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From the outset of the war all who had taken part on the Royalist side had been disfranchised as "malignants," and this disfranchisement had been rigorously enforced even in the elections to the Convention.
The abnormal conditions that prevailed during reconstruction naturally produced hostility to all who supported Federal authority, among whom the Negro, through force of circumstances, was prominent and most vulnerable for attack, suffered the most physically, and subsequently became easy prey for those who would profit by his disfranchisement.
When the Bill got into committee, Lord Lyndhurst moved an amendment to the effect that the question of enfranchisement should precede that of disfranchisement. Now this proposal was not in itself one necessarily hostile to the principle of the Bill.
But few have pretended that the present movement for disfranchisement in the South is for such a purpose; it has been plainly and frankly declared in nearly every case that the object of the disfranchising laws is the elimination of the black man from politics. Now, is this a minor matter which has no influence on the main question of the industrial and intellectual development of the Negro?
The program of the British anti-Semites, adapted to American conditions, would involved, as a minimum, the following measures: 1. Disfranchisement of all Jews whose parents and grandparents were not all native-born American citizens.
The reasons advanced were such as could not be acquiesced in without violation of my oath of office and the precepts of the Constitution, since they necessarily involved a limitation in favor of a foreign government upon the right of selection by the Executive and required such an application of a religious test as a qualification for office under the United States as would have resulted in the practical disfranchisement of a large class of our citizens and the abandonment of a vital principle in our Government.
Nevertheless, after a third of a century of successful endeavor, educationally and materially, efforts are being made in Southern States for his disfranchisement and the curtailment of his education.
If, for example, any one convicted of minor offenses punishable by fine or imprisonment were disfranchised for a year, if of major offenses, for varying and increasing periods, from five years upwards, and if a second offense during the period of disfranchisement worked an automatic doubling of the time prescribed for a first offense, I conceive that the electorate would be measurably purified and that regard for the law would be stimulated.
No doubt, the instability of society in ancient Italy, composed as it was in great measure of robber tribes, gave men considerable inducement to locate themselves in the territory of any community strong enough to protect itself and them from external attack, even though protection should be purchased at the cost of heavy taxation, political disfranchisement, and much social humiliation.
In one instance I am persuaded that disfranchisement should be for life, and that is in the case of giving or accepting a bribe or otherwise committing a crime against the ballot; this, together with treason against the state, should be sufficient cause for eliminating the offender from all further participation in public affairs.
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