The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1859-08-12
Hard 10 Reconcile.

that we apply hard names to those who
| come IN contact with our interests or our
| prejudices, while we ourselves are acting
upon the same principle, only varying in
the manner or matter of its application.
/ We can bestow the yilest epithets upon
Others and arrogate great merit to our
selves, while practicing substantially the
same wrongs. A few hundred Missourians
invade Kansas, drive peaceful citizens from
the ballot box, elect themselves to Office,
and make such laws as they please, and we
call them Border Rufians;;' the name is
appropriate, although they had the merit
ola kind of brute courage, displaye in at
tacking their equals in open violence, with
public sentiment and public s!mpathies
against them. The people of Wisconsin,
in their sovereign State capacity, invade
the rights Of colored men, drive them from
the ballot box, not for day, or year, but
hedge them out for all time, by constitu
tional walls; yet we are very vrtuous,
law abiding, Justice loving people, and not
Border Runians' at all, although the act
from centre to circumference, is more ruf-
tianly than the border rufians upon Kan.
sas, beside the cowardly meanness Of being
practiced upon our interiors; an insignifi-
cant minority, unarned even with ballot,
to redress their wrongs, without friends or
without hope"
This rebuke is Just and well-merited by
the party to which it is applied. The Re
! publican party is based upon the absolute,
unconstitutional equality of all men, with
out regard to color or birthplace" It is
this principle alone which gives logic TO
their arguments, or point or force to their
appeals. The shareholder who openly af
firms that " slavery is the normal condition
Of the negro race" and practically enforces
his dogma is at least consistent, and can
not properly be accused CT insincerity or
dishonesty; he commits no moral wrong
against the light Of his own conscience; he
bellies no public profession. But that man
Of that party which openly proclaims as a
| principle, the absolute g equality of all men
without regard to color or condition." and
withholds from any one class embraced in
this sweeping declaration, any of the rights
Of citizenship, is guilty of the cowardly
meanness'' ofoppressing interiors, of deny
ing to part what is claimed to belong of
right to all; they sin against the light Of
their own conscience, talsIty their own pro
tessions, and proclaim to the world the dis
honesty of their pretensions.
The Republican party Of Wisconsin has
done just this very thing. The doctrine of
the equality Of all men, was laid down in
their platform as one Of their Fundamental
principles Of the party. This doctrine has
been iterated and re iterated in every
neighborhood and hamlet of the State, as
the great humanitarian principle of the
Republican party. "Am Inot a man and
a brother:" was the constant plea in be
half of the poor negro. "Of one blood
hath God created all the nations of the
earth!" has been rung from the puIpits of
the preacher politicians throughout the
State. Did they believe it! Let facts
be submitted to a candid world" In the
election of 1856, the question was submit
ted to the qualified electors Of the State, to
decide themselves whether the negroes
should be entitled to the right of suffrage.
The Republican party were represented in
that election by G6,090 votes, pledged to
the doctrine of their platform that negroes
were entitled to the same rights with them
selves; of these 5000 voters, only q, $50
voted in favor Of negro suffrage, while 3S,-
$40 decided to withhold from them their
acknowledged rights.
What excuse can any honest man offer
for such a conflict between practice and
profession? Either the profession must be
hypocritcal and dishonBst, or the practice
tyranical and unprincpled. All must agree
with our Republican cotemporary, that it
was more manly and courageous to resist
right 10y force Of arms than to withheld
one by secret and cowaTdly stratagem. If
the professions Of the Republican party are
true the rights of which the white people
of Kansas were deprived by force We're no
more sacred than the rights of which the
colored men of Wisconsin have been swim
died by false pleteuses. The Republican
party of Wisconsin acknowledged and pro-
/ claimed these rghts-had the unqucstion-
| ed power to enforce them, and vet they
secretly and clandestinely withheld them
by a large majority Of their sufrages. In
a private business transaction such false
pretences would be punished as a crime
! by term in the pententiary to the often
ders; in party, which, like Z" a corpora
ton, has neither a body to be kicked, nor
a soul to be damned" it is only infamous
In this connection the Wautoma Jour-
nat states the following fact:
q \ minister of the gospel i'm the State
Of Wisconsin, an accredited retormer, wish
ing TO unite with his bretheren Of the chris.
tian faith, to aid in the great struggle with
the monster intemperance, applied for
membership in a lodge of Good Templars;
he was duly elected, and prekented him
selffor admission, but without constitution,
law or precedent, he was driven from the
temple; he was a coIored man, and Judge
Tauey had decided that " "colored men
have no rights which the white man is
bound to respect" and moreover some OF
the good sisters were afraid it would lead
to amalgauation, although it IS believed
he would have lost both skirts OF his coat
rather than consent TO such sin. Par-ex-
cellence, the reiormers, good christians,
and good ternplars; they are no rutiians,
7 they only drove Niger from the altar
OF temperance, that the holy cause should