IM'IJUO DOCUMENTS. 



. as common 



: the world, vanity 



.'i. in have made - it n-- 



: punishment so cruel anil unjii-t would 

 ..lemiuition nl' nil unprejudiced tnnl 

 1 Him. The punitive justice of this age, 

 .My nf (his country, ilocs not consist in 

 stripp 'if their liberties, and rodu- 



iple, without distinction, to the con- 

 of slavery. It deals separately with raeh 

 huil, confines itself ti the forms of law, ami 

 vindii ra jiurity liy an impartial e.xamina- 



-e before a competent judicial tri- 

 ll' tiiis dues not satisfy all our desires with 

 to Southern rebels, let us console ourselves 

 :. -cling that a free Constitution, triumphant in 

 i'L unbroken in peace, is worth far more to us 

 :r children than the gratification of any present 



aware it is assumed that this system of gov- 

 iit for the Southern States is not to be per- 

 petual. It is true this military government is to bo 

 only provisional, but it is through this temporary evil 



. greater evil is to be made perpetual. If the 



if the Constitution can be broken pro- 



.dly to serve a temporary purpose, and m a 



part only of the country, we can destroy them every- 



and for all time. Arbitrary measures often 



change, but they generally change for the worse. 



It i- the curse of despotism that it has no halting- 



The intermitted exercise of its power brings 



use of security to its subjects; for they can 



what more they will be called to endure 



when its red right hand is armed to plague them 



. Nor is it possible to conjecture how or where 

 power, unrestrained by law, may seek its next vic- 

 tims. The States that are still free may be enslaved 

 at any moment ; for if the Constitution does not pro- 

 tect all it protects none. 



manifestly and avowedly the object of these 



to confer upon negroes the privilege of voting, 

 and to disfranchise such a number of white citizens 

 :n will give the former a clear majority at all elec- 

 tions in the Southern States. This, to the minds of 

 some persons, is so important, that a violation of 

 the Constitution is justified as a means of bringing 

 it about. The morality is always false which ex- 

 a wrong because it proposes to accomplish a 

 desirable end. We are not permitted to do evil that 

 good may come. But in this case the end itself is 



,- well as the means. The subjugation of the 



- to negro domination would be worse than the 

 military despotism under which they are now suf- 

 fering. It was believed beforehand that the people 

 would endure any amount of military oppression, for 

 any length of time, rather than degrade themselves 

 by subjection to the negro race. Therefore they 



been left without a choice. Negro suffrage was 

 established by act of Congress, and the military 

 officers were commanded to superintend the process 

 of clothing the negro race with the political privi- 

 leges torn from white men. 



The blacks in the South arc entitled to be well 

 and humanely governed, and to have the protection 

 ot'ju^t law s for all their rights of person and properly. 

 If it were practicable at this time to give them a gov- 

 ernment exclusively their own, under which they 

 iniu'ht manage their own affairs in their own way, it 

 would become a grave question whether we ought to 

 do so, or whether common humanity would not re- 

 quire us to save them from themselves. But, under 

 me circumstances, this is only a speculative point. 

 It is not proposed merely that they shall govern 

 themselves, but that they shall rule the white race, 

 make and admini-t<T State laws, elect Presidents 

 and members of Congress, and shape to a greater 

 or le>s extent the future destiny of the whole coun- 

 try. Would such a trust and power be safe in such 

 hands? 

 The peculiar qualities which should characterize 



any people who are fit to decide upon the manage- 

 in. ; m ni public affairs for a great State bare aeldom 

 been combined. It is the glory of white men to 

 know that they have had those qualities in sufficient 

 measure to build upon this continent a great politi- 

 cal fabric, and to ; -lability for more than 

 niiieiv years, while in every other purl of the world 

 all similar experiments have failed. Hut if any thing 

 can be pro\e<l bv known facts if all reasoning upon 

 ice is not abandoned it must be acknowledged 

 that in the progress of nations negroes have shown 

 less capacity for government than any other race of 

 people. No independent government of any form 

 lias ever been successful in their hands. On the con- 

 trary, wherever they have beem left to their own de- 

 vices they have shown a constant tendency to relapse 

 into barbarism. In the Southern States, however, 

 Congress has undertaken to confer upon them the 

 privilege of the ballot. Just released from slavery, 

 it may be doubted whether, as a class, they know 

 more than their ancestors how to organize and regu- 

 late civil society. Indeed, it is admitted that the 

 blacks of the South are not only regardless of the 

 rights of property, but so utterly ignorant of public 

 affairs that theirVoting can consist in nothing more 

 than carrying a ballot fo the place where they are 

 directed to deposit it. I need not remind you that the 

 exercise of the elective franchise is the highest attri- 

 bute of an American citizen, and that, when guided by 

 virtue, intelligence, patriotism, and a proper apprecia- 

 tion of our Free institutions, it constitutes the true 

 basis of a democratic form qf government, in which 

 the sovereign po_wer is lodged in the body of the peo- 

 ple. A trust artificially created, not for its own sake, 

 but solely as a means of promoting the general welfare, 

 its influence for good must necessarily depend upon 

 the elevated character and true allegiance of the 

 elector. It ought, therefore, to be reposed in none 

 except those who are fitted morally and mentally to 

 administer it well ; for if conferred upon persons 

 who do not justly estimate its value, and who are 

 indifferent as to its results, it will only serve as a 

 means of placing power in the hands of the un- 

 principled and ambitious, and must eventuate in the 

 complete destruction of that liberty of which it 

 should be the most powerful conservator. I have, 

 therefore, heretofore urged upon your attention the 

 great danger "to be apprehended from an untimely 

 extension of the elective franchise to any new 

 in our country, especially when the large majority 

 of that class, in wielding the power thus placed in 

 their hands, cannot be expected correctly to com- 

 prehend the duties and responsibilities which pertain 

 to suffrage. Yesterday, as it were, four millions of 

 persons were held in a condition of slavery that had 

 existed for generations; to-day they are freemen, 

 and are assumed bv law to be citizens. It cannot be 

 presumed, from their previous condition of servi- 

 tude, that, as a class, they are as well informed as 

 to the nature of our Government as the intelligent 

 foreigner, who makes our land the home of his 

 choice. In the case of the latter, neither a residence 

 of five years, and the knowledge of our institutions 

 which it gives, nor attachment to the principles of 

 the Constitution, are the only conditions upon which 

 he can be admitted to citizenship. He must prove, 

 in addition, a good moral character, and thus give 

 reasonable ground for the belief that he will be 

 faithful to the obligations which he assumes as a 

 eiti/en of the Republic. Where a people the source 

 of all political power speak, by their suffrages, 

 through the instrumentality of the ballot-box, it 

 must be carefully guarded against the control of 

 those who are corrupt in principle and enemies of 

 lice institutions for it can only become to our polit- 

 ical and social system a safe conductor of healthy 

 popular sentiment when kept free from demoralizing 

 influences. Controlled through fraud and usurpa- 

 tion by the designing, anarchy and despotism must 

 inevitably follow. In the hands of the patriotic and 



