Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 6.djvu/359

Rh of judgment might be largely extended. After such proofs of the fallibility of the Southern mind on vital points as to the interest of the South, and the negro question in particular, Northern men may be pardoned if they hesitate to accept the doctrine that the Southern whites as a rule “know all about” that problem, that their treatment of it stands above criticism, and that, therefore, Northern men should abstain from discussing the question whether it would really be the true interest of the Southern whites under present circumstances to disfranchise the colored people generally. We may, therefore, fairly discuss the matter, especially as it has a National bearing.

Negro suffrage is plausibly objected to on the ground that the great bulk of the colored population of the South are very ignorant. This is true. But the same is true of a large portion of the white population. If the suffrage is dangerous in the hands of certain voters on account of their ignorance, it is as dangerous in the hands of ignorant whites as in the hands of ignorant blacks. To remedy this, two things might be done: to establish an educational test for admission to the suffrage, excluding illiterates; and, secondly, to provide for systems of public instruction so as gradually to do away with illiteracy, subjecting whites and blacks alike to the same restrictions and opening to them the same opportunities. This would be easily assented to by the Southern whites if the real or the principal objection to negro suffrage consisted in the ignorance of the black men. It is also said “that education unfits the negro for work.” This is true in so far as it makes many negroes unwilling to devote themselves to the ordinary plantation labor, encouraging them to look for work more congenial to their abilities and tastes, and sometimes even seducing them to live upon their wits without work. But the same, then, is true in regard to white men. The increasing disinclination of young white persons to