[February 23a Monday] be benefited by our adopting them. deny ourselves air because negroes benefited by the breathing of it? CLARKE, of H. Shall we Now, sir, look at the resolution I offered, and what is it? Have I offered a resolution that negroes shall have the right of suffrage? Not at all. I do not ask any special legislation for them. I do not want them regarded in legislation as a distinct class. I do not ask for any special provision in our Constitution in their behalf, nor in behalf of Indians, any more than in behalf of Irishmen, or Germans, or Hungarians, or Frenchmen. I merely say here, let us trust ourselves to the principles upon which our free government is based. Sir, it is unsafe for us to trust to any principle short of those, or to curtail those principles, or to make exceptions to them; but we must trust to them in their length and in their breadth, in their height and in their depth, no matter how broad they are. Let all God's creation stand upon them, and still leave room for future creation. I ask for the principle, and that is all that I ask; and therefore I would allow the people to make their constitution a declaration of the rights of universal humanity, so that every one who may settle in this State should come beneath the aegis of that Constitution, and be politically free and equal. No one has heard me claim anything for the negro especially. No one has heard me eulogise him, and say that he is equal to the white No one has heard me undertake to prove by history or by argument that he is capable of self-government, and all that sort of thing. I do not for an instant acknowledge that those questions properly come in here. What we have to dispose of is merely a question of principle. Is it right, or is not right? If it is right let us not be afraid of its adoption. If it is not right I would ask gentlemen, for God's sake, to show by argument that it is wrong. man. That all elections ought to be free, and that all men having sufficient evidence of permanent common interest with, and attachment to, the community, have the right of suffrage, and cannot be taxed or deprived of their property for public uses, without their own consent, or that of their representatives so elected, nor bound by any law to which they have not, in like manner, assented, for the public good." "15. sing of liberty, can be preserved to any people, That no free government, or the blesbut by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue, and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.” Now, Mr. Chairman, having defined my own position in regard to this matter, having declared that I stand here, not as the champion of any race, but battling for a principle, and that I am not obnoxious to the charge of the gentleman from Johnson, [Mr. Clarke,] of an attempt to lug a "nigger question" into this body, I will come to the examination of the real question, which is before this convention. It is, sir, merely a proposition that the people of this State, at the same time that they vote upon the constitution, shall have the privilege of voting whether the word "white" shall be stricken from that constitution, so that it shall be purely declaratory of universal rights and privileges. The minority of the committee, which reported this resolution, have thrown in a report wherein they submit the wonderful danger, and woful disasters resulting to the State, provided the people, in their madness, should vote to strike out that magic word from the constitution! I look upon the arguments used by the gentleman in that report, as only answerable by ridicule. They are certainly unworthy of anything that would approach to a deliberate and serious argument in refutation. They speak of the colored races coming in here and acquiring a supremacy in our government! Of their taking possession of the ballot box, and voting down the white population! And they dwell with shivering horror upon the other evils that are to follow,the assassinations, rapes, and midnight murders, and the dreadful amalgamation of races, until in some distant future, how distant they have not said, the whole State of Iowa shall be Africanised, and the glorious Saxon race will have become extinct ! ! In this connection, I will say that I can but admire the bold and manly spirit of the framers of the Constitution of Virginia, when they came forward in their Bill of Rights, and proclaimed to the world the settled principle upon which their government was based. And when, from the nature of their circumstances, with that institution of slavery in their midst, which had come down to them from their fathers without their own action, it became necessary to make an exception in their Constitution, they go on and make that exception, without going through the hypocrisy of having it connected with their Bill of rights! Take the Bill of Rights of Virginia and read it, and you will find that they declared broad principles, without stopping to stanmer and blush over distinctions and exceptions. It is only when having their slaves in their midst they were compelled to come down to this distinction, or abolish the peculiar institution, that they do it; and then they do it boldly in the face and eyes of the Bill of Rights. Thus proclaiming to the world that it is only the necessity, the absolute necessity, of their condition, which forces them to make this exception. Let me read to gentlemen who are so I do not know what proportion the colored population now bears to the white population, but I believe that in the free States there are not more than one to a thousand! The gentlemen have not told us where these colored voters are to come from! Have they in their imagination conjured up any corner of this