Edward Ralph May

“ Why, sir, we have come here, as I understand the matter, for the express purpose of making known, interchanging, and, if possible, reconciling these different views. If we find we cannot reconcile them, what then is to be done? Evidently, we are to ascertain the views of the majority, and having ascertained them, we embody those views in a Constitution, and then send it forth to the people for their ratification or rejection.
Now, there have come before this Convention, other questions, quite as important, it seems to me, as this question of negro suffrage. ”

“ I have done it to call the attention of gentlemen whose observation seems never to have extended beyond the assumed fact that negro suffrage is unpopular in Indiana, to the fact that other and abler men than myself -- men recognized by all as statesmen -- have held the opinions that I have advanced, and that other, and perhaps greater and more far-seeing States than Indiana, have deemed it the part of wisdom as well as of justice, under certain restrictions, to enfranchise the negro. ”

“ Let us declare him subject to our control, and divest him by force, if need be, of every human right, deny to him all right of liberty and property, and finish the task by trampling to the dust his social as well as his political rights. ”

“ Either the negro is a man constituted like ourselves by nature, or else he is only an animal -- a mere brute. If the negro be but the mere brute, then, sir, let us treat him as one in all respects. Let us treat him as men treat him in the slave-holding States. There we know men both class and treat him as other brutes. ”

“ And, sir, in thus restricting the exercise of the elective franchise, we are guilty of no inconsistency. We not only refuse at once to enfranchise the foreigner when he lands from the emigrant ship, but we have thrown about our own selves certain restrictions and imposed certain qualifications. We say, for example, that no man shall exercise the right of suffrage until he has attained the age of twenty-one years. This is all right and proper. Now, I do not profess to thoroughly know the capacities of the negro race. ”

“ There are other qualifications which may be mentioned in this connection. As, for example, literary or educational attainments. Gentlemen tell us that the negro race is a degraded and inferior one. I admit that this is true. I acknowledge that, as a people, they are far below the Anglo-Saxon race, both in point of intelligence and social refinement. Then, sir, let us prove our magnanimity by allowing, the negro to rise above his present degraded sphere. We already allow him the privilege of supporting our government by paying his taxes with the rest. ”

“ We acknowledge the German, the Swede, and others as component parts of the same human family to which we belong. We do not, however, make them inmates of our families, nor at once bestow upon them the elective franchise as soon as they touch our soil. ”

“ Therefore, I will not say that at the age of twenty-one years the black man can be made sufficiently well informed of the laws and institutions of this country, and of the responsibilities and duties of the citizen to make him a safe depository of this trust. But I say, that if the black man has not intelligence and discretion enough at the age of twenty-one, to make him worthy [of] the exercise of the elective franchise, then extend the prescribed age to thirty-one, or forty-one, or, if need be, to ninety-one. ”