The Daily Dispatch: March 17, 1863., [Electronic resource]

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Naturalization laws.

The Enquirer has an able article in support of the measure proposed in Congress by which the right of suffrage shall be exercised only by such persons of foreign birth as were citizens at the time of our separation from the old Union, or as have served in the armies of the Confederacy. The article — which we take to be from the vigorous pen of a gentleman whose labors have been distinguished in the cause of both Irish and Southern independence — takes broad and state manlike views of the subject, and points out with a pencil of light the distinction between such a policy and that of Know Nothingism, which sought to deprive foreigners of rights they already possessed. In the present case no each injunction is possible, and the existing rights will be, and ought to be, as carefully guarded as those of any class of citizens. Of course, the contemplated reform will include all foreigners not now citizens, especially and emphatically the subjects of Abraham Lincoln.