro to learn
to read and thereby to earn the right to
vote
And if he prove either unwilling or
unable to come up to the easy educa-
tional test prescribed by the Amend
ment, he ought not to be permitted to
vote, and there is no hardship in ex-
Guiding him.
Our Constitution of 1864, upon
grounds Of public policy then deemed
to be sufficient, and held by our Court
Of Appeals in Anderson VS.. Baker %
Nd, 53l, to be valid and constitutional,
disfranchised by the most stringent retro
actiee provisions all who sympathized
with the Southern Coefederacy, or had
ever given any aid or comfort to the
cause of secession.
This destruction of the pre-existing
right to vote under the Constitution of
1851 was accomplished by a partisan
Board of Registration Officers, whose