Year: 1869

hSC anu Alii poi tdhOCs


From the Philadelphia North American.


Nothing of recent date, in eonnec


tiOn with our politics, is, or can be, oI


mere importance to all parties of the


Republic than the pending or Fif


teenth Amendment to the National
/ Constitution, whereby it is proposed


to put a final eXtinguisher upon all
! further negro questions in American
politics. The purpose in framing this
amendment was to establish n stand,


ard of American citizenship rather


higher than anything of previous


date; for while, by the Fourteenth
| Amendment all persons born or nat


uraliZed in the United States are de-
clared citizens of the Republic and OF
the several States thereof, it allowed
of diSfTanchisement on account OF
race, color, or previous condition OF
servitude, which though unavoidable
at the time of its adoption, can not
now be regarded by rejecting men as
anything less than mOnstrOus, placing,
as it did, the suffrage in the attitude
of distinguishing a hideous system of
caste, and making badges of servitude
where none should exist


Under the new, or Fifteenth Amend
ment no such distinctions can be toll
Grated any longer in this land of free
dom, since they are and can be moth
ing more than remnants of that fear
full bondage called chattel slavery,
that we have eXterminated at the cost
of so much blood and treasure
Whether, having gone so far and
done so much, and paid such an awful
price to rid ourselves of this mOnstrOus
creation of cruelty, cupidity and ava
rice, we should now allow this remin-
iseence of it to blacken our statutes
and cast disgrace and reproach upon
the nation is a question for every man
to solve for himself. If we do so allow
it to remain, we may rest assured that
like slavery, ie will constitute an end
less source of agitation, political trou-
bic, interDecine strife and discOTd
throughout the Republic. What that
state of things is we know from sad
experience, and the sufferings en-
dured by the whole country from it,
should, by this time; have warned all
sufficiently against it.


Yet we find these BOurbOns of the
Republic, the patent Democrats, all
rallying to man, against all attempt
to change the status, and determined,
at all hazards, in every way, legal and
irregular, and to the last degree, to re-
siSt the ratification of the Fifteenth
Amendment, which is destined to be
n new charter of freedom, to be an eX-
ample shining from afaI unto the ma
tiOns of the earth, as to the capacity
of humanity for self-gOvernment.-
These desperate lovers of agitation
and caste hung on to the last vestige
of that system which has for so many
years been their very meat and drink,
politically, as though it tore their very
heart strings to separate from it. They
see that il must come eventually.
There is hardly a man of them but
will privately admit it in an unguard-
ed moment.


Men say: "These poor blacks are
too ignorant and degraded to be allow
ed to vOte.N But it seems that they
know their friends from their enc
mics; that they know free institutions
from aristOcratic; that they know
those who will sustain and protect
from those who oppose and Oppress
them. The purpose of a mans vote is
to enable him to defend his own
rights. Hence those blacks are quite
as intelligent to that end as most 9TH
er people, and may freely be allowed
to vote.


We do not take the ground that the
right to vote is an inherent one, al
though Jefferssn's doctrine of the
right of fself-gOvernments seems to bear
that Interpretation. Jefferson doubt
less meant that the people, rs a body,
have the right of self-gOvernment,
subject, of course, to restrictions in
in order to guard the par
ty of the ballot box and to distinguish
the permanent resident and the law
citizen from the shifting mass
of adventures and unsettled people,
and the horde of vagabOnds and
thieves. But that every permanent
resident should be subject to the same
equal laws, and be endowed with the
same equal rights, we do maintain
and always have. The colored citizen
is, like ourselves, native. He has
never known any other land or flag.
He never expects to know any other.
He has his record on the battlo-fields
and in the army rolls of the Republic.
He lives here subject to the same con-
ditiOn of life as the rest, and asks
nothing more than to take his chan
res.


This amendment is one of peace and
harmony. 1t will put the negro upon
the same level North and South, and
make him no longer prOtege of the
nation because of his eman ipatiOn,
but an enfranchised citizen like the
rest, to take his chances as best he
may. 1t will forever put an end to
agitation on the subject of the negro.