OCR Text |
Show WAS IT A MISTAKE? The Chicago Jlerald says the enfranchisement enfran-chisement of the blacks was a mistake. It is not the first time this remark has j been made, but the Herald makes it in discussing the Chinese question. - That many evils grew out of the enfranchisement en-franchisement of the negroes is true. It could not have been otherwise; but to emancipate them and refuse to them the rights of citizenship, would .have given rise to as many or more evils than their complete enfranchisement accompanied with all the rights of the white citizen, did. Where ignorance is given great j power, there is always danger of such power being misused. The danger nf ignorance under tutelage is equally as great. Many say it was a great mistake to enfranchise the negroes ; but have any two ever agreed as to what the conditions should.be that would fit the negro for the exercise of the elective franchise ? Had it not been bestowed at the time it was, would it have been bestowed to-day, and would the negro be as far advanced materially ma-terially and intellectually as he is to-day? If the negro had been held in political bondage, is it not probable that he never would have made sufficient advance to entitle him to the privilege of the elective franchise, unless he had accepted the political po-litical faith of tiie one or the other political party? In America, all our prejudices and instincts in-stincts are against any restraint npon the elective franchise, while the English idea of a property qualification has always been repugnant to American ideas. England Eng-land fast coining to universal enfranchisement, enfran-chisement, while in America we have it already. If events could be foreseen as well as they are seen long years after they occur, how different tilings would j be. In that case the war itself might I have been avoided. But the enfran- j chisement of the negroes was a Gordian j knot, and would have remained so. Such ' being the case, there was but one method j of treating it, and it was best that it was j applied as soon as the knot was discov- i ered. i |