county, and having property in the State
above the value of 30l., having resided in the
county one whole year preceding the election,
shall have the right of suffrage in the election
of delegates from the said county."
But then comes the act of 1778' of the legis-
lature, " that every person chargeable with the
triple tax as aforesaid," having refused or
neglected to take the oath of allegiance,
shall be disabled from doing certain things,
among which is voting at any election of
senators or delegates.
Now suppose this state of facts. Suppose
that the constitution says that every man
possessing certain qualifications is entitled to
vote. Suppose there is an actual armed rebel-
lion going on against the State government,
and that there are in the several counties of
the State men actually in arms against that
government, endeavoring to tear down the
constitution, and to usurp the executive power.
Will any man pretend to tell me that because
the constitution says that every man twenty-
one years of age and possessing certain other
qualifications shall be entitled to vote, that
men in arms are entitled to lay down their
muskets by the side of the ballot-box and
put their votes in the ballot-box ?
Mr. BRISCOE. What right has the judge to
reject them ?
Mr. STIRLING. The judge of elections may
have no right to reject them; but the people
can stop them from voting; and that is ex-
actly what the people of 1778 did. They
said that allegiance and protection are iden-
tical, and while the struggle goes on, and
even after this war is concluded, if you do
not acknowledge your obligations to this
government, but sympathize with the public
enemy, you are not in a condition to exercise
the right of suffrage. Suffrage implies ac-
quiescence in the result of the ballot; and if
a man simply wishes to use the ballot-box as
a machine to aid an armed revolution, he is
not in a condition to vote, any more than the
insane man in the hospital. If he does not
hold himself amenable to the authority of
the government, it does not concern him, and
he is not in a condition to exercise the right
of suffrage. All these provisions are simply
to ascertain, in this civil tumult, the state of
fact in which a man is,
Whom does it disfranchise? People talk
about sympathy. The word "sympathy"
is not in the law. It disfranchises men in
arms against the government; men whose
active agency is in fact in various ways an
aid to these men. What sort of a position
should we hold, if we did not exclude them ?
is it not a matter of fact that 'there is an
army seeking lo invade this State, and that
it is one of the hopes of that army to take
this Static out of that relation to the United
States which its own constitution recognizes?
Is it not a matter of fact, that a portion of
the people of this State sympathize with that |
army? Will anyman tell me that if the
army of Jeff. Davis succeed in this State, this
government would not 'supersede the actual
government of this State in twenty-four
hours after they get here? I say that the
man who only waits until the army of his
friends conies here to tear down this consti-
tution and form of government and erect it
into a form of government subordinate to a
foreign nationality, the main who stands
ready to aid the public enemy, and does not
do it simply because he is too lazy to do it,
is waiting to tear down the very ballot-box
that he asks to place his vote in; and is in
such a position that be can only mean to use
his ballot for the purpose of cowardly,
treacherous assassination against that which
he does not dare to raise his arm against.
it excludes no man who is willing to sub-
mit, no man who is not in the position of a
public enemy. He must not have expressed
a desire for the success of the public enemy.
Does a main want to vote under a government
when he desires the enemies of that govern-
ment to succeed? Does a man want to elect
a governor when his desire is that an army
may come and turn that governor out of his
seat? Does a man want to vote for a consti-
tution when he wants an enemy to come and
aid him to tear down the constitution?
if people do honestly desire the preserva-
tion of this constitution and this form of gov-
ernment, as a constitution and form of gov-
ernment of a State of the United States, if
they do not want it torn down by force, if
they do not desire the success of the public
enemy, what disqualifies them? This is but
a provision for the ascertainment of that fact.
And it is no more dishonorable for a man to
take the oath, than to be searched when a
pocket book has been stolen and a suspected
thief is to be found. We make no discrimi-
nation, We call upon everybody to take this
oath. We purge the whole community. We
take it ourselves. We ask everybody to take
it. I say that it does not injure anybody's
feelings. I do not know where it applies, nor
do I care; but I say that the man who refuses
to take that oath, either refuses to take it because
he is at heart a traitor, or because from
a misapprehension of his own rights he does
not understand the position in which he is
placed.
1 want to say one word with regard to the
soldiers' vote. I do not see how any proper
objection can be urged against it, because it
does not, as my colleague who has addressed
the convention ( Mr. Stockbridge) has shown,
either admit any new class of persons to vote
or exclude any old class of persons from voting,
These people are qualified to vote. It is a
mere question of fact whether there shall be
authority of law to enable them to vote, to
provide a place where they can cast their
votes. This convention has authority to take
the sense of the people of this State upon the |
