The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1868-07-23
From the Cincinnati Commercially
Thurman's Great Speech
DELIVERED AT
Grafton, West Virginia,
Thursday, July 18th, lsGs.

AhufSuay, July I6th, lsOs
Concluded.
THE CONFISCATION IDEA.
Why, my friends, will you please t
recollect that it is not six months sine
the cry of confscation was yet heart
in the halls of Congress, and we know
that the man who uttered that cry th'
longest, is the most persistent man OIL
the face of this Republic. lCries o
"Butler."l Mr.. Thad. Stevens. Now
we know that confiscation has hung
over the people of the South. The ides
of taking their lands and dividing then
up, and giving them to the negroes IL
forty acre lots, has ever b0en present
before them. Now, appeal to you-fol
see before me thousands of men whom
| take to be farmers-I appeal to you
with what heart could you work YOU
lands; with what heart could you lay
out your money in improving them
with what heart could yop build
fences, houseS&nd barns, ifyou thought
that the very next Congress that sit'
might take away your lands and give
them to the negroes This has just
been the condition of the South. 1t il
nv solemn belief that when the South
ern army surrendered, if the Govern
ment of the United States had acted to-
ward the Southern people with that
magnanimity and wise craftsmanship
that ought to have presailed If they
h.d said to them, "We fought this bat
tie as we resolved in Congress to do,
not to persecute ysu, not to destroy you
not to interfere with the rights OF
States or individuals, but simply to
maintain our Constitution and the in
tcgrity of the Republic, and now that
you have laid down your arms, now
that You have acknowledged your cause
to be lost, we will show you that we
arc Us true rs our words-that we are
once more brothers; and we will see
that the rights and dignity of no single
State shall be impaired. go To yOnr
homes, beat your swords" into plow-
shares, and instead of tearing the bos-
oms of brothers with the weapons OF
war, and breaking mp mind and body
which God has given yoH, 90 to your
lands, and do as He has told you, out
ofths earth you shall draw your bread j"
had that been said to the people OF
the South, / tell you, my friends, that
we wOnld have been more firmly united
this day than before the war broke out.
| Cries of That's so," and loud cheers. ]
ERRORS CORRECTED.
say it to you upon mature rcilec-
tion, for the war has corrected many
errors that prevailed; for instance,
there were too many Southern people
who, being n very ehivalrous people
themselves, thought the Northerners
would not fight. The war has correct
ed that. While the Northerners thought
that the SOuthernels were a set Of mere
sporters aud brasgarts, and that they
would not fight. Well, those people
got their ideas corrected: too. Great
laughter Men of sense on both sides
knew that they would fight. Men of
sense knew that those i'll whom ran
the blood of those heroes who achieved
the independence OF l776, never failed
to fight when it was for their interest or
their honor. But there were people
who had these mistaken notions, and
the war corrected them, and made the
people OF each section respect those OF
the other moro than they had hereto
fore done; and it has made us n band OF
brothers from the st. Lawrence to the
Gulf. [Cheers.! That was the feeling
of the people and the feeling of the
armies, on both sides, until these Radi-
cal politicians set to work to IN
a 1,nn nI
ty, and pcrvert their judgment,
and pervert their very souls so
as t. make them do wrong. Then com.
menced that series of Congressional
measures. Then was that fourteenth
amendment of the Constitution pro-
posed, when it was known full well
there was not Southern man who was
fit to hold up his face in Gods sunlight
and look his neighbor in the face, who
could consent to vote for it; thing
that required every man to write his
own dishonor aud the dishonor of every
man in whom he had trusted or con-
fided; To write their swn dishonor in
the Constitution of their county; an
amendment that required every father
to write that his sou, who fell in battle
in support of the lost cause, was man
who deserved to be disfranchised in the
land that gave him birth; and yet we
asked the father to assent to that in the
Constitution of his country. They knew
it conld never be adopted; they never
intended it should be adopted. They
proposed it that it might be rejected,
and that they might prevent the res
toration of the Union, and pretense
for keeping the States out of the exer-
else of their rights. Ii was mere
trick, an artifice; but it served its pur-
pose. 1t was rejected; aud the refusal
of the Southern people to write their
own dishonor in the fundamental law
of the land was made the apology and
the excuse for those restrictive acts
which have followed; the whole sum
and substance of which is to put the
heel of the negro upon the neck of the
white man.
REASON OF NEGRO RULE.
And why should they wish to pat the
heel of the negro on the neck of the
white man For the COED of the ne
groi They are foolish to think so, or
they are the most wilfully deceived men
IN the world. 1t is not the negro that
these Radical politicians love. They
put an end to what is called slavery, in
order to institute political slavery in
which they shall own six or seven hun
dred thousand voters with black skins
They would no more allow the negro to
vote if they thought he would vote with
the Southern white men than they
would think of permitting him to enter
their family circle, to make him the hus
bands of their daughters or the wives
of their sons. Not the least bit of it in
the world 1t is because they want the
negro to vote-not rs the negro may
please, not as the negro's instinct may
teach him, OF interest dictate-but they
vast him to vote as loyal leagues, in
augurated and kept up BY the Freed
mems Bureau, kept up by carpet-bag ad
venturers-he is to vote as they dictate
1t is because they want him as voting
machine of that kind to keep them il
power and enable them TO rule rs of thu