country whence this dreadful influx of Africans is to be poured upon us? There are a certain number now in the free States. Would the passage of this provision, and the striking out of the word "white" from the constitution, make that number any Monday] 熟 groggery, and deposits his ballot in the same box with them; if the man who comes reeking from the stews of the brothel, all leprous with pollution, and stands beside them, cheek-by same candidate, and working in the same ranks I would ask the gentlemen if they consider those men as their "equals?" Because we allow to every white man the elective franchise, can the gentlemen say to us that we are making them all equals? Is it not then unfair, is it not contemptible, for gentlemen to get up here and charge that we want to make "negroes the equals of white men." It is not in the argument; it is foreign to it. If God has made them equal, they are equal; but human constitutions and human laws can never make men equal. Politically equal we all are. But morally equal, socially equal, intellectually equal? No, sir; no man ever attempted, or ever would attempt, by legislation, or by any section of any constitution, to say that they are equal! geater, or even induce the pouring of the whole colored population upon our borders? Do the gentlemen really believe that it would have that effect. And even if it should, do they honestly believe that the train of evils they pre-jowl, on the day of election, hurrahing for the dict would follow? Do the gentlemen seriously come before such a body as this, and tell us that they really have fears that the whole body of negroes in the north will be precipitated upon our State by the mere striking out of the word "white" in our constitution? Why, sir, go to Massachusetts; search its constitution; do you find the word tnere? Do you find it in New Hampshire? Do you find it in Vermont? Do you find it in Rhode Island? Do you find it in New York? It cannot be possible then that this reason is urged here in seriousness! No, sir, it is merely thrown in as a sort of makeweight, to help them out in their silly drivelings of prejudice, through which they hope to array the public feeling against the majority of the members upon this floor. It is intended not for calm reasoning upon the question at issue, but for political effect; for effect upon the masses of the people, who they foolishly imagine may be caught by such ridiculously palpable clap-traps, and brought to sustain them in that modern democracy, which will soon deny all right, that is not enforced by might, and all wrong that is the offspring of power. Why, sir, if gentlemen are in earnest in regard to this; if they are afraid, as they say, to "encourage negroes to come here," by having the constitution based upon correct principles; why dont they go a little further? Why not advocate action which shall not encourage, but actually discourage them? They would effect much more, if they would even incorporate into the constitution an article requiring all men to wear their hair and beards unshaven. This, sir, would be doing something noble, in comparison to their present course. It would at least have the credit of being courageous; it might in fact be considered as bearding the lion in his den! It would be saying to colored barbers, hands off, we cannot countenance your coming into the State. I am, therefore, not called upon at all to answer any argument that may be brought up here not our equals. Sir, I almost feel a loathing, in to show, even if they can show, that negroes are my whole nature, at such kind of talk, and such kind of bickering, for it cannot aspire to the dignity of argument. Sir, I am in favor of good democratic principles. I am so much of a democrat, that I am willing to trust them, carried out to their full extent. Ever since the organization of this government there have been men who have been distrustful of the workings of true democracy. They have attempted to throw over the people checks and restraints of various kinds. They have attempted to restrain the liberty of speech and the liberty of the press. They have been self-appointed Cæsars. They have passed their alien and sedition laws, and have ever been jealous of the intelligence and correct action of the people. As for me, sir, every year of my life but renders the conviction more and more strong, that the less you restrain the people the better; that the "greatest liberty of the greatest number" is the true principle to act upon in this I have that confidence in the ingovernment. you telligence and correct action of the people, that I believe that in all these things wherein they can act with fidelity and expedition, they should be trusted to act. It is only when they can thereby act with greater facility and more correctness, that their powers should be exercised and carried out by representatives. Again, sir, the question is asked, "would put the blacks here upon an equality with the whites ?" "I am opposed," gentlemen say, "to making them equal with the whites." I think such gentlemen must certainly be very jealous in regard to their position in the community. They must be very sensitive in regard to the tenure of their rights and privileges; in regard to their standing, morally, intellectually, socially, if they suppose that by the mere removal of a political restriction, colored men are to be put upon a complete equality with them! Are the gentlemen in earnest in this argument? Do they really intend to have it understood that they have plainly presented their opinions in the minority report, as regards the effect of the adoption of such a provision upon their standing in this community? I would ask the gentle men if the man who comes staggering from