Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 October 1885 — Disfranchisement of Voters. [ARTICLE]

Disfranchisement of Voters.

The Republicans having forced a bloody-shirt issue in Ohio and lowa, the following interesting information is appended: Males of Votes polled for voting age. State. 1880. 1880. 1884. Rhode Island 76,898 29,235 32,771 Florida 61,699 51,618 59,872 South Carolina. 205,789 170,966 91,578 Vermont 95,621 65,098 69,409 Mississippi 238,532 107,078 120.019 Kentucky 376,221 264,304 276,915 Louisiana ,216,787 97,201 109,234 Massachusetts 502,648 282,512 303,383 Tennessee 330,305 241,827 259,463 According to these figures, taken from the tenth census and American almanac, says the New York World, the worst bulldozing in 1880 was in Rhode Island, and the least in South Carolina. In Massachusetts 54 per cent, voted, in Vermont 69 per cent., in South Carolina 48 per cent., in Rhode Island 38 per cent. In 1884, with the same basis for computation, Rhode Island still held the lead for proscription of voters, only 40 per cent, voting in that State, while 98 per cent, voted in Florida. There was no contest and no campaign in the Southern States named, while every possible effort was made to capture and defend the electoral vote of Massachusetts. Yet in Massachusetts only 60 per cent, of the males over 21 voted, while Kentucky voted 73 and Tennessee 78 per cent. In Louisiana and Mississippi only 50 per cent, voted, and in South Carolina only 44, but the election of 1880 showed that it was not red shirts but general apathy that kept the voters from the polls* If disfranchisement in any State is a proper subject for criticism and complaint by the people of another State, the form and manner of that disfranchisement are not, except when brought about by State laws. In the latter case it is made mandatory upon Congress to reduce the representation of the State in Congress. And until the State laws of Rhode Island, which disfranchise half the citizens in that State, are amended or Rhode Island’s representation in the House is reduced to one member, it certainly does not become Republicans to criticise the suffrage of any Democratic State which by law confers the ballot upon all its males of voting age, and thereby shows an intention and desire to conform to public sentiment, however imperfectly the intention and desire may be carried out. Alone among the thirty-eight States of the Union, the Republican State of Rhode Island has for years not only openly defied public sentiment upon this subject, but it has defied Congress to enforce the constitutional penalty, and in this defiance it has had the solid Republican vote in Congress and in all the States at its back.