Randolph County journal. [volume] (Winchester, Indiana) 1864-1865, 1865-08-17
sHERMAN,s SPEECHES

/ UINEhAb Sf tR.uAN'S SfEft III IL
General Sherman is making /;
great many speeches, and they arc
curiously characteristic. They arc
trenchant, impetuous. honest, and
crude The crafty managers who
thought, when he made his conven-
ton with Johnston, that they had
now found the man they had been
looking for, must watch the daily
kilograms with the most painful
solicitude. For the General is plain
ly not man to be manipulated. lie
speaks clearly his own views without
the least regard to any conceivable
party eXigency. He has all the ira
ditional honesty and directness of a
soldier. In New York he disdained
the embraces of the Common Coun-
Gil, to which political aspirants are
usually obliged to submit In Ohio
he said that General Cox was a good
soldier, and he hoped he would be
elected Governor Yet there were
persons who thought that the hero
of Atlanta would actually receive
nomination from the party that
supported Vallandigham two years
ago! In Indianapolis--without the
least regard for "the compromise"
or the divine rights of States to make
beasts of men, so long cherished
principle" Of "the party"-he said
that bis sea-faring ancestors helped
to import slaves, and lie felt it to be
his duty to atone for the ancestral
sins. Alas for the managers. a
man with profound moral convictions
is not Il safe candidate for "the
party"
General Sherman, indeed, opposes
negro suffrage and indiscriminate
Intercourse with whites. He says
that his experience in Mexico and
South America led to this conclusion.
Did his experience in those countries
also persuade him that white suffrage
was any more TO be trusted? He
believes, also, that the whites must
have the governing power. But the
American doctrine of Liberty asserts
equality Of opportunity for all men,
1t has nothing to do with the color
of faces or the equality of races. A
professional politician appealing to
the grog- shops and party spiiit may
harangue about "white men," and
welcome. But the conceit that men
are not to have equal rights because
of their color is a foolish figment
that will not long be entertained in
so masculine n brain and honest
heart as General Sherman S. His
good sense rallied again in saying
that military law was the natural law
of self-preservation; but when the
necessity was passed he hoped TIE
civil law would resume its sway.
There is a boyish impulsivencss
and frankncss in all that General
Sherman says and does which are
very winning. His instincts are
generous, but his conclusions are
often immature and hasty. Amazed
as we were by the convention which
he made with Johnston, we can not
praise too highly the manly tone of
his letter of the 25th of April to the
Secretary of War, in which he said,
with noble simplicity, 81 admit my
folly in embracing in military con
vention any civil matter" and added,
with touching pride, Il had ilattered
myself that by four years of patient
and unremitting and successful labor
deserved no reminder such as is
in the last paragraph of
your letter to General Grant"
General Shcrman's speeches have
doubtless imperiled his chances
which he probably dcspises-with
the politicians, but they have not
harmed him in the estimation of
honest men.-Harper's Weekly.