Gold Hill Daily News

Henry Ward Beecher held forth recently on suffrage, before the Brooklyn Fraternity, and is reported as follows:
Mr. Beecher began his lecture by defining his meaning of the term 'universal suffrage.' It was, he said, that every citizen who has attained the age of manhood, inasmuch as he has an interest in the laws, in the Government, in the support of the State, and in the peace of society, has a right to influence the State and its policy, and to express that influence in the potential manner employed in the vote. Another name for universal suffrage, he said, was 'manhood suffrage,' based upon the mere fact of manhood, and not upon any class, reasons, or any supposed preparation of fitness. But universal suffrage, he contended, was but the carrying out of the full tendencies of our American history. In disseminating his ideas on this point, Mr. Beecher boldly avowed himself to be in favor of bestowing the elective franchise upon all men, with one or two exceptions. Upon the African, whether he can read or write or not; upon the Chinaman in California; upon the Indian just so soon as he is brought within the bounds of a regularly organized, civilized society, and upon the pauper. The two exceptions in his catalogue are criminals and idiots.