e precisely as
they stand in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana. Here as elsewhere, in all
that pertains to civil rights, there is nothing to distinguish this
class of persons from citizens of the United States, for they possess
the "full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security
of person and property as is enjoyed by white citizens," and are made
"subject to like punishment, pains, and penalties, and to none other,
any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom to the contrary
notwithstanding." Nor, as has been assumed, are their suffrages
necessary to aid a loyal sentiment here, for local governments already
exist of undoubted fealty to the Government, and are sustained by
communities which were among the first to testify their devotion to the
Union, and which during the struggle furnished their full quotas of men
to the military service of the country.

The exercise of the elective franchise is the highest attribute of an
American citizen, and when guided by virtue, intelligence, patriotism,
and a proper appreciation of our institutions constitutes the true basis
of a democratic form of government, in which the sovereign power is
lodged in the body of the people. Its influence for good necessarily
depends upon the elevated character and patriotism of the elector, for
if exercised by persons who do not justly estimate its value and who are
indifferent as to its results it will only serve as a means of placing
power in the hands of the unprincipled and ambitious, and must eventuate
in the complete destruction of that liberty of which it should be the
most powerful conservator. Great danger is therefore to be apprehended
from an untimely extension of the elective franchise to any new class
in our country, especially when the large majority of that class, in
wielding the power thus placed in their hands, can not be expected
correctly to comprehend the duties and responsibilities which pertain
to suffrage. Yesterday, as it were, 4,000,000 persons were held in a
condition of slavery that had existed for generations; to-day they are
freemen and are assumed by law to be citizens. It can not be presumed,
from their previous condition of servitude, that as a class they are as
well informed as to the nature of our Government as the intelligent
foreigner who makes our land the home of his choice. In the case of
the latter neither a residence of five years and the knowledge of our
institutions which it give