Rensselaer Union, Volume 2, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 August 1870 — Judge Perkins’ Views. [ARTICLE]

Judge Perkins’ Views.

In a recoili letter to the Indianapolis Journal , Judge Perkins, a democrat, and for many years one of the supreme judges of Indiana, says: “A government which excludes a large number of its citizens from the right to vote is an oligarchy. “The negroes, then, being citizens, have the right to vote. V‘State governments depriving them ot this right arc not republican, and it is the duty of congress to cause such State governments to he reconstructed uith a republican form. “All this has been constitutionally done, so far as the States of the United States nre concerned, and the negro man is a Voter by constitutional, and (the democrats said ™ 1644) by natural rights.To oppose his right to vote now is to oppose the constitution, to oppose republican government, to deny the declaration of independence, and favor the return of the negro to slavery who iiom* votes without disturbance. He associates with the whites in daily labor, in carriage rides, in barber shops, in menageries, and kitchen and dining rooms, and M-hy lie may not in voting I do not see. “A word as to the bearing of theamendments upon States rights.— There is muchmisrepresentation on this poiut. No amendment has been made not justified by the original constitution, and none hut what is iu discharge of an obligation imposed by it. It says that the United States shall guarantee to each State a republican govern- * ment. Nom’ in discharge of this 1 obligation tho United States have added these amendments to the national constitution, viz: the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth. “The first of these takes away tho State right of establishing slavery. “The 2d takes away the State right of .exercising despotic power over her citizens. ‘The 3d takes aa-ay the State right of establishing an oligarchy of race. The amendments*compel the States to continue to keep their governments republican. ‘♦They, take away the State right; to do MTong, but leave the State right to do right.”