Right Of Suffrage

Petitions are in circulation in different parts of this State praying the Legislature to take the requisite action for such an amendment of the State Constitution aswill remove the political disabilities of the colored freemen of this State. The Executive Committee of the State AntiSlavery Society are desirous that the subject should be rightly apprehended by those who are to act upon it. and they therefore forward a copy of this paper to each member of the Legislature, and respectfully request their attention to the following considerations: 1. The Constitution excludes persons who are not -white" f rom voting or holding any office. Under this provisión, desceñdants of Africans, although natives of this republic, or even of this State, are excluded from all political power. 2. The right of suffrage, or, in other words, the right of having a voice in determining wlutt the laws shall be, and by whom they shall be executed is a natural riglit; existing with each man, antecedent to all constitutions. We need not argue this point with the present Legislature. We understand the principie advocated by the Democratie Party to be, that every man, of full age, unconvicted of crime, permanently a resident of the soil, and owing allegiance to no foreign power, ought to have equal political power with his fellow-citizens in making and executing the laws. This position plainly embraces the case of the colored population of this State. We think it will be conceded that their natural right to the elective franchise is not inferior to that of the several legislators to whose juslice they appeal. 3. It is a fundamental principie of our national code, that all men areborn equal, and have, therefore equal political rights. In other nations, the fact that a man is the son of a king, a lord, or a peasant malees a difference in his political rights. These rights are made to depend on pa. rentage, thus creating a permanent and odious aristocracy. Our State Constitution proceeds upon the same ünjust principie, when it excludes an entire class from all political power simply because their ancestors, at some remote period, were born in África. 4. The spirit of the age is fast doing away the factitious distinctions of birth and thus in all pai'ts of the civilized world extending and carrying out the Demo cratic principie of man's equal ity. In the British West Indies, in Mexico, anc the republican States of South America where the population is composd of three different races of men, all political dis tinctions on account of original deseen have been abolished with the happiest ef fect.5. Colored citizensof this State are laxed without their consent. They have no representation in the Legisltature. They are required to pay state, county, township, highway and school taxes, from year to year, without having tho leastpower in voting the amount to be raised,o determining tixe manner in which the pro ceeds of their industry shallbe appropria ted. Our fathers considered such a pro visión unjust. They resisted it. The contended that taxation and represenatio should accompany each othei. Were th members of this present Legislature to be disfranchised, and placed in the political relation of the colored population. would they not complain of injustice, and rcsist it also1? Should they not, then, bo as ready to do justice to others, as they would be to ask it for themselves? T 6. That the extensión of the right of sufFrage to the colored population would not be attended with any injurious efifects, is evident fvom the practice of those New England States which have adoptcd it. - In Massachusetts, the colored citizens have been voters for fifty years; and in no instance has any evil resulted from granting them their acknowledged rights. The adjoining State of Rhode Island has adopted the same liberal policy into ils recent Constitution; and in the State of New York. colored freeholders for some years have exercised the elective franchise, with the most favorable results.■ 7. While the claim of the colored pop ulation to the right of sufFrage will be generally conceded as a matter of justice objections will be raised by somethat the are destitute of thai intelligence, enter prize, and moral principie that every vo ter should possess. To this it is sufficien to reply that our Constitution and laws make no difference in the political rights of men on account of their intellectual capacity or moral character. and the colored people should not be subjected to a test which our white citizens cannot bear. The most ignoran t, debased, and indolent white men exercise at the polls as much )olitical power as the most intellectual and elevated. While, therefore, the vilest of the white population are voters. hould all the Colored people be disfranchished?The members of the leglslature are veil aware of the prejudice which pre'ails in community against that class of jeople, by which they are debarred from he learned professions, from most mechanical trades, from all offices of profit or honor, and in many of the free States, hey are plundered of their property on many occasions almost without the possiiility of legal redress. Of course, it cannot be expected that they should, as a cl3ss be wealthy. The same prejudice also cuts them offto a great extent, from he facilities for education possessed by lie whites. Yet in our acquaintance in he interior of the State, almost every colored man can read and write. Many of hem are landholders, and some of them ubsiantial farmers.8. But suppose an examination oftheir resent condition should show the white )opulation to be as degraded, vicious and ndolent as their bitterest enemy could vishj what course would a wise and judiious statesman take towards them? - They are with us, and a portion of them vill remain with us, whatever may be ur legislation. Thisbeing the fact, isit wise, is it judicious to withhold from them a right which is justly their due - one vhich every freeman prizes - and thus essen their feelings of self respect, desroy all ambition to attain respectability m society, and thereby rende r them more egraded and corrupt from year to year, o that they will contamínate the moráis of all with whom they come in contact? s it not true that a deprivation of the right of sufFrage operates upon a community, and upon their own feelings as a brand f infaviy - a stigma of reproach1? - Vould not its removal have abenign and avorable effect upon their condition, and upon our whole population, by identifying beir interests with our institutions: - obiterating the unwise prejudices which lave tended to their degradation, and exciting in them a generous ambition to be virtuous, intelligent and useful citizens? Lastly, it is hoped the Legislaturc wil] )ear in mind. that zee merely ask the privilege of suhmitting the questton directly to the people. No amendment can be made to the Constitution without the concurrence of twosuccessive legislatures. - All we ask is, that they will permit us to bring this question before the people, as soon as may bc, for their definite action upon it.