On The Right The Issue at Selma

I have not seen the problem of Selma, Alabama, put into deep focus. There is more at stake there—and elsewhere, and not only in the South —than the question whether “Negroes should have the vote.” Of course they should have the vote—to the same degree that white people and yellow people and blue people should have the vote. But note the qualifier, “to the same extent.” It may very well be that what Alabama ought to do is not to enlarge the franchise but to restrict it—irrespective of race, color, or creed.

On the single issue of whether a Negro in Alabama should be deprived of the vote simply because of the color of his skin, it seems to me that there cannot be any argument: none moral, and certainly none constitutional. It is altogether a different question whether the State of Alabama would be better governed if every single Negro over the age of twenty-one were to participate at the polls.

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William F. Buckley Jr.

William F. Buckley Jr. founded National Review magazine in 1955.

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William F. Buckley Jr.

I have not seen the problem of Selma, Alabama, put into deep focus. There is more at stake there—and elsewhere, and not only in the South —than the question whether “Negroes should have the vote.” Of course they should have the vote—to the same degree that white people and yellow people and blue people should have the vote. But note the qualifier, “to the same extent.” It may very well be that what Alabama ought to do is not to enlarge the franchise but to restrict it—irrespective of race, color, or creed.

On the single issue of whether a Negro in Alabama should be deprived of the vote simply because of the color of his skin, it seems to me that there cannot be any argument: none moral, and certainly none constitutional. It is altogether a different question whether the State of Alabama would be better governed if every single Negro over the age of twenty-one were to participate at the polls.