Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1867-05-28
-5a- lFrom the New York Herald.l
The Negro VOte-The Conduct of
the Radical Leaders-ItsiLogica
Result.

In the present indecent haste to seize and
secure that grand spoil-the negro vote
we see the real estimate of the war that
rules in the minds of Greeley and Compa-
ny, the wilder leaders of the Republican
party. For four years there was a holo-
caust; and every family laid its sacrifice,
as it fondly supposed, on the altar of the
nation. Husbands, sons, brothers, fathers
men cherished by all the endeariDg names
known to humanity-were proudly sent
out to the death harvest that the country
might nor perish nor suffer shame. Devas-
tation 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 dol
lars worth. But was it all for the country
really? or must we now gradually open
our eyes to see that it was all for par
ty? Greeley and Company assume that
the war had no higher or nobler object
than to give them chance to get at the
Niger vote. All the blood shed, all the
money spent, merely moved away the OBJ
stacles that were between them and such
purpose. Their eargerness now is not to
secure in the South any national object that
might have been worthy such a war; not
to draw toward US by wise laws the States
that slavery had so nearly torn away; not
to establish property and personal rights
on better basis; not to assure to the coun-
try that permanent peace and tranquility
for which such sacrifices were made. No;
their whole policy-all that the war has led
them to-is simply and purely an eager,
indecent, devil-take-the-hindm race and
scramble for the votes of all the niggers
between the Potomac and the Rio Grande.
Was it for this that the American people
gave million lives and thousands of mil
lions in money?
We must understand the recent events at
Richmond in the light of this Republican
1 cAI IL. L
judges, jurors and lawyers all see it the
same way and open their mouths in an ac-
cord as happy and harmonious as though
they were only the four and twenty black
birds of the political pie. And the burden
of the song must startle the country. We
care, they say, for no result 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 OBJ
stacles to our party supremacy !; I'VE have ac-
cess to the niggers-to a vast Ignorant mass
of voters whom we can shape and use as we
will, and by whose votes we can control,
not the South merely. but the North also.
There are no precedents to be made; there
was absolutely nothing in it but the mig
ger; and this prisoner, who might be i'm
portant if there were any such national
question as good government and treason
at stake, is not even worth his board in
cdSeulaCe. Oucu Is Tue Cunes HOW uOeS
the country like it? How will the people
bear to be thus told, by the indifference
with which the representative man of the
whole tremendous revolt is set at large,
that there was no treason? How will they
bear to learn, by seeing everything forgot
ten in eagerness to secure the niger vote,
that the great dominant party sees no no
bier result in the war than the chance to
use the niggers? That it can shut its
eyes to the first necessities of restoration,
to the securing of peace and good order
and harmonizing the country; nay, that it
will actually lay down programme to
imperiI 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 reputation Of the vast debt incurred
for party purpose, and the reputation OF