Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1865-07-07
Col. FOrney Takes an ODserVa-
t1On.


tlOn.
It is not long since Col. FoRNEY was dis
posed to join the chorus of the Negro sur
fragists; but now that President JOHNSON
has inflexibly set his face against the prop
osition, the Colonel has bethought himself'
and so in letter to his Press, under date OF
the I'd inst, he took "an observation OF re-
cent years." In this observation Of recent
years." we are told:
"Many honest men, not of the secession,
nor of the Northern sympathetic school,
firmly believed that It would save a vast
.effusion of blood and incalculable losses
of treasure and property, If the Southern
States were permitted to 60 in peace.
These statesmen were the known enemies
of slavery. They had led the great Adolf
ton movements of former years. They
had filled the press with truthful pictures
of the horrors of Southern serldom. Poll
ticians and parties had been swayed and
conquered by their able and persevering
agitations; and when Mr.. Lincoln was
elected President, he was claimed to be OF
their particular opinion and purpose. And
vet many of these leading minds were more
than willing to allow four millions of hu-
man beings remain in slavery, after Mr.
Lincoln's election in 1860, If by that wal
could be averted, and the North and North
west left In unobstructed possession OF the
domain they then occupied. The. first
weeks of the conflict did not dispel this
theory, but rather strengthened the
purposes of those who advocated it.
That it did not succeed, Is be-
cause Abraham Lincoln, the champion Of tht
poor colored masses Of the South, and An
dre,o johnson, the champion Of the poor oohitc
masses of the South, had sworn, and in this
solemn oath were sustained by an irresisti'
BILE army of their countrymen, that the
Federal Union must and should be presery.
ed.' / only recall and record historical
fact. Those who clamor for universal
suffrage to indiscriminate multitudes
should have the character of consistency
as we'll as of right. They should not bt
men who only few years ago were ready
to leave four millions of human beings Ii
slavery, with their posterity. at the mercy
of an arrogant and overreaching aristoc-
racy; and by this surrender purchase 9
false and fancied security for the white
races Of ths North. The liberation ofthese
slaves, the defeat of the rebellion, the sub
jugation of the slave-masters, was the
work of those who never doubted that the
Union would stand, who rejected all prop
ositions for its separation, and resisted alike
those who were willing to give it up and
those who used force to effect its destruc-
tion. In their hands, as the best friends of
the colored man, | am willing to confide the
disposition of the questions that have
grown out of the military, Congressional,
State, and Constitutional abolition Of slave
ry."
We here have the testimony of Colonel
FoRNEY that the men who are the most
persistent in their demands for the exten-
sion of suffrage to the Southern Blacks
are men who, rather than encounter the
perils and calamities of War, would have
allowed the Southern people to take theil
States and their slaves out of the Union
and build up Confederacy of their own
Is it not, therefore, a patriotic duty to de-
feat this party in Ohio, with General Coz
at its head?