the The principles that I have advocated this day, will hereafter triumph in this State. Gentlemen may mock at me; they may scoff at me; they may write me all over with epithets; but I tell you, sir, as there is a God in Heaven, the principles I this day advocate, shall yet triumph in Iowa. I tell you that the day is coming when the people of this State shall not be afraid to carry out to the letter, the true intent and spirit of every iota of the true democratic creed. The people are able to take care of themselves. They need no self-constituted guardians to tell them who shall vote, nor when, nor how, nor for whom. These are mere hallucinations that gentlemen indulge in, when they suppose that by trusting the people to act upon the democratic principle of "universal suffrage," the principle laid down in the sixth section of the Virginia bill of rights, they will be induced to run into anarchy, and that all order and good government will perish. That has been the cry from the commencement of the government, and always, from those who, conceited in their own wisdom, think themselves superior to the great body of the people; and wish, therefore, to prescribe for them the rules under which they shall act. Mr. Chairman, you and I, both of us, know that we may trust this matter with the people. We know it, not only because we know that the principle is true and correct, but we know it from the past. We know it from the experience of other States who have tried it, and who have yet undergone none of the direful changes and suffered none of the evils that have been so feelingly portrayed by the lachrymose gentleman from Des Moines, [Mr. Hall,] who seems on this subject to be suffering a political hypocondria. Let me ask you, sir, does not the fact that Connecticut, the only New England State having this word "white" in her constitution, will be found to have a greater population of negroes within her borders, I believe, than any other State in New England-does not that fact show that the fear which the gentlemen pretend to indulge that the striking out of this word will bring them into our State in large numbers, is groundless? If such were the case, I ask you if all the negroes in Pennsylvania, in Ohio, in Illinois, in Indiana, and in all these other States which have this restriction, would not have emigrated long since to the New England States, ind have filled up New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Vermont and Rhode Island? But, sir, the question is not whether we shall trike this word out of the constitution. It is nerely whether the people shall be permitted to ote upon the question of striking it out. The eople of the district which I represent will of them never vote for a constitution that makes many uch a distinction, unless at the same time they an vote to wipe it out; and sir, I myself am of hat number. I know there are many such in ther parts of the State. Gentlemen may call hem fanatics. They may call them by any ther name which to them seems suitable and I good taste. But sir, the vote of one of these en, thank God, will weigh just as much, and of just as much importance, as the vote of the entleman who thus arraigns them; and their ghts are as much to be considered by us in the aming of this constitution. If we can, constently with duty and principle, we should ake a constitution which they can endorse and ɔte for. By thus submitting to them a sepate proposition upon this question, we allow em indirectly to vote for a constitution that is ited to their consciences. This has been done 85 [February 23d before. It has been done in Michigan; it has we expect to carry a majority in the State? offered it. No, sir: it was for that very reason that I first me to strike out the word "white" from the ConI have said if the power were given stitution, without submitting the question to the people, I would not do it! By so doing, I believe most sincerely, that I should risk, nay, sacrifice, the whole of our labors, and put the people to a needless expense; for I believe that a majority of the people would vote against the Constitution. lieve that if the people were correctly educated While I believe this, I still bein this matter; if they would throw aside this childish timidity, this worse than foolish prejudice, that leads them to imagine innumerable evils that might fall upon them; they would for just such a constitution as, under which, I, too, would rejoice to live-a constitution free from all invidious personal distinctions, and based upon universal suffrage. go I trust, Mr. Chairman, that gentlemen here are willing to act in this matter for the people, and not to carry out their own whims. I trust that they will not forget, in their action, that there is a large class of people who would like to vote upon this as a separate proposition. I trust that gentlemen will be candid and honorable enough in this matter, to separate from this question those extraneous questions that have been dividing the political parties of the country, and Monday] CLARKE, of H. [February 23d I here acknowledge this courtesy, and I say to them, they will find wherever I have the opportunity, that I will deal with them in the same spirit of liberality. I was astonished at some remarks that were made this morning by a gentleman, who characterized the discussions that have taken place in this body, upon these questions, as "lugging in the nigger' question to consume the time of the convention !" come right up to the single question that is pre- far as the gentlemen in the opposition are consented by this resolution, without distinction of cerned, with one or two exceptions, they have party. There is no reason why gentlemen should treated me with much more