The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1868-06-24
Platforms.

readers to tho annexed article from the
National Intelligencer. It presents Che
issue, the paramount issue, of the impend-
ing campaign, and is the bugle note that
will lead the hosts OF Democracy to
glorious triumph. The 1ntelligencer says:
"The convention which met the other
day at Chicago undertook to frame and
put forth to the country platform. Such
work was naturally evasive, but it was
also gratuitous and impertinent. Thereal
platform-ofthe Republican party. by which
it will and ought to be judged, are it's
acts and deeds of violence and usurpation,
of cruelty, malice and fraud, which, fen
three years past, have stained its career.
In that time it has dominated by two
thirds majorities in Congress-, and this
power it has used virtually to abrogate
the executive and judicial branches of the
Government. By its infamous statutes,
by it's general history and character, by
the mischiefs, uneasiness, prostration, and
discomfort it has brought upon the coun.
try, it will be judged and condemned.
General Grant is simply the mouth-pece,
or rather the puppet, of the present Cen
gress, and to take the one is to perpetuate
the other It is, therefore, on Congress
that tho popular judgment is to be passed,
and that body cannot deny OF evade its
own record.
considering the general reaction against
this Radical party, and the number of pa
triotic, able. and true men presented for
the Conservative nomination, each and
all worthy of enthusiastic support, weare
not sure that the preparation of platform
at New York may not be of more impor-
tance than even the choice of the proper
candidates. This view is cogently sug-
gested by the consideration that some
ambitious persons are now undertaking
to speak &c cathedra on this subject, and
to suggest gross departures from sound
principles. Fortunately, there is no rea.
son to distrust the integrity or wisdom OF
the delegates when they shall come to-
gether at New. York. ANY propositions
tor halfway house between Radicalism
and Conservatism will be secuted with
the contempt they deserve. Under this
head may fairly be classed all suggestions
looking to negro suffrage in any form or
shape. The votes of Ohio and Michigan
repudiating negro suffrage altogether by
forty thousand majority each, form the
keynote to the real feelings and convic.
tions of the people, which politicians will
only tamper with at their peril.
"The positive affirmations of the plat
form, in our Judgment, should bo directed
to the living and vital issues of the day.
We have to deal with the present and the
future in spirit of tsl..h, craftsmanship,
and reverence for the Constitution. But
we may not ignore the past wholly. The
great Conservative movement is essen
TALLY protest against Radicalism, and
the manifold crimes and ontrages OF this
last party must be sternly denounced.
More especially do we refer TO the So
called reconstruction acts, by which ne
gro suffrage has been forced upon the
South. Those acts are the most shame
less acts of tyranny and atrocity ever
perpetrated by men claiming to be civil
lied, and are void in law az in right. The
Conservative party is pledged to the over
throw of this great wrong, and this faith
must be re-afirmed in language that shall
not fail either in emphasis or in point.
"The general principle that suffrage
shall and should be left to the States is
we'll enough; it is constitutional and
sound. But to rest here would, under
present circumstances, be vain and .illu-
sive. The general declaration answers
very well tor New York, Ohio, and Penn
sylvania; for there we have governments
under the control of the white race. and
it is for each to say whether they will ad-
nit the few blacks among them 10 the
ballot or not, and under what conditions.
But if we come to the South we no longer
find the white race in control of the power
of tn. States. That control has been
violently wrested from them by Congress
sional despotism, and, by system OF dis
Embellishments and frauds combined, the
whites have been consigned TO an almost
hopeless negro yoke. The governments
shortly to be recognized by Congress, re-
onire each voter to swear to "accept" Tor
all time the doctrine of the political equal
ity of the two races and by this test oath
the whites are shut out from the polls.
And this is what Congress has done in
nearly all the Southern States. In all
save Virginia and Texas the negro gov
ernments are in force and able to perpet-
uate themselves To tell the whites of
the States that suffrage is to be left to the
States to regulate, without declaring these
negro governments to be tyranny and
usurpation, is to trife with and evade a
great issue. II is to turn our eyes away
from great crimo, to ignore the senti-
mcnts of the Northern masses as evinced
in every election where the issue has been
presented to them, and wonld be an aban.
donmcnt of principle alike disgracetul
and impolitic. In short it would De a
dissolution of tho Conservative party"
A1ra nronosa therefare manfullY and