132 



CONGKESS, UNITED STATES. 



paupers, insane persons, persons non compos 

 mentis, and persons "who have rendered them- 

 selves, by crime treason, felony, or otherwise 

 infamous, and so not to be trusted in public 

 affairs. Therefore, sir, as a definition, I say it 

 is what may be called impartial restricted suf- 

 frage, as distinguished from universal and man- 

 hood suffrage, of which we hear so much in 

 these days. 



These principles are attempted to be enforced 

 by appropriate provisions in the bill, which 

 make it really an election bill. 



" Sir, our power over the question of suffrage 

 in this District is ample, unquestioned, and we 

 have seen that the objections to its exercise are 

 untenable; but the question returns, shall the 

 right be extended to the negro, and if so, upon 

 what principle, or upon the prescription of 

 what particular formula? 



" It becomes important first to consider the 

 right of suffrage, whether as an absolute right, 

 or as incidenLto citizenship. On this question 

 the public mind is divided between universal 

 suffrage, manhood suffrage, and impartial suf- 

 frage, and perplexed with questions of sex as 

 well as of race and color. 



" I glance only at each. Universal suffrage 

 is affirmed by its advocates as among the abso- 

 lute or natural rights of man, in the sense of 

 mankind, extending to females as well as males, 

 and susceptible of no limitation unless as op- 

 posed to child or infant. It is supposed to ori- 

 ginate in rights independent of citizenship; like 

 the absolute rights of liberty, personal security, 

 and possession of property, it is natural to man. 

 It exists, of course, independent of sex or con- 

 dition, manhood or womanhood. To admit it 

 in the adult and deny it to the youth would be 

 to abridge the right and ignore the principle. 

 Now, sir, in practice its extension to women 

 would contravene all our notions of the family ; 

 ' pt>t asunder ' husband and wife, and subvert 

 the fundamental principles of family govern- 

 ment, in which the husband is, by all usage and 

 law, human and divine, the representative head. 

 Besides, it ignores woman, womanhood, and all 

 that is womanly ; all those distinctions of sex, 

 whose objects are apparent in creation, es- 

 sential in character, and vital to society ; these 

 all disappear in the manly and impressive de- 

 monstration of balloting at a popular election. 

 Here maids, women, wives, -men, and husbands 

 promiscuously assemble to vindicate the rights 

 of human nature. 



" Moreover, it associates the wife and mother 

 with policies of state, with public affairs, with 

 making, interpreting, and executing the laws, 

 with police and war, and necessarily dissever- 

 ates her from purely domestic affairs, peculiar 

 care for and duties of the family ; and, worst 

 of all, assigns her duties revolting to her nature 

 and constitution, and wholly incompatible with 

 those which spring from womanhood. 



"Besides, the ballot is the inseparable con- 

 comitant of the bayonet. Those who prac- 

 tise the one must be prepared to exercise the 



other. To introduce woman at the polls is to 

 enroll her in the militia, to transfer her from 

 the class of non-combatants to the class of com- 

 batants. 



" ' Manhood suffrage,' to define it, is simply 

 to state the conditions of manhood, the state of 

 an adult male grown to full size and strength. 

 Its opposites are 'childhood,' 'womanhood.' 

 In most nations, for purposes of war, it is a 

 male person between the ages of eighteen and 

 forty-five years. Among the civilians it was 

 from fourteen to twenty-five. The condition 

 of manhood, as defined by the lexicographers, 

 is purely physical development, in distinction 

 from moral and intellectual. In this sense the 

 common law had no standard. It is impossible 

 to conceive of a law that would meet in prac- 

 tice the individual cases, as they would arise, on 

 the principle of physical development. The 

 condition of manhood varies in individuals, and 

 is developed at different periods. 



"The fatal objection to 'manhood suffrage' 

 is that the right is based on physical develop- 

 ment, like arms-bearing, while the act itself 

 necessarily implies intelligence, discretion, in- 

 tellectual development. 



" The peculiar character, the genius of repub- 

 licanism, is equality, impartiality of rights and 

 remedies among all the citizens, not that the 

 citizen shall not be abridged in any of his nat- 

 ural rights. The man yields that right to the 

 nation when he becomes a citizen. The repub- 

 lican guaranty is that all laws shall bear upon 

 all alike in what they enjoin and forbid, grant 

 and enforce. This principle of equality before 

 the law is as old as civilization, but it does not 

 prevent the State from qualifying the rights of 

 the citizen according to the public necessities. 



" The American principle favors the right of 

 suffrage for the male citizen of full age, sup- 

 posed to be based upon the law and usage that 

 at this age he becomes free of the tutelage of 

 family, and is free to manage his own affairs. 

 The exceptions to the rule are of persons non 

 compos mentis, persons deemed infamous from 

 treason, felony, or other high crimes, persons 

 supported at the public- charge, and ignorant 

 persons, and those of African descent. 



" The rule is in harmony with the idea of re- 

 publican government and Christian civilization. 

 Some of the exceptions are ill-timed, illogical, 

 and unjust. Poverty is in no just sense a dis- 

 qualifying fact. On the contrary, society may 

 doubtless protect itself by depriving those of 

 political power who have proved faithless to it, 

 or made war upon it. In a country where the 

 means of education are accessible to all, or 

 should be, and a knowledge of the Government 

 important, it cannot be a grievance that the 

 State should impose the rule of intelligent suf- 

 frage. The exceptional fact which stands out 

 in flagrant violation of the common rule of suf- 

 frage is that which denies the right to the 

 citizen of African descent on account of his 

 race. 



"At the formation of the national Constitu- 



