Negro suffrage in the Pennsylvania Legislature

Pennsylvania's lawmakers approve suffrage legislation for African Americans.

After a debate of several days in the Senate of Pennsylvania upon the resolution approving the action of the Penn- sylvania Congressmen who voted for negro suffrage in the District of Columbia, and instructing the Senators of the State to vote for the same in the United States Senate, it was on Thursday last send to the Committee on Federal Relations by a vote of yeas 18, nays 12. The Democratic Senators, we learn, voted solidly against recommitment, in order to bring their opponents to the test upon the resolution. Mr.Lowry, the most radical of the negro fanatics, voted with the Democracy. The rest of the so-called Republicans Senators, although having, with Lowry, spoken so broadly in favor of the "principle" of universal suffrage, did not think it polite to make that an issue in Pennsylvania ; they therefore voted solidly to recommit. This, of course, is mere evasion and delay. It proposes the question of negro equality, but it holds it suspended over the people ; and the only question is, when can such a measure be carried? - Albany Argus

“Negro suffrage in the Pennsylvania Legislature,” Reconstructing Virginia, accessed May 28, 2023, https://reconstructingvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/60.