The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1867-04-03
THE PRESS
Wednesday Morning, April 8, 1867.


The Connecticut Election. -
The election which has just transpired in
Connecticut, taken in connection with the
past recent political history Of that State, is
unusually suggestive. The Republicans have
been beaten, and we venture the remark that
they will receive less sympathy in their defeat,
from the controlling minds in the Republican
party, than has ever been exercised towards
defeated friendly ticket. Those VINO nave
watched the canvass have felt from the s'a, !. y
that the chances of success for the hepu'
cans, We're very slim Last year Gov ha".oS
majority was but 541-a meagre margin Al
State canable of throwing hundred Thousand
votes IL was known that the Democratic
candidata-a very rich manutacturer-had
nIaced at the disposal of his party committee.
shOO0O TO be expended in the canvass, and that
New York city would readily supply any adj
ditional amount that might be required or that
could be used. 1t was further known that al,
the influence and patronage of the national
government that could be controlled by n cor
rupt and treacherous administration was he
ing used in the same direction and to the same
end. Besides all this, it was known that Mr..
Engiish' the democratic nominee, was declar-
ed by his friends to be about as good Repub-
lican as Gov. Hawley, and the fact was appeal
ed to that in Congress he sustained the war
and voted for the Constitutional amendment
abollshing slavery. Such we're some of the in
huences brought to bear in the canvass; money,
government patronage, executive favor, PROM
lsed appointments, and the careful conceal
ment of the real issues By pressing into the
foreground the most anti-democratic acts of
the Democratic candidate; and with this COM
bination of elements they have only been able
to overcome a majority OF 541 votes against
them last year, and secure majority of a few
hundreds where they boosted that 5000 major
ity was to crown their efforts. ,.,-t
Now we come to inquire what right the Re-
publican party OF the State had to expect a
victory tor their own ticket? We grant their
candidates were generally unexceptionable
men. Gov. Hawley was a valiant soldier dur
ing the war, working himself up, by gallant
deeds, from the ranks to major generalship,
and politically he is unquestioned. The same
is true of the Congressional candidates. In
the 4th district exceptions were taken by some
squeamish outsiders to the candidate-Mr P.
L. Barnum, the great New York Snowman
All admit that Mr. Barnum is man every
way sound politically, that he is scrupu ously
exact in all matters of finance and business,
that by over-confdence in friends for whom he
endorsed he losS his property, but by the most
indomitable energy has regained his feet, that
he is strictly temperate, even to total absti-
nence, in his habits, that he allows no liquor
saloons about his museum and never brings
out play of an immoral character But then
he has humbugged the pepole with woolly
horse and a made-up Feejee mermaid! True,
but he declares,-and the declaration is undis-
puted,-that il he has humbugged the public
sometimes he has never done it by anything
calculated to corrupt or vitiate the public NOR
ais, that his tricks have been of the most
harmless character, and that though he brought
out the woolly horse he also brought out Jen.
ny Lind, and has done more than most men to
provide the American public with rational and
intellectual entertainments. A few remarka-
bly, philanthropic and tender-hearted people
have objected to Mr.. Barnum because he al
lows live rabbits to be fed to the boa-constric-
tor in his museum! This is perfectly horrifc
The people who thus object are said to keep no
cats in their houses to live upon live mice, and
to have perfect aversion to all rat terriers
and perhaps they may object to that portion OF
the Divine economy which has fashioned the
boa to take his food alive, and which, from the
highest to the lowest link in the scale of being,
has arranged for the "big fishes to eat the little
ones" But aside from the fastidious excep-
tons to Mr.. Barffum we have heard no objec-
tons raised to the personnel of the Republican
ticket in Connecticut. So far as the nominees
were concerned, their general and particular
fitness, the Republicans had sufficient ground
TOR expecting victory ar- 15d-a L
But there is another and darker side to this
matter The Constitution of Connecticut
make an odious discrimination on account o.
color, and because man happens, by the &C.
cident of birth, to have dark skin, he is not
allowed to be citizen with a citizens rights
The colored men are barred from the polls A
year and half ago the proposition to abolish
this odious distinction by striking the word
white" from the constitution, was submitted
to the people, and the Republicans, with o ma
jority of upwards of 11,OOO at the preceding
Presidential election, shamefully defeated the
proposition, and thus perpetuated the distinc-
ton based on color The next time they went
to the polls they found their majority cut down
to less than five and half hundred! Since
then the Representatives of that State in Con-
gress, have voted to force upon the South what
they refused to accept themselves impartial
manhood suffrage, and with this record of the
past open to be seen and read of all men, they
have gone to the polls and-been beaten! A
just and righteous retribution. They sowed
the wind, they have reaped the whirlwind.
In the State of Connecticut, in 1860 there
was colored population of 1927. The for
tunes of the war and the pressure at the South
since that date, have doubtless increased this
population, so that the colored men of the State
who would have been voters on Monday last
but for the odious provision which Republic
cans have allowed to be perpetuated, may be
safely estimated at 1000, nine-tenths of whom,
it is safe to say, would cheerfully have gone to
the polls and voted the Republican ticket, thus
keeping the star of equal rights and political
progress in the ascendant in that old State
We have but few words to add. Fortunate
ly the loss of Connecticut will not cripple the
Republican majority in Congress. Three Con-
gressmen and a Governor can be spared. The
Republican party can better afford to lose them
bHdH 10 loSc Tue ieSSOu Vi ILLS elecClOu. Ibis
election and its preceding history teach that
justice is the only reliable condition precedent of
success. The state or the party that acts n
justly cannot, should not expect victory De-
feat is the just return for such conduct as the
Republicans of Connecticut have been guilty
of While a regiment of colored troops from
that State were still in the field, undischarged
from the dangerous work in which they had
enlisted, the white Republicans at home were
voting to perpetuate their exclusion from the
ballot-box! They haze receioed their REGARD.
"Ned Nevins,'' PA book for Agents.
Agents wishing to canvass for "Ned Nevins
The Newsboy; or, Street Life in Boston" NAV