Year: 1874

|


From the Cincinnati Commercially


How to Get the Negro Out of Politics.


The broad fact that the Constitution


OF the United States is no longer to be
| interpreted by either COURTS or states


men on the side of slavery or inequality


of rights, and that all State legislation,


to be in harmony with the supreme law


of the land, as the Constitution requires,


must not discriminate against any class


OF the people because of race, color Or
| previous condition, is but partially real


Ized. While the amendments to the
| Constitution are acquesced in, and no
| party or politician proposes to disturb


them, their logical and legal consequent
ces are resisted by those who have not
conquered prejudices begotten of the
slave system; and there is unremitting
efforts to narrow the meaning of the
amendments, and preserve discrimina-
| tlons that make one class of citizens, po-
lltlcally, superior to another.


1t was plain enough to those who gave
the subject any study that emancipation
implied enfranchisement and ultimately
complete Endorsement of political and
civil rights. As long as the negro was
held to be property in the slave States he





alton. That was inevitable 1t grew out
of the very nature of the slave. condition
He could be no more in the civil system
than the horse or the OK. The moment
he rose above that condition, the mo-
ment he gained any legal status either to
hold property or exercise any function
of citizenship, his chains fell off, and he
stood up a man, to be treated not as a
ehattel, but as a human being under the
law.


Emancipation, we repeat, carried with
it every right and privilege of. citizenship,
and Congress could no more have es-
capped the consequences of that war
measure than it could escape the control
of the law of gravity. The amendments
to the Constitution and the appropriate
legislation for the enforcement were re-
suits which every advocate of emancipa-
ton should have looked squarely in the
face. Resistance to these results, no
matter whether it came from the South
or the North, must from the very ma
ture of things, prove Intellectual 1t has
proved SO in the past; it will prove so in
the future.


There is but one way of escape The
people of the United States may go back
upon all these measures and wipe out
the amendments to- the Constitution and



they cannot stop there, if it be the pur-
pose to deprive the negroes OF any or all
political or civil rights. They must res
tore the Constitution as it was and make
it possible to re-enslave the blacks Eli
ther this, or they must go forward in the
direction which National legislation has
taken since the abolition of slavery, and
secure to all the people entitled to citi-
zenship whatever rights or immunities
any class of them enjoys under the laws.


We know of no considerable number
of people who would, df they had the DO
lltlcat power, restore the dark age of sla-
very We question whether, were it left
to the whites of the South themselves,
they would re-establish an institution
that unquestionably restricted the mate
rial development of that section of the
Republic, and imbruted the minds of all
classes of people The unhappy infiuen-
ces of the system which Jefferson fore
saw and predicted had their manifesto
ton before it was torn out by violence,
and they will not cease their Operation
during the present generation.


1t being then generally admitted that
there does not exist any purpose or de-
sire to speak of for the establishment
Of slavery, there is but one solution of
the negro question that will have the
effect of putting the negro himself out of
politics as disturbing element, and that
S the generous and full recognition of
MS rights as a citizen, including all social
rights that are not left for each individ-
lal in the community to regulate for
himself. In other words, whatever
lights, privileges or immunities are de-
lived from political organization or pro-
iced from legislation, whether they are
sivil or social, must belong as undisputa-
to ba Al |.
ore we can hope for cessation of the
lgltation of the question of the enjoy
nent of rights by the people of the uni
ed States.


We repeat that there are only one of
,wo courses to pursue-either to wipe out
jhe amendments and re-establish a svs-
,em that will crush the negro out of legal
existence as human being, or make
llm absolutely the equal of any other
citizen, and then leave him to work out
he problem of his existence as an indi-
'idual and race upon the same terms
md conditions that attach to all other
citizens of the Republic


1t is time to look at this matter square
y To fancy that we can legislate so
hat any portion of the people shall be
lalf citizens and half something else, en-
Dying one class of rights and denied an
,ther class, and do itwithout creating
or sowing the seeds of dis.
ord and civil trouble, is folly of which
people qualified to make and maintain
free government should hold them
elves incapable.


The immediate solution of race diff
ulties in the United States, therefore,
depends upon the readiness of the people
o accept the consequences of their own
.cts, and abide by that principle of de-
nocracy which levels all political and
hvll distinctions, wipes out all lines of
ace distinction, and puts all citizens on
common footing before the law. When
his is done and acQuiesoed in we shall
lear no more of the negro in politics
han we hear of the Irishman, the Ger
nan, the Englishman, or any other ma



A man advertises in New York paper
or bar-keeper "who must be recon-
onanra1 bxr hsS