“NO NATURAL RIGHTS OF SUFFRAGE.”
It is beginning to be boldly advocated by men of influence in American affairs, that there is in this country no natural right of suffrage,—that no such right is asserted by the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution. This is said in the North to justify imperialism, and in the South to justify the disfranchisement of the negro. It means, when carried into effect, class rule, which is but one form of despotism. Its meaning can not be limited to the negro or the inhabitant of Porto Rico, Hawaii, or the Philippines; for if it is admitted that a person has no right to vote or hold office because he is a negro, or a semi-civilized native of new American territory, by the same principle it can be asserted and justified that no objectionable person of whatever race or color has any right of suffrage; that is, that no people for whom other people in the majority or in power have a very strong dislike, or consider beneath themselves, have any right to participation in the government. There are classes of white people who have quite as strong an aversion for each other as the white people of the South have for the negroes. Many of the poor hate the rich, and would put negroes in public office sooner than vote for the men who stand at the head of the combinations of wealth; and many of the latter, on the other hand, look upon the mass of the poor as being no more than so much cattle, and no more qualified to participate in government than are the negroes in the estimation of the Southern whites. When, therefore, a person is disfranchised because he is an inferior socially or physiologically, or is looked down upon, or violently disliked by his neighbors, every essential feature of republican government is set aside, and the right of suffrage is asserted only for those who have the power to enforce it. This can result only in the establishment of class rule, which is as essentially a despotism as is the rule of the autocrat of the Russias. Any negro, or Malay, or Hawaiian, who is able to govern himself—to control his own conduct so as to show respect for the rights of his neighbors—is qualified to participate in the Government of the United States; and any white man who can not govern himself—who oversteps the rights of his neighbors because he does not respect them—is not qualified to participate in that government, no matter what his wealth, or influence, or station in society. It is startling to see these fundamental principles of free government denied as they now are both in word and deed in this country. Such signs portend a revolution in government from republicanism to a monarchy, as surely as tho accompanied by the clash of armies on the field of battle.—American Sentinel.