The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1867-06-05
The Negro Vote.

Ane Negro Vote.
In the present indecent haste to seize
and secure that grand spoil-the negro
vote-we see the real estimate of tho war
that rules in the minds of GreeIev and
Company, the wilder leaders Of the Pc.
publican party. For four years there wos
a holocaust; and every family laid .itssac.
rifce, as it is fondly supposed, on the altar
fathers-men cherished by all the endear.
ing names to humanity-were proudly
sent out to the death harvest that the
country might not perish nor suffer shame.
Devastation in the form of fire and sword
swept over half the land, and the people
with one ready. willing voice, gave the
government mortgage on every dollar
and every dollars worth. But was it all
for the country really? or must We now
gradually open our eyes to see that it was
all for party? Greeley and Company
assume that the war had no higher or
nobler object than to give them a chance
to get at the negro vote. All the blood
shed, all the money spent; merely moved
away the obstacles that were between
them and such purpose. Their eagerness
now is not to secure in the South any ma
tional object that might have been worthy
such war; not to draw towards ,us. by
wise laws the States that slavery had so
nearly torn away; not to establish prop.
erty and personal rights on better basis;
not to assure to the country that perlna-
nent peace and tranquility for which such
sacrihces were made. No; their whole
policy-all that the war has led them to
is simply and purely an eager, indecent,
Observation-Disclosures race and scramble
for the votes of all the niggers between
the Potomac and the Rio Grande. Was
it tor. this that the American people gave
million lives and thousands Of millions
of money?
We must understand the recent events
at Richmond in the light of this republi-
can view of the war. Republican bonds
men, judges, jurors and lawyers all see it
the same way, and open their mouths in
an accord as happy and harmonious as
though they were only the four and
twenty blackbirds of the political pie.
And the burden of song must startle the
country. We care, they say, for no re-
suit of the war that is worthy of respect.
There was no such principle IN it as should
make opposition crime. 1t was only our
party game, and we have won. We have
removed the obstacles to our party SUI
premacy; we have access to the niggers-
to vast, ignorant mass of voters whom
we can shape and use as we will, and by
whose votes We can control, notthe South
merely, but the North also. There areno
precedents to be made: there was abso-
lutely nothing in it but the niger; and
tits prisoner, who might be important if,
there was any such national question as
good government and treason at stake, is
not even worth his board in a casemate.
Such is the tune. How does the country
like it? How will the people bearto be
told by the Indifference with which the
representative man OF the whole tremcn-
duus revolt is set at large, that there was
no treason? How will they bearto learn,
by seeing everything forgotten in. eager
ness to secure the nigger vote, that the
great dominant party sees DO nobler result
in the war than the chance to use the mig
gers? That it can shut its eyes to the
first necessities Of restoration, to the Sc
curing of peace and good order and har-
monizing the country; nay, that it will
actually lay down a programme to Inn
peril again all the proper objects of the
war, rather than risk the loss of the votes
it has evidently always regarded as the
grand spoil of the struggle.
Two thoughts will grow into the nation
al mind as the people reflect on these
events-the repudiation of the vast debt
incurred for party purpose. and. the re-
pudiation of the party that incurred it
New York Herald.