BORROWING TROUBLE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XXI, Issue 1215, 29 March 1864, Page 3

BORROWING TROUBLE.

(New York Tribune, Jan. 4.) There are thirty-two millions of people this day in the United States, whereof four millions—one eighth —are wholly or partially of African origin. Suppose this eighth were legally free, are we twenty-eight millions of whites afraid of them ? What harm could they do us P What need we apprehend from them ? Are we not at least as strong, as wise, as skilful, as intelligent, as brave, as they ? If we are, what need we dread at their hands ? What need of shackling them for our own safety ? If we do not assail nor oppress them, why should they attack us? What possible reason would these four millions have for picking a quarrel and forcing a fight with twenty-eight millions, if we awarded them the common rights of humanity ? Have there been negro conspiracies and insurrections in the South ? Tes; because of slavery. There was a negro conspiracy in this city when oura was a slave state; there have been none since" it was free. Our colored population are peaceful and loyal. And as to attacks on them, they emanate from the most brutal and degraded of our whites, aud are instigated by traitors for traitorous ends. The negro hunts and worse outrages on blacks here last summer were prompted by sympathy with slaveholding treason, and nothing else. Why is it, in this nineteenth century after Christ, that men talk in a Christian land of the incompatibility of two races of men living in the same community ? Are we cannibals or thugs ? We feel not the faintest intimation of a wish to kill, maim, maltreat, or insult our neighbors or fellowcitizens because of the color it has pleased God to give them. Do you ? But there is an invincible repugnance between whites and blacks, it is said, which prevents their forming matrimonial or other intimate relations; and so i So what ? The Astors and Stuyvesants, we understand, are not accustomed to intermarry nor even exchange invitations to dinner with the denizens of Mackerelville or Mulberry-street, some of whom are as good Christians and as good men as they are. What of it ? It is the very essence of liberty that Buch intimate associations should be matter of choice on both sides. We all gladly associate with some of our neighbors and avoid intimacies with others. Only a senseless, grinding tyranny could change this. In prison each enjoys or endures the company thrust upon him; in freedom attractions and repulsions have scope and just respect. But political equality, how can whites endure that ? We answer—They did endure it, till very recently, without a suspicion that it hurt or annoyed them. When this was a Slave State, Macks, having the requisite property qualification, voted the same as whites. They did so in North Carolina and in Tennessee, until a time far within our remembrance. We believe they did so in Virginia. John Bell was largely helped by negro votes when he ran Felix Grundy out of Congress. Judge Easton judicially affirmed the political rights pf blacks to be the same as tnose of whites in North Carolina less than forty years ago. Voters of partially negro blood abounded in Louisiana from 1850 to 1860; and, as they generally went the Democratic ticket, there was no objection. Slavery in its endeavors to be logical and consistent deprived free blacks of political rights in most Slave (and m some Free) States thirty to forty years years ago ; had it been less alarmed or endangered, it would probably have forborne. " What! do you hold that every negro should vote ?" •No; nor every white. We don't believe that men who prey upon the community, for instance, have any natural or moral right to vote. Nor idiots. Nor lunatics. Nor any one whose vices or crimes render him a foe to the public weal. Nor any one whose ignorance or incapacity renders him more likely to do evil than good by voting. So far as negroes (or whites) belong to any of these classes, we would not have them

vote. It is a burning shame that professional thieves, blacklegs, keepers of houses oi in famous resort, &e., &c., are voters in our city, and exert a good deal more political power than so many industrious, useful, lawabiding, God-fearing citizens. " Then what would-you have ?" We would have the laws regard and treat every man according to his intrinsic qualities If the community say that a man should be able to read to qualify him to vote, we do not object Establish any moral or intellectual qualification you please, and we make no objection to its enforcement, though it exclude nineteen-twentieths of all the proscribed race. But we do object to Government founded on color. If we are to enjoy political franchises which are denied to our neighbor, we would hold them by a tenure of intrinsic, not superficial, superiority. Hence we rejoiced that the "Unionists of New Orleans, at their recent delegate meeting, admitted a representative of colored Unionists. They were eminently right in doing so; they will ultimately prove to have been wise. Withhold the suffrage from ignorant, indolent, vicious blacks, if you will; but adopt a system which will enable and encourage every sane and sensible man to qualify himself for a voter by industry, thrift, morality, and intelligence. Put the new wine in new bottles, and let your " reconstruction " be broadly based on justice, humanity, and freedom.