self. Everything marches, and parties must march.

industry, to full citizenship, with all its honors and duties.

that forty years in the wilderness who travel Civilization is a growth. None can escape from the Egypt of ignorance to the promised land of civilization. The freedmen must take their march. I have full faith in the results. If they have the stamina to undergo the hardships which every uncivilized people has undergone in their upward progress, they will in due time take their place among us. That place can not be bought, nor bequeathed, nor gained by sleight of hand. It will come to sobriety, virtue, industry and frugality. As the nation can not be sound until the South is prosperous, so, on the other extreme, a healthy condition of civil society in the South is indispensable to the welfare of the freedmen!

I hear, with wonder and shame and scorn, the fear of a few, that the South once more, in adjustment with the Federal Government, will rule this nation! The North is rich, never so rich; the South is poor, never so poor. The population of the North is nearly double that of the South. The industry of the North, in diversity, in forwardness and productiveness, in all the machinery and education required for manufacturing, is half a century in advance of the South. Churches in the North crown every hill, and schools swarm in every neighborhood; while the South has but scattered lights, at long distances, like lighthouses twinkling along the edge of a continent of darkness. In the presence of such a contrast, how mean and craven is the fear that the South Refusing to admit loyal Senators and will rule the policy of the land! That it Representatives from the South to Congress will have an influence, that it will contribute, will not help the Freedmen. It will not in time, most important influences or re- secure for them the vote. It will not prostraints, we are glad to believe. But, if it tect them. It will not secure any amendrises at once to the control of the Government of our Constitution, however just and ment, it will be because the North, demoral- wise. It will only increase the dangers and Whether we ized by prosperity, and besotted by grovel- complicate the difficulties. ing interests, refuses to discharge its share regard the whole nation, or any section of of political duty. In such a case, the South it, or class in it, the first demand of our not only will control the Government, but time is, entire reunion. it ought to do it!

pop

Once united, we can, by schools, churches, a free press and increasing free speech, attack each evil and secure every good.

Meanwhile the great chasm which rebellion made is not filled up. It grows deeper and stretches wider? Out of it rise dread specters and threatening sounds. Let that gulf be closed, and bury in it slavery, sectional animosity, and all strifes and hatreds.

It is fit that the brave men, who, on sea and land, faced death to save the nation, should now, by their voice and vote, consummate what their swords rendered possible.

2. It is feared with more reason that the restoration of the South to her full independence, will be detrimental to the freedmen. The sooner we dismiss from our minds the idea that the freedmen can be classified and separated from the white ulation, and nursed and defended by themselves, the better it will be for them and us. The negro is part and parcel of Southern society. He can not be prosperous while it is unprospered. Its evils will rebound upon him. Its happiness and reinvigoration can not be kept from his participation. The restoration of the South to amicable relations with the North, the reorganization of its industry, the reinspiration of its enterprise and thrift will all redound to the freedmen's benefit. Nothing is so dangerous to the freedmen as an unsettled state of society in the South. On him comes all the spite, and anger, and caprice, and revenge. He will be made the scapegoat of lawless and heartless men. Unless we turn the Gov- The Democratic Platform of 1864. ernment into a vast military machine, there The Democratic National Convencan not be armies enough to protect the tion which assembled in Chicago on freedmen while Southern society remains in

For the sake of the freedmen, for the sake of the South and its millions of our fellow-countrymen, for our own sake, and for the great cause of freedom and civilization, I urge the immediate reunion of all the parts which rebellion and war have shatI am, truly, yours, HENRY WARD BEECHER.

tered.

surrectionary. If Southern society is calmed, the 30th of August, 1864, nominated settled, and occupied and soothed with new George B. McClellan and George H. hopes and prosperous industries, no armies Pendleton for the Presidency and will be needed. Riots will subside, lawless Vice-Presidency, and adopted the folhangers on will be driven off or better governed, and a way will be gradually opened lowing platform, as reported by Mr. up to the freedmen, through education and Guthrie, Chairman of the Committee:

Union unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them.

If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object is to save the Union and not either to save or destroy slavery.

If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it-and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it-and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do

that.

What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save

the Union, and what I forbear, I forbear

because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.

I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and shall do more whenever I believe doing more will help the cause.

I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors, and I shall adopt new views so fast as they appear to be true views.

I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty, and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free. Yours,

Negro Suffrage.

A. LINCOLN.

IF THESE IMPERTINENT Fanatics and Abolitionists ever get the power in their own hands, they will override the Constitution, set the Supreme Court at defiance, change and make laws to suit themselves, lay violent hands on those who differ with them in opinion or dare question their fidelity; and finally, bankrupt the country and deluge it in blood.

On September 2, 1843, twenty-five years ago, Henry Clay said:

States will first destroy all harmony, and The agitation of the question in the free finally lead to disunion-perpetuate the war-the extinction of the African raceultimate military despotism.

De

But the great aim and object of your tract should be to arouse the laboring classes of the free States against_abolition. pict the consequences to them of immediate emancipation. The slaves being free, would be dispersed throughout the Union; they would enter into competition with free labor; with the American, the Irish, the German; reduce his wages, be confounded with him, and affect his moral and social standing. And as the ultras go both for abolition and amalgamation, show that their object is to unite in marriage the laboring white man and the laboring black woman, to reduce the white laboring man to the despised and degraded condition of the black man.

I would show their opposition to Colonization. Show its humane, religious and patriotic aim. That they are to separate those whom God had separated. Why do the Abolitionists oppose Colonization? To keep and amalgamate together the two races, in violation of God's will, and to keep the blacks here, that they may interfere with, Show that the British Government is codegrade and debase the laboring whites. operating with the Abolitionists, for the purpose of dissolving the Union, etc. You can make a powerful article that will be felt in every extremity of the Union. perfectly satisfied it will do great good. Let me hear from you on this subject.

I am

Hear President Lincoln in reply: I AM NOT, NOR EVER HAVE BEEN, IN FAVOR OF MAKING VOTERS OR JURORS OF NEGROES, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor intermarrying them with white people, and I will say, in addition to this, that there is a PHYSICAL DIFFERENCE between the white and black race, which, I believe, will forever forbid Mr. Jefferson, the very man who the two races living together on terms of so- is the author of the Declaration of cial and political equality-and, inasmuch as Independence, when speaking upon they can not so live, while they do remain the subject of races, said: together, there must be a position of superior and inferior, and I, as much as any other man, am in favor of having the SUPERIOR POSITION ASSIGNED TO THE WHITE RACE.

Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people (the negroes) are to be free. Nor is it less cer tain that the two races-equally free-can not live in the same Government. Nature,

Two years before the death of Dan-habit, opinion, have drawn indelible lines iel Webster he said:

of distinction between thern.

Radical Views on Negro Suffrage.

Governor Morton, of Indiana, now U. S. Senator, in his annual message to the Legislature, Nov. 14th, 1865, speaking of Southern reconstruction, said:

people, and they voted it down by forty thousand majority. Now, I would like to of Ohio who would come here and have the see the member of Congress from the State boldness to vote for the passage of this bill, which cuts directly, in my judgment, across the Constitution of the United States, and really derides the action of the people of my State, who have refused to insert in their own Constitution of State government this general right of suffrage for the blacks as well as the whites.

The subject of suffrage is, by the national Constitution, expressly referred to the determination of the several States, and it can not be taken from them without a violation of the letter and spirit of that instrument. Sir, I believe the day may come when But without stopping to discuss theories our Constitution, the great bulwark of our or questions of Constitutional law, and leav-liberties, shall be so amended as that all ing them out of view, it would, in my opinion, be unwise to make the work of reconstruction depend upon a condition of such doubtful utility as negro suffrage.

free people may vote at the polls. God hasten the day when that right shall be extended! But so long as the Constitution remains as it is, I will suffer my right arm to drop from its socket sooner than vote for any such bill as that now before the House. In saying this, I am bold to affirm that I speak the sentiment of a large majority of my colleagues on this floor, irrespective of party. I should regard the passage of this bill at this hour as the death-knell of our hopes as a political party in the Presidential

canvass.

In the course of the debate it came

It is a fact so manifest, that it should not be called in question by any, that a people who are just emerging from the barbarism of slavery, are not qualified to become a part of our political system, and take part, not only in the government of themselves and their neighbors, but of the whole United States. So far from believing that negro suffrage is a remedy for all of our national ills, I doubt whether it is a remedy for any, and rather believe that its enforcement by out that the Supreme Court of PennsylCongress would be more likely to subject the negro to a merciless persecution, than to vania had decided, under the old Conconfer upon him any substantial benefit. stitution of that State, framed in the By some it is thought that suffrage is al year 1790, that the word "freeman " ready cheap enough in this country; and the meant white freeman, and that, in the immediate transfer of more than a half present Constitution (framed about million of men from the bonds of slavery, thirty years ago), the word "white" had with all the ignorance and degradation up-been expressly introduced. Moreover, on them which the slavery of generations it appears that, only a few days ago, in upon Southern fields has produced, would

be a declaration to the world that the exer- the lower House of the Pennsylvania cise of American suffrage involves no intel- Legislature-a body in which the Relectual or moral qualifications, and that there is no difference between an American freeman and an American slave, which may not be removed by a mere act of Congress. Mr. Spalding, a Radical Representative from Ohio, in the course of a debate in the House, on the 18th of March, 1868, on a bill making universal suffrage obligatory on the States said:

publicans have a large majority-out of ninety members, only thirteen voted in favor of negro suffrage. It appeared, moreover, that, by a recent decision of Judge Agnew-a man placed on the bench of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania by the Republican party-it had been determined that a negro had no right to a seat in a railway car proI wish to remark that only last October I vided for the accommodation of white was called upon, as a citizen of Ohio, to people. In short, it appeared that the vote on the proposition to amend the Con- Pennsylvania Radicals, in advocating the stitution of that State by inserting a right doctrine of universal suffrage and unifor the free black to vote, equally with the versal social equality, did so with referwhite. I not only voted cheerfully for that ence to the Southern States, and not with. provision as amendatory of my State Con-reference to Pennsylvania, as does the stitution, but I used all my influence with the citizens in my section of the State to in- Radical Platform adopted at Chicago.

duce them to engraft that provision on our State Constitution. It was unsuccessful. We were in advance of the sentiment of our

James Hughes, of Indiana, says the Cincinnati Enquirer, is one of the ablest and

most prominent of the Radical leaders in that State. He is a bold and positive man, of very decided views upon public questions. He is the intimate friend of Morton, and of other Republican leaders, and is thoroughly acquainted with their secret views and with the objects at which they ultimately aim. As a member of the Indiana Legislature from Monroe county he lately gave an account of his stewardship, at Bloomington. The Indianapolis Herald had a special reporter there, who thus reports the leading portion of his speech:

The

the sole and exclusive right of regulating Reserving to the people of this colony the internal government and police of the same."

And, in a subsequent instruction, in reference to suppressing the British authority in the colonies, Pennsylvania uses this language:

concur in a vote of the Congress declaring Unanimously declare our willingness to the United Colonies free and independent States, provided the forming the government and the regulation of the internal police of this colony be alway reserved to the people of the said colony."

to vote for the Declaration of IndependConnecticut, in authorizing her delegates ence, attached to it the following condition:

New Hampshire annexed this proviso to her instructions to her delegates to vote for independence:

"Provided the regulation of our internal police be under the direction of our own Assembly:

New Jersey imposed the following condi

"I am opposed to negro suffrage, not because they are negroes, or are black, for those are matters of taste and prejudice, but because the right of suffrage has already been too much extended and cheapened in this country. While I am opposed to extending the right of suffrage to the negroes, I am in favor of disfranchising one-half the white people in this country. Our fathers committed a great and fatal mistake in extending as they did the right of suffrage. All history proves that there is but one interest that is conservative, and ernment, and the power of forming governSaving that the administration of gov that can be safely intrusted with the governments for, and the regulation of the internal ing power, and that is the property interest. concerns and police of each colony, ought When a man is possessed of property he to be left and remain to the respective colohas a stake in the country and desires a nial legislatures." strong and stable government, and will not endanger his property by unwise legislation | or by involving the country in war. great defect in our form of government has been the want of strength and power in the Federal Government. It will be impossible to govern this vast and rapidly increasing country under the operation of universal suffrage. Our system of government has been materially and radically changed during the war, and it can never be restored to what it was prior to the war. The Constitution is not worth the paper upon which it is written. The first effect of universal suf-ration of Independence upon the condition Maryland gave her consent to the Declafrage will be to make the Government more contained in this proviso: nearly approach a pure democracy, but this can not last long. We will follow the example of other governments. The strife of factions will go on until, ultimately, either the Senate or the President will assume the control, when we will have a strong and stable government. The British Government is the best government that has ever existed on the face of God's earth, and the sooner ours assimilates itself to that of the British Government, the better it will be for the country. I do not hesitate to declare, no matter how unpopular it may be, that if the negro race, and one-half of the white race, had good masters and mistresses, they would be much better off and the Government would be safer and stronger."

tion:

of confederacy you enter into, the regulating "Always observing that, whatever plan the internal police of this province is to be reserved to the colonial legislature."

"And that said colony will hold itself bound by the resolutions of a majority of the United Colonies in the premises, provided the sole and exclusive right of regulating the internal government and police of that colony be reserved to the people thereof."

Virginia annexed the following condition to her instructions to vote for the Declaration of Independence:

Provided that the power of forming internal concerns of the colony, be left to government for, and the regulations of the respective colonial legislatures.'

Debate in the Convention which Framed the Constitution.

John Dickinson, adverted in the Convention, with prophetic and far-seeing sagacity,