Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1867-08-14
AUGUST IA, 1867.

year dlber year, WltnOuC reward or the
hope thereof, all for the sake of free gov
ernment and the good old cause of
the Union, which our fathers left
US. No grander spectacle was
ever witnessed in political history any
where. see no signs of dissolution here
to-day. L can not distinguish in the coun-
tenances here, after the laps of twenty
three years, any change looking like de- |
leat. discern the same speaking eye and
thinking tace-resolvedJ never to dispair,
and by that sign shall we conquer. Bour-
bons, are we? Well say to the Republic |
can leaders that if they imagine that be-
cause we may be beaten this year, we will
surrender, they are mistaken. If we are
oeaten next year. we will not surrender
then. They will find the Democratic ban
ners still streaming in the wind, with
staudard-bearers readyito lift them up and
bold them aloft, if they are stricken to the
dust. [Applause.l So'long, as we have a
free Government so long the Democratic
party will refuse to odespair.7 By no artffice
can itbe dissolved. 1t will last as long as
the Government. It commenced with the
Government, and can end only with it.
si '5.rov sKEDADDLERs. , w
81 The negro. question can. no longer be
evaded. There it stands. Look at your
newspaper aud behold it staring you in
the face. Look at your ticket on the day
of the election, and behold it printed there
in the constitutional Amendment-Yes.
Are you the men who were opposed to ne
gro suffrage year ago? By their fruits
shall ye know them Mark whether your
Republican. friend who tells you he is OPP
posed to negro suffrage scratches his ticket
when he goes to the polls on election day.
But this is not all. There is white dis
franchisement clause to this proposed
amendment. Not satisfied with bringing
the negro in to vote and hold office, the Re-
1Dl;h ;h,,,o oAo1.,
! the people of Ohio that they shall disfran-
| chise forty thousand white men3 in the
State. OF the forty thousand whom they
would exclude twenty-five thousand are
Republicans. Did they stop to think of
that? What is their argument, these inn
beetles in. the Legislature and in conven-
tion? What was the argument? "The
men who ran away from the draft. were
! all Copperheads." I beg your pardon, sir,
| they are Republicans. L lived in Canada,
| and had chance to see a great many of
| them, for they nearly all came there
[Laughter.l A majority of the skedaddlers
were men of your own party. But they
have heralded it from the stump and news-
papers without inYestigatin the fact at all,
that ifya man ran off from the. draft he was
la Copperhead. Deserters are to be eX-
cluded. Why? ''No body would desert
but Copperhead-Republica certainly
wouldn't / beg your pardon. A major
| ity of the deserters are, Republicans; espe-
cially those who deserted during tie last
few years of the war. These are facts, in
controvertible facts; and those men have
asked the people of Ohio while enfranchis-
| ing the negro, to disfranchise forty thou
sand white men, under the pretense that
they have forfeited the right ofcitizenship,
by deserving or skedaddling. Now, as a
question of right and justice how stands
| it? My mouth can not be closed on ques-
tion of that kind. / say to you, that there
were circumstances that justified many
men in escaping from the draft
! Who were the men who sought to
escape? The rich man, or the rich mans
i son? No, not a bit of it. They could pay
| for substitute, from three to eight hun
dred dollars, or whatever it cost. 1t was
the poor man of Ohio who had to run
away. Why? Because he had wife and
4 children dependent upon him; because
| starvation stared him in the face, and his
family needed him to provide for the wants
and comforts of his family. Every man
who escaped from the draft did so because
he hadn't money enough to pay tor sub
stitute. Therefore, it is proposed to dis
franchise a man for poverty-to take away
his citizenship because God has not given
him much of this worlds goods. Is that
right? TCries of ''no."I What was the cry
during the war, when the CONSUMPTION was
sweeping through the country? 1t was
|
precious for the poor man to forfeit and
he had nomoney. Mechanics and laboring
men, with two or three dollars a day, had
not, enough money to buy sub
stitute. How could they be ex-
pected to. raise five or eight hun
dred dollars? and finally thousand
was the price of substitute, 1 believe
We had a system of substitute brokerage
then-a new business to the American peo-
pie. There has been a good deal said about
selling negroes in the South, but white
men were regularly bought AID sold in the
North at the time to which 1 refer. We
had white men sold like slaves; and mer
running about taking contracts to buy anc
sell men, and filling up the draft for sc
mueL money. WhereYera man had mon
ey he got a substitute. Poor men, who
had no money to pay for substitutes, had
to run away from the draft, and thev were
the only kind ofmen who did so. Yet thai
is the crime for which it is proposed to dis
franchise twenty or thirty thousand mer
in Ohio. know very well that one-hal1
of them are Republicans, for God in his
distribution of fayors of fortune was more
lust than Republican domination. The
poverty of this war fell alike upon Repub
licans and Democrats. There were thou
sands and tens of thousands of them who
were too poor to raise money to buy
substitute, and were unIrwNiillllins
|
were the most violent Kind of Repub
lieans at home.a 1 saw themin Canada.-
So, too, in regard, to deserters.
do not Justify desertion. 1t was an of
fense against the law. There was no offens,
against the law in running away from tn,
draft, but desertion is a grave offense il
time of war. Yet how was it with mel
during the last years of the war Th
hardships of the war had increased to
very great extent, and dthe object and pur
pose of the war had been diverted iron
what they were announced when enlist
ments were called for. Thousands of mel
got discouraged and left for home Will
the war lastsd.G lBut there is another elias
of men marked as ,deserters-men who lef
the army after the surrender of Lee an
johnson, when the war was really over
believing their term of enlistment ended
The war was practically at an end, and tn
legal and technieal-right of the Govern
ment to the service of men who had enlist
ed for the war, had ceased. 1t might hav
been eXpedient to keep some of them il
longer; if so, it ought to have been
matter OF bargain with the men. Yet thes
men are to be disfranchised too. Every sol
of yours, my dear woman, who went nom
when he heard the war was at an end, i
marked and branded as a deserter; and tn
proposition is to disfranchise him as such
Now. mark the proposition that one Ashley
has had introduced into Congress. be
lieve it has passed, but 1 don't know; or
1 recollect right, it passed one house an
didn't pass the other. 1t is TO exempt thes
eighteen Thousand men of Ohio from tn
penalty of desertion, so far as voting goe:
but with special provtso that back pa
and bounty shall not be paid to them
What do you think of that, my soldie
friend? Come, walkup with Sambo to tn
polls-he is your equal Well take ava
the penalty from you so tar as voting
concerned. Well let you vote for negr
suffrage. You maywalk up to the polls an
cast your vote 1or the Republican ticket
but, mark you, your back pay and bount
is forfeited because you are deserter; bu
fer the rnrnnse of vntino for the nemrn n