Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
It is manifestly and avowedly the object of these laws to confer upon
Negroes the privilege of voting and to disfranchise such a number of
white citizens as will give the former a clear majority at all
elections in the Southern States. This, to the minds of some persons,
is so important that a violation of the Constitution is justified as a
means of bringing it about. The morality is always false which excuses
a wrong because it proposes to accomplish a desirable end. We are not
permitted to do evil that good may come. But in this case the end
itself is evil, as well as the means. The subjugation of the States to
Negro domination would be worse than the military despotism under which
they are now suffering. It was believed beforehand that the people
would endure any amount of military oppression for any 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?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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