courtesy, and libcome in here and indulge in the course of re- erality, than some gentlemen who profess to ocmark in which they have indulged upon a form-cupy the same position in politics with myself! er occasion in this body. There is no reason for their coming in and accusing me or any other member of having the negro alone in view in this matter. Cannot they go beyond that? Cannot they conceive of men so thoroughly imbued with love of the principles upon which the very government of their country is based, that they are controlled by those principles, and are unwilling any where to admit that they are governed in their actions by their feelings alone? Need I say to gentlemen that I myself acknowledge to the weakness-though I trust not criminal weakness-of all those antipathies and prejudices that seem to be incident to our people and our race? I acknowledge, with something akin to shame, so far as I am concerned, to a great repugnance against that injured and degraded race-the African. I was astonished to hear gentlemen get up and ask leave to have certain proceedings suppressed, for fear they might cause the people to believe that we had been consuming the time of this convention in the discussion of an abstract question, which they called the "nigger question!" If those expressions had come from the lips of some gentlemen from the other side, who have been vainly trying to heap odium and contempt upon us for the positions we have taken here upon these questions, I should not have been so much surprised. But the gentleman who made use of that expression, made one of the longest speeches that has been delivered here during the session in defence of one of those very amendments that were offered here by me, and under which this "nigger" question, as he termed it, came up for consideration. Those gen But, sir, perhaps it arises from education, and is induced by that very degradation; in spite of all these, and in spite of that feeling which leads me to cry out at times, "would to God I had the power to transport every one of African descent back to the continent from which the race originated;" while I feel in my heart a sorrow that they do exist in our midst, and while I cannot look forward to the future at times without as great anxiety, fear and troubled forebodings as This is not a negro discussion. any gentleman of the opposite side in regard to the possible conflicts that may arise between the tlemen who have teen opposed to these princitwo races—yet, sir, in spite of all these things, ples, have attempted to make it so. They have I throw aside my own feelings and prejudices, used the expression "nigger," and attempted to and say, let us unite together and do right, what- make the question, and those connected with it, ever the consequences-"let justice prevail odious to the people, by the association. From though the heavens fall"! Now, when gentle- the beginning, I have occupied the same pomen come to me and are so unkind and ungen-sition. I took this position in regard to the aderous as to say that I am doing this for "the love mission of the testimony of all classes and sects of the negro," I tell them that what I do here in of men. this matter I do from a conscientious love of the principles in which I have been nurtured, and under which I have lived all the days of my life. If I am very earnest in this matter it is because of my exceeding earnestness of nature, and my warm attachment to these principles. I denied that I had in view any particular class. I meant to declare a principle that should restrain any future legislature from not only interfering with my right, but the right of others, to take the testimony of any class of men. I made the principle just as broad and general as I could; and the gentleman from Des Maines [Mr. Hall,] even made the objection that I say, again, I care not who are benefitted by the amendment I offered was so broad, that it the adoption of this provision; and I care not included everybody! I meant to include everyhow many, if it be all God's creation, so much body; I did not, therefore, admit that I meant the better. I go for principles that will reach negroes or Indians. I was willing to leave it to all, and those are the only principles that are the twelve men, who should sit in a jury box, to worth anything. When you come short of pass upon the credibility of any witness that these, you are taking a step away from Democ- might come before them, no matter who he was. racy towards aristocracy, towards monarchy. I wished to take forever from the legislature the Yea, you are retiring by gradual steps from the power of saying, that any particular class of Democracy of America to the despotism of Rus- men should not be allowed to give testimony, sia, and this interpolation of the word "white" or that I should not be allowed to have the tesinto our constitution, is one step in the depar- timony of any man merely because he belonged ture. All I ask, therefore, is that the convention to a particular class of individuals. My position will submit this proposition of striking out the in regard to the question now before us, has word "white" from the constitution, as a sepa-been the same. I came here to present no facrate question for the people to vote upon. tious propositions for the purpose of creating I ask Allow me to say, before I conclude, that so agitation, excitement and discussion. gentlemen, if I ever asked this body, knowing how it was constituted, to strike out the word "white" from this or that article. True I opposed the proposition, when it was offered by one gentleman here, to strike it out of the article on militia, and I gave, as my reasons for it, that we were calling upon the colored men to perform