History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States

by William Horatio Barnes

"My purpose is not to leave that heritage of shame to my children, that I forgot those whose blood fed our rivers and crimsoned the sea, and left them outcasts in the 'land of the free,' preferring white treason to sable loyalty. I rather vote death the penalty for the chief traitor, all honor and reward for our soldiery, and a ballot, safety, and justice for the poor."

On the 15th of January the discussion was continued by Mr. Kasson, of Iowa, who said: "Much has been said in this debate about the gallantry of the negro troops, and about the number of negro troops in the war. Gentlemen have declared here so broadly that we were indebted to them for our victories as to actually convey the impression that they won nearly all the victories accomplished by the armies of the United States, and that to them are we indebted for the salvation of our country and our triumph over the rebellion.

"I do not agree with them in the extent of their praise, nor the grounds upon which it has been placed. One gentleman, I think it was the gentleman from Pennsylvania, speaks of our debt to the negroes, because they have fought our battles for us. This is a falsification of the condition of the negroes, and of the history of the country in this particular. Those negroes fought for their liberty, which was involved in the preservation of the Union of the States. They fought with us to accomplish the maintenance of the integrity of the country, which carried with it the liberty of their own race; and what would have been said of the negroes if they had not, under such circumstances, come forward and united with us? While I yield to the negro troops the credit of having exhibited bravery and manhood when put to the test, I do not yield to them the exclusive or chief credit of having won the victory for the Government of my country in preserving this Union. Let us not, under false assertions of fact, send out to the country and the world from this floor the declaration that the white race of this country are wanting in the gallantry, the devotion, and the patriotism which ultimately secured for our armies triumph, and for our nation perpetuity.

"Unless intelligence exists in this country, unless schools are supported and education diffused throughout the country, our institutions are not safe, and either anarchy or despotism will be the result; and when you propose substantially to introduce at once three-quarters of a million or a million of voters, the great mass of whom are ignorant and unable to tell when the ballot they vote is right side up, then I protest against such an alarming infusion of ignorance into the ballot-box, into that sacred palladium, as we have always called it, of the liberties of our country. Let us introduce them by fit degrees. Let them come in as fast as they are fit, and their numbers will not shock the character of our institutions.

"I turn for a single moment to call attention to the philanthropy of the proposition. If you introduce all without regard to qualification, without their being able to read or write, and thus to understand the questions on which they are to decide, what would be the effect? You will take away from them the strongest incentive to learn to read or write. As a race, it is not accustomed to position and property; it has no homesteads, it has no stake in the country; and unless they are required to be intelligent, and qualified to understand something about our institutions and our laws, and the questions which are submitted to the people from time to time, you say then to them, 'No matter whether or not you make progress in civilization or education, you shall have all the rights of citizenship,' and in that way you take away from them all special motive to education and improvement. On the contrary, if the ability to read and write and understand the ballot is made the qualification on the part of these people to exercise the right of voting, the remaining portion will see that color is not exclusion. They would all aspire to the qualification itself as preliminary to the act. You can submit no motive to that race so powerful for the purpose of developing in them the education and intelligence required.

"I say, therefore, on whatever grounds you put it, whether you regard the safety of our institutions or the light of philanthropy, you should insist on qualifications substantially the same as those required in the State of Massachusetts. And let me say that, taking the State of Massachusetts as an example of the result of general intelligence and qualified suffrage, and a careful guardianship of the ballot-box, I know of no more illustrious example in this or any other country of its importance.

"With a credit that surpasses that of the United States, with a history that is surpassed by no State in the Union, with wealth that is almost fabulous in proportion to its population, with a prosperity almost unknown in the history of the world, that State stands before us to-day in all her dignity, strength, wealth, intelligence, and virtue. And if we, by adopting similar principles in other States, can secure such results, we certainly have an inducement to consider well how far this condition is to be attributed to her diffused education, and to the provisions of her constitution."

At the close of Mr. Kasson's speech, a colloquy occurred between him and his colleague, Mr. Price, eliciting the fact that the question of negro suffrage in Iowa had been squarely before the people of that State in the late fall election, and their vote had been in favor of the measure by a majority of sixteen thousand.

Mr. Julian, of Indiana, having obtained the floor near the hour of adjournment, made his argument on the following day, when the consideration of the question was resumed. In answer to the objection that negro voting would "lead to the amalgamation of the races or social equality," he said: "On this subject there is nothing left to conjecture, and no ground for alarm. Negro suffrage has been very extensively tried in this country, and we are able to appeal to facts. Negroes had the right to vote in all the Colonies save one, under the Articles of Confederation. They voted, I believe, generally, on the question of adopting the Constitution of the United States. They have voted ever since in New York and the New England States, save Connecticut, in which the practice was discontinued in 1818. They voted in New Jersey till the year 1840; in Virginia and Maryland till 1833; in Pennsylvania till 1838; in Delaware till 1831; and in North Carolina and Tennessee till 1836. I have never understood that in all this experience of negro suffrage the amalgamation of the races was the result. I think these evils are not at all complained of to this day in New England and New York, where negro suffrage is still practiced and recognized by law."

In answer to the argument that a "war of races" might ensue, Mr. Julian said: "Sir, a war of races in this country can only be the result of denying to the negro his rights, just as such wars have been caused elsewhere; and the late troubles in Jamaica should teach us, if any lesson can, the duty of dealing justly with our millions of freedmen. Like causes must produce like results. English law made the slaves of Jamaica free, but England failed to enact other laws making their freedom a blessing. The old spirit of domination never died in the slave-master, but was only maddened by emancipation. For thirty years no measures were adopted tending to protect or educate the freedmen. At length, and quite recently, the colonial authorities passed a whipping act, then a law of eviction for people of color, then a law imposing heavy impost duties, bearing most grievously upon them, and finally a law providing for the importation of coolies, thus taxing the freedmen for the very purpose of taking the bread out of the mouths of their own children! I believe it turns out, after all, that these outraged people even then did not rise up against the local government; but the white ruffians of the island, goaded on by their own unchecked rapacity, and availing themselves of the infernal pretext of a black insurrection, perpetrated deeds of rapine and vengeance that find no parallel anywhere, save in the acts of their natural allies, the late slave-breeding rebels, against our flag. Sir, is there no warning here against the policy of leaving our freedmen to the tender mercies of their old masters? Are the white rebels of this District any better than the Jamaica villains to whom I have referred? The late report of General Schurz gives evidence of some important facts which will doubtless apply here. The mass of the white people in the South, he says, are totally destitute of any national feeling. The same bigoted sectionalism that swayed them prior to the war is almost universal. Nor have they any feeling of the enormity of treason as a crime. To them it is not odious, as very naturally it would not be, under the policy which foregoes the punishment of traitors, and gives so many of them the chief places of power in the South. And their hatred of the negro to-day is as intense and scathing and as universal as before the war. I believe it to be even more so. The proposition to educate him and elevate his condition is every-where met with contempt and scorn. They acknowledge that slavery, as it once existed, is overthrown; but the continued inferiority and subordination of the colored race, under some form of vassalage or serfdom, is regarded by them as certain. Sir, they have no thought of any thing else; and if the ballot shall be withheld from the freedmen after the withdrawal of military power, the most revolting forms of oppression and outrage will be practiced, resulting, at last, in that very war of races which is foolishly apprehended as the effect of giving the negro his rights."