_Protection for the Colored People South.--The Civil Rights
Bill.--Liberty without the Ballot no Boon.--Impartial Suffrage.--Test
Oaths not to be depended upon._
In attempting to form a Southern Confederacy, with slavery as
its corner-stone, by breaking up the Union, and repudiating the
Constitution, the people of the South compelled the National Government
to abolish chattel slavery in self-defence. The protection, defence, and
support which self-interest induced the master to extend to the slave
have been taken away by the emancipation of the latter. This, taken
in connection with the fact that the negroes, by assisting the Federal
authorities to put down the Rebellion, gained the hatred of their old
masters, placed the blacks throughout the South in a very bad position.
Now, what shall be done to protect these people from the abuse of their
former oppressors? The Civil Rights Bill passed by Congress is almost a
dead letter, and many of the rebel judges declare it unconstitutional.
The States having relapsed into the hands of the late slave-holders, and
they becoming the executioners of the law, the blacks cannot look
for justice at their hands. The negro must be placed in a position to
protect himself. How shall that be done? We answer, the only thing to
save him is the ballot. Liberty without equality is no boon. Talk not
of civil without political emancipation! It is the technical pleading of
the lawyer: it is not the enlarged view of the statesman. If a man has
no vote for the men and the measures which tax himself, his family, and
his property, and all which determine his reputation, that man is still
a slave.
We are told--what seems to be the common idea--that the elective
franchise is not a _right_, but a _privilege_. But is this true? We used
to think so; that is, we assented to it before we gave the subject any
special thought: but we do not think so now. We maintain, that in a
government like ours, a republican government, or government of
_the people_, the elective franchise, as it is called, is not a mere
privilege, but an actual and absolute _right_,--a right belonging, of
right, to every free man who has not forfeited that right by crime.
We in this country enjoy what is properly called self-government, and
self-government necessarily implies the _right to vote_,--the right to
_help to govern_, and to make the laws; and this, in a government like
ours, a government of the people, can only be done by or through the
elective franchise. We maintain that in self-government, or government
of the people, every man who is a free man and citizen has a right to
assist and take part in that government. This right inheres and belongs
to every man alike, to you and me, and every other man,--no matter what
the color of his skin,--if he be a free man and citizen, and helps to
support the government by paying taxes: it is one of the fundamental
principles of self-government and of a democratic or republican
government. But the elective franchise, the right to choose and elect
the men who are to fill the offices, and make the laws and execute them,
lies at the very bottom of such government. It is the first principle
and starting-point, and is as much implied in the very name and idea of
self-government, or _government of the people_, as any other principle,
right, or idea pertaining to such a government. Does any one doubt
this? Let him ask himself what constitutes a republican government, or
government of the people, and what is implied by such a government,
and he will soon see, that without the elective franchise, or right to
choose rulers and law-makers, there can be no such government. It
will not do, therefore, to call this right a privilege. If it is but
a privilege, all may be deprived of its exercise. What sort of a
republican or self government would that be in which none of the people
were allowed to vote? But if it is but a privilege, and granted to but a
class or part, it may be restricted to a still smaller part, and finally
allowed to none!
Any proposal to submit the question of the political or civil rights of
the negroes to the arbitrament of the whites is as unjust and as absurd
as to submit the question of the political rights of the whites to the
arbitrament of the negroes, with this difference,--that the negroes are
loyal everywhere, and the great body of the whites disloyal everywhere.
A white loyalist of the South, one who remained loyal during the whole
of the Rebellion, says,--
“To permit the whites to disfranchise the negroes is to permit those who
have been our enemies to ostracize our friends. The negroes are the only
persons in those States who have not been in arms against us. They
have not been in arms against us. They have always and everywhere been
friendly, and not hostile, to us. They alone have a deep interest in the
continued supremacy of the United States; for their freedom depends on
it. On them alone can we depend to suppress a new insurrection. They
alone will be inclined to vote for the friends of the Government in all
the Southern States. They alone have sheltered, fed, and pioneered our
starved and hunted brethren through the swamps and woods of the South,
in their flight from those who now aspire to rule them.
“The _shame and folly of deserting the negroes_ are equalled by the
_wisdom of recognizing and protecting their power_. They will form a
clear and controlling majority against the united white vote in South
Carolina. Mississippi, and Louisiana. With a very small accession from
the loyal whites, they will form a majority in Alabama, Georgia, and
Virginia. Unaided in all those States, they will be a majority in many
congressional and legislative districts; and that alone suffices to
break the terrible and menacing unity of the Southern vote in Congress.”
It is said that the slaves are too ignorant to exercise the elective
franchise judiciously. To this we reply, they are as intelligent as the
average of “poor whites,” and were intelligent enough to be Unionists
during the great struggle, when the Federal Government needed friends.
In a conflict with the spirit of rebellion, the blacks can always be
depended upon, the whites cannot; and, for its own security against
future outbreaks, the National Government should see that the negro is
placed where he can help himself, and assist it.
The ballot will secure for the colored people respect; that respect
will be a protection for their schools; and, through education and the
elective franchise, the negro is to rise to a common level of humanity
in the Southern States.
But little aid can be expected for the freedmen from the Freedmen’s
Bureau; for its officers, if not Southern men, will soon become upon
intimate terms with the former slave-holders, and the Bureau will be
converted into a power of oppression, instead of a protection.
The anti-Union whites know full well the great influence of the ballot,
and therefore are afraid to give it to the blacks. The franchise will be
of more service to this despised race than a standing army in the South.
The ballot will be his standing army. The poet has truly said,--
“There is a weapon surer yet,
And better, than the bayonet;
A weapon that comes down as still
As snow-flakes fall upon the sod,
And executes a freeman’s will
As lightning does the will of God;
A weapon that no bolts nor locks
Can bar. It is the ballot-box.”
Even “The New-York Herald,” some time ago, went so far as to say,--
“We would give the suffrage at once to four classes of Southern negroes.
First, and emphatically, to every negro who has borne arms in the cause
of the United States; second, to every negro who owns real estate;
third, to every negro who can read and write; and, fourth, to every
negro that had belonged to any religious organization or church for five
years before the war. These points would cover every one that ought to
vote; and they would insure in every negro voter a spirit of manhood as
well as discipline, some practical shrewdness, intellectual development,
and moral consciousness and culture.”
Impartial suffrage is what we demand for the colored people of the
Southern States. No matter whether the basis be a property or an
educational qualification, let it be impartial: upon this depends the
future happiness of all classes at the South. Test-oaths, or promises to
support the laws, mean nothing with those who have come up through the
school of slavery.
“As for oaths, the rebels, whose whole career has been a violation of
the solemn obligations of which oaths are merely the sign, care no more
for them than did the rattlesnake to which our soldiers in West Virginia
once administered the oath of allegiance. Impartial suffrage affords
the only sure and permanent means of combating the rebel element in the
Southern States.”