e
three-quarters of a million or a million of voters, the great mass of
whom are ignorant and unable to tell when the ballot they vote is
right side up, then I protest against such an alarming infusion of
ignorance into the ballot-box, into that sacred palladium, as we have
always called it, of the liberties of our country. Let us introduce
them by fit degrees. Let them come in as fast as they are fit, and
their numbers will not shock the character of our institutions.

"I turn for a single moment to call attention to the philanthropy of
the proposition. If you introduce all without regard to qualification,
without their being able to read or write, and thus to understand the
questions on which they are to decide, what would be the effect? You
will take away from them the strongest incentive to learn to read or
write. As a race, it is not accustomed to position and property; it
has no homesteads, it has no stake in the country; and unless they are
required to be intelligent, and qualified to understand something
about our institutions and our laws, and the questions which are
submitted to the people from time to time, you say then to them, 'No
matter whether or not you make progress in civilization or education,
you shall have all the rights of citizenship,' and in that way you
take away from them all special motive to education and improvement.
On the contrary, if the ability to read and write and understand the
ballot is made the qualification on the part of these people to
exercise the right of voting, the remaining portion will see that
color is not exclusion. They would all aspire to the qualification
itself as preliminary to the act. You can submit no motive to that
race so powerful for the purpose of developing in them the education
and intelligence required.

"I say, therefore, on whatever grounds you put it, whether you regard
the safety of our institutions or the light of philanthropy, you
should insist on qualifications substantially the same as those
required in the State of Massachusetts. And let me say that, taking
the State of Massachusetts as an example of the result of general
intelligence and qualified suffrage, and a careful guardianship of the
ballot-box, I know of no more illustrious example in this or any other
country of its importance.

"With a credit that surpasses that of the United States, with a
history that is surpassed by no State in the Union, with wealth that
is almost fabulous in pro