The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1868-08-19
The Way to Peace.

4 The Way to Peace.
| The following extract is taken from q
speech recently delivered at Dayton, Ohio
by Hon. G. l.. Vallandigham
Depend upon it, gentlemen, no party
whose only cementing element is a syinpa-
thy of hatred, can ever be permanent in
power, or even in existence,
/ With large multitudes Of men, this spirit
of hate was the controlling,motive through.
out the late civil war, and has continued to
govern them at every step in their efforts
at reconstruction. But with smaller, yet
far more dangerous class Of politicians, the
sole aim for the last three years has been
the perpetuation of Republican rule,
through the negroes of the South. To this
basest of motives and purposes the public
good and the paciication of the country
has been steadily sacrificed; and, worse
yet, all constitutional limitation altogether
disregarded. Signally defeated in their
efforts to establish negro suffrage and
equality in the North and West, they have
now impudently in their platform proclaim
ed that each State shall regulate suffrage
for itself, while at the South the elective
franchise shall be determined by the Con-
gress Of the United States. Acting upon
the douole motive of hate and the desire
to maintain partisan supremacy, they have
DISTINGUISHED large majority of the white
population of the Southern States, and
conferred upon the negroes, by Act of Con-
gress, the right to vote; and then at the
point of the bayonet, have proceeded to
! establish seven State Governments, conA
trolled by negroes or white adventurers
meaner than they-mere sojourners, birds
of passage, and very foul birds at that I;
and have gone through the farce of admit
| ting them into the Union and to the right
of representation in the Senate and the
House. and full vote in the Electoral Col
| lege for President. In this manner, gen.
tlemen, they expect to control the legisla-
ton and the elections of the county,
And these ignorant, british negroes Of
South Carolina and Florida, and the other
States, do now make laws and levy taxes
| and create public debt for you, white men
of Ohio; and they expect to override your
choice for President.
! es, gentlemen, under these Republican
Reconstruction Acts, enforced by an army
for which you pay heavy taxes out of your
hard earnings, half million of negroes in
South Carