length of time rather than degrade
themselves by subjection to the negro race. Therefore they have been
left without a choice. Negro suffrage was established by act of
Congress, and the military officers were commanded to superintend the
process of clothing the negro race with the political privileges torn
from white men.

The blacks in the South are entitled to be well and humanely governed,
and to have the protection of just laws for all their rights of person
and property. If it were practicable at this time to give them a
Government exclusively their own, under which they might manage their
own affairs in their own way, it would become a grave question whether
we ought to do so, or whether common humanity would not require us to
save them from themselves. But under the circumstances this is only a
speculative point. It is not proposed merely that they shall govern
themselves, but that they shall rule the white race, make and administer
State laws, elect Presidents and members of Congress, and shape to a
greater or less extent the future destiny of the whole country. Would
such a trust and power be safe in such hands?

The peculiar qualities which should characterize any people who are fit
to decide upon the management of public affairs for a great state have
seldom been combined. It is the glory of white men to know that they
have had these qualities in sufficient measure to build upon this
continent a great political fabric and to preserve its stability for
more than ninety years, while in every other part of the world all
similar experiments have failed. But if anything can be proved by known
facts, if all reasoning upon evidence is not abandoned, it must be
acknowledged that in the progress of nations negroes have shown less
capacity for government than any other race of people. No independent
government of any form has ever been successful in their hands. On the
contrary, wherever they have been left to their own devices they have
shown a constant tendency to relapse into barbarism. In the Southern
States, however, Congress has undertaken to confer upon them the
privilege of the ballot. Just released from slavery, it may be doubted
whether as a class they know more than their ancestors how to organize
and regulate civil society. Indeed, it is admitted that the blacks of
the South are not only regardless of the rights of property, but so
utterly ignorant of public affairs that their voting can consist in
nothin