“Everybody in Massachusetts can vote irrespective of color who can read and write.  The qualification is equal in its justice, and an ignorant white man cannot vote there and a learned negro be excluded; but in the Georgia Legislature there was a white man who could hardly read and write, if at all, voted in because he was white, while a negro who spoke and read two languages was voted out, solely because he was black.  It is well that Massachusetts requires her citizens should read and write before being permitted to vote.  Almost everybody votes there under that rule, certainly every native-born person of proper age and sex votes there, and there are hundreds and thousands in this country who would thank God continually on their bended knees if it could be provided that voters in the city of New York should be required to read and write.  They would then believe Republican government in form and fact far more safe than now.”

After exposing the assertions of General Butler, Mr. Robinson concluded as follows: 

“For twenty-three years it has been written before the people of that State that to entitle them to vote and hold office they shall first learn to read and write.  Near to every man’s dwelling stands a public free school.  Education is brought to the door of every man.  These school-houses are supported with almost unbounded munificence.  Children have been born in that time and have attended school at the public expense, and the general education of the people has been advanced.

* * * I will not take any time in talking about the policy of the law.  There are some and many people in the State who do not think it wise to require the prepayment of a poll tax.  People differ about that.  Some time or other that may be changed; but for sixty years it has been the law, and it so remains.  Looking into the Constitution and the laws of the sister States of Virginia and Georgia and Delaware and Pennsylvania we find similar provisions of the same antiquity justified by the communities that have adopted such legislation.  And we say to all the States we leave to you those questions of policy, and we commend them to your judgment and careful consideration.  Does any one claim that representation should be reduced because of insanity or idiocy, or because of convicts?  Does any one claim that all laws requiring residence and registration should be done away?  And yet they are on the same line, on the same principle.  There is not one of these prerequsites, on which I have commented, that it is not in the power of the person who desires to get suffrage to overcome and control and conquer so that he may become a voter.  But if he be a black man he cannot put off his color.  He cannot, if he were born a member of a particular race, strip himself of that quality; nor can he, if he has been in servitude; nor can he, if he has been in rebellion, take out that taint; nor can he, if he has been convicted of other crimes, remove his record of criminality.