Note 232 — Chapter X · THE DEATH OF PALMERSTON.

“The Civil Rights Bill,” says Mr. Sterne, “declared freedmen citizens of the United States. The reasons against this declaration were sound in themselves, because it admitted to the rights of citizenship a large number of persons whose prior conditions of servitude and enforced labour made them dangerous citizens. As the right to vote implies not only the right of the voter to protect himself against the aggression of others, but also involves the power, through the instrumentality of taxation, which is placed in the official hands created by the voters, to confiscate the property of others, it was apprehended by many that demagogues and adventurers would win the freemen by illusory promises of personal benefits to give them their votes, and that by the creation of public debts and the exercise of the power of taxation, they would mercilessly confiscate the property of citizens subjected to their sway.”—Constitutional History and Political Development of the United States, by Simon Sterne, of the New York Bar. Cassell and Co., pp. 202, 203.