A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career: Life of Hon. Phineas T. BarnumBenton, Joel
History
A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career: Life of Hon. Phineas T. Barnum
Benton, Joel
Barnum's American Museum; Barnum, P. T. (Phineas Taylor), 1810-1891; Circus owners -- United States -- Biography
The State of Connecticut, like New Jersey, is a border State of
New York. New York has a great commercial city, where aldermen
rob by the tens of thousands, and where principal is studied much
more than principle. I can readily understand how the negro has
come to be debased at the North as well as at the South. The
interests of the two sections in the product of negro labor were
nearly identical. The North wanted Southern cotton and the South
was ready in turn to buy from the North whatever was needed in
the way of Northern supplies and manufactures. This community of
commercial interests led to an identity in political principles,
especially in matters pertaining to the negro race--the working
race of the South--which produced the cotton and consumed so much
of what Northern merchants and manufacturers sold for plantation
use. The Southern planters were good customers and were worth
conciliating. So when Connecticut proposed in 1818 to continue to
admit colored men to the franchise, the South protested against
thus elevating the negroes, and Connecticut succumbed. No other
New England State has ever so disgraced herself; and now
Connecticut Democrats are asked to permit the white citizens of
this State to express their opinion in regard to reinstating the
colored man where our Revolutionary sires placed him under the
Constitution. Now, gentlemen, "Democrats," as you call
yourselves, you who speak so flippantly of your "loyalty," your
"love for the Union" and your "love for the people"; you who are
generally talking right and voting wrong, we ask you to come
forward and act "democratically," by letting your masters, the
people, speak.
The word "white" in the Constitution cannot be strictly and
literally construed. The opposition express great love for white
blood. Will they let a mulatto vote half the time, a quadroon
three-fourths, and an octoroon seven-eighths of the time? If not,
why not? Will they enslave seven-eighths of a white man because
one-eighth is not Caucasian? Is this democratic? Shall not the
majority seven control the minority one? Out on such "democracy."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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