Year: 1869

Sherman at Canton.


The first question is the proposeC
Amendment to the Constitution of the
United States, called the Fifteenth
! Amendment. This declares that nc


State shall deprive any citizen of the
/ United States of his equal fright to vote
! by reason of race or color.


Why should race or color be made q
ground of exclusion? If the ballot is


useful for any purpose it is useful to
/ the poor, the ignorant and the lowly.


1t was designed to protect minorities.
| Other formso of Government protect the


rich, protect property, trade, COM


merce, industry, and guard carefully
the rights of the selected few. The


republican forms of government is
superior to other forms of govern
ment only as il extends to all alike
equal protection and favor.


If we will not stand by the principle
of republican government, why then


shall we except only a race composing


in the Union only One-tenth of your


population, and in Ohio but one per


cent. of our population? Are they
dangerous from their numbers, when


no blacks are coming to us, and many
going from us, while our own race is


being swelled by an immigration of
which there is no parallel in history /?
Are they turbulent, lawless and yio-
lent? On the contrary, if there is any
peculiarity in their race, it is their
patience under wrong. Are they
ignorant? Yes: but what race under
heaven would not be ignorant under
l,o,ra
they are now seeking and acquiring
knowledge with the assiduity we al
ways seek what is denied to US. Is
there any man here now who fears the
Democratic nightmare of amalgama-
ton? That phantom should now be
laid at rest. The negro is now free,
and she can protect her virtue. Anal
gamatiOn was one of the terrible evils
of slavery, and did make it a daily
affair of life for men to sell their own
children as slaves. In the free States
amalgamation was rare, and now in
the Southern States it is rare compar-
ed to the time of slavery.


Does any man fear the competition
of negroes in the labor and employ
ment of life? There is work enough,
and to spare for all. Never was labor
better rewarded than now. The rights
of the laborer, his pay, his time, his
food, his comforts, were never more
favorable than now. The labor of the
black man will mainly be employed
in raising cotton, rice and corn in the
South, articles of prime necessity, and
upon which depend very much the
labor and prosperity of the North
oh rr-rr1-e for l,a ~ -.
is so interviewer by links of interest
that we cannot do injustice to any
class of laborers without doing harm
to ourselves. There have been many
grounds of exclusion from political
rights by governments in old and re-
cent times-age, sex, nativity, prop
erty, education, birth, have been the
grounds of exclusion; but this boasted
of ours, founded upon gen.
erous principles of liberty and equali-
ty, was the first to make the exclusion
depend upon the mere color of q mans
skin. Gentlemen, there is 10 logic or
TO justify it. 1t is the last
relic of slavery, and should be swept
away with slavery. We owe it to our
as party; we owe it to
the generous principles that have an
mated us in a great struggle, not to
cease our efforts until the Constitution
secures to every man equality, in
rights and privileges.


When this is done, as 1 am quite
sure it will be, with or without the
vote of Ohio, the Republican party
may proudly look over its past hIsto-
~. Fifteen years of labor and strug-
gle, though they have been checkered
with many losses and sacrifices
though tens of thousands of brave
men have given up their lives, and a
great public debt rests upon us-yet
our country has sreceived advancement,
glory and progress amply commensur-
lite for all these losses and sacrifices.