duties, where we refused to protect them in their rights. I now come before this body in the hope that they will allow this question to go to the people without a discussion upon the merits of striking out the word "white," or without following it out to its results, to see who will be affected by it. It is most amusing when we look back and It is most amusing when we look back and observe the workings of some of the State constitutions that have been adopted in this narrow spirit of distrust and prejudice. Some of them have been so jealous of negroes, and negro blood, wherever they could find it circulating with Saxon mixture in any human being, that they have provided in their constitutions, that no negro or mulatto should be allowed to vote. While at the same time you will find it—and this is the case in the constitutions of Michigan and Wisconsin-that Indians, and persons of Indian descent, and Indian blood, shall be allowed to vote, if only residents of the State. How does it operate? After their constitutions went into operation, they found a large class of persons who had negro blood, but none of Indian descent, and could, therefore, go to the ballot box and deposit their ballots. While a person who had nine-tenths Saxon blood in his veins, and only one-tenth negro, was not allowed to vote at all! 1 have lived, myself, sir, under almost such a constitution as I would have this; and so has the gentleman from Des Moines, [Mr. Hall.] I have some recollection of the time when the [February 23d ty dollars, he should be allowed to vote. That is all the restriction they have in New York. I have lived in one of its cities where there was a large number of this class who voted under the property qualification. They had a church organization by themselves; met together in other organizations, and had their discussions upon political and other subjects, and went to the ballot boxes and deposited their ballots; and when the same as those of white folks, and I precounted out they looked and counted just sume the gentleman from Des Moines could not five or six years before I left New York, their votes were deposited sometimes for the third Whig party. Lest some here should be anxious party candidate, but most generally for the old in regard to their manner of voting, I would say that they would go quietly to the polls and hand their ballots to a white man who would deposit them in the same ballot box with white men's ballots! I never heard that this vote had, in any manner, worked disastrous results in that State, and I never saw an article in a paper demonstrating that the vote of the colored race had effected any great political change or revolution in the State! Strange as it may seem, New York has continued to prosper, notwithstanding this vote given by colored persons; and I believe, as yet, she evinces no visible signs of decay! The people of that State have found and demonstrated that they are fully able to take care of themselves under this provision, and their government still moves on, notwithstanding they have refused to exclude the colored race entirely from the privileges of the ballot box! And the gentleman from Des Moines once voted with "niggers" in New York; and he, too, survives to bless us with his experience, his wisdom and his philanthropy. even have smelled a difference. For the last tion : old world. I tell you, that of themselves. I believe that all the evils which Sir, I am opposed to this spirit, so very often struggle upon this question was going on in that manifested by legislators-this jealousy of the Empire State, and I was intimately acquainted people-this being afraid of "the mob," to use with the gentleman who made the first move in a term that has been often used in this connecthe Assembly, to get rid of the last fragmentary monster!" has been the cry for centuries in the "The mob! the mob! the many-headed end of slavery that was left in that commonwealth. For a great many years he was covered old federal times, and it is the cry which some It was the cry that was raised in all over with as many epithets as gentleman can possibly bestow upon "the gentleman from Hen- gentlemen, who profess to be simon pure Demory." He was looked upon as the great cham-crats, now raise in our midst. pion of the negro. But, finally, the proposition the people, if left to themselves, can take care which he presented to the Assembly was carried through, and slavery was done away with forev- gentlemen have depicted here as likely to flow er in that State. Some gentlemen, who, at the from the adoption of the provision here recomtime, perhaps, owned some of these slaves, were mended, are merely imaginary, and that if you afraid that when they were set free they would can once get the people up to the point where become worthless vagabonds, and that it would they are willing to really trust to those princibe necessary to make special laws in regard to ples that underlay the very foundation of our them, as in England they did in regard to the government, they would make a great step forI hope that Gipseys. They finally came to the sage conclu- ward in the path of true progress. sion that, if a negro showed ability and enter- this subject will be fully considered in Commitprise enough to acquire property, it was pretty action here as will show the final disposition of tee of the Whole, and that we may take such good evidence of his respectability and attach-action here as will show the final disposition of ment to the community; and, therefore, they incorporated into their constitution a provision To you, Mr. Chairman, [Mr. Gillaspy,] a pothat, if a negro was worth two hundred and fif- |litical opponent, so widely differing from me this whole matter. |