Year: 1868




the benign patience. A person whose
serene political standpoint is up tree
can look down on this measly intlama-
nagainst the Visible-Admixture- Bill
in particular, with feelings Of surgical
compassion.


Our Democratic Legislature was elect
ed solely upon the issues Of blood in the
constitution. 1t could have been elect
ed no Otherwise The constitution
says, as its trainers in one word, meant
it to say, that African blood shall not
vote in Ohio. 1t is preposterous to
suppose they employed the word white
to describe skin. Else bath of nitrate
Of silver or butterDut-juice or three or
four weeks accumulation of real estate
might deprive naturalized Irishlnan
Of his sacred right of suffrage.


Noj they intended the word as a
searcher Of the reins of the peoples
ancestry. They did not propose to
care how dark white male citizen's'
cuticle might appeaB, whether from
hereditary bile or acquired dirt, pro-
yided he fetched the documents to
prove that his genealogy could not be
traced back TO any grandsire or grandma
nigger since the foundation of the
world. 1t was the niger they were
after; and this word white was en-
acted as sort Of fugitiye-slave law for
chasing him through the veins, and the
bones, and the very bowels of the people.


Hence the decision of the supreme
court that white might mean + white,
or 5-8 white, or 9-l6 white, is Judicial
Legislation, and Judicial nousense. 1t
must be apparent to any decent white
mans common sense that the makers
of the constitution intended TO disfran-
cbise African blood, wherever it might
be detected, and in whatever lurking
fractional quantities. Where the least
triturated homeopathic dose oft should
be found diluted through a man even
in the ten-millionth potency, they meant
to keep that scandalous little circulating
decimal Of nigger away from the polls.
There is no earthly doubt of it.


And their theory is the correct one.
If a whole skinful of darkey blood dis
qualities a man for voting, why does
not half skinlul semi disqualify him
aud quarter Of skinful demi- i-semi-
do it? Where is your arithmetic or
reason for DISTINGUISHING an integral
nigger, and three foarth of a nigger,
and the other possible proportions
down to one half a nigger, and permit
ting all the lesser Ethiopian fractions
to vote? -.......~


Go TO. If the reasonable and right
eous trainers of our constitution had not
intended the word white to pursue
these bloody fractions of niger to their
uttermost denominators, it is plain they
would have provided for fractionaliziDg
the ballot, 50 that any of the different
elective affinities of Democrat that have
got mixed into African on this conti-
nent could have been voted pro rata.
Then man composed of Democrat one
quarter aud nigger three quarters would
have been entitled to a quarter of a
vote; and four such men would have
been entitled to cast one ballot Whereas
q man three quarters Democrat and one
quarter niger would have had
three fOurths of right to vote; and
four such could have clubbed together
and put in three ballots, And so on.
Which would have simplified the mat
ter and given all the Democratic blood
extant in African veins its fair ratio of
representation.


But this plan was not provided in
the constitution for the reason that the
trainers evidently did not consider such
stray claret white blood at all. They
manifestly held, where this Democratic
war of races got into a mans veins,
that lie was nigger still and neverthe-
less, and that you could never separate
the nigger from the Democrat in him,
so as to give a vote or part OF a vote
to his Democratic fraction while with
holding it from bis African, any more
than the Legendary eopartner in the
ownership of the studhorse could be
practically permitted to get mad and
shoot his half On the contrary it was
their unmistakable design that this
mixed blood in whatever proportions,
should never have the right of suffrage
in hio,--that not one single cursed
drop of it should ever be represented
in the government.


But the ruling of the supreme court
would operate to defeat that design en-
urely, and thus to violate the eonstita-
ton. For its effect would be to wash
down the entire quantity of nigger
blood in the State to the yotabIe thin
ness in the course of two or three gen
erations, provided the future North
ern Democratic rate of dilution may be
at all fairly estimated from Southern
Democratic statistics.


This is a consequence, however, that
perhaps the court did not foresee. 1t
was Democratic court; and it was
natural that it should sympathize with
kindred political blood flowing off into
forbidden channels. 1t was natural
that it should wrench the constitution
rather violently to help out this spilled
molasses Democracy.


But it was mistaken stretch OF lib
erality for the fact has since been
abundantly demonstrated, to the veuge-
ful disgust Of the Democratic party, and
doubtless IN fhc rcinorseful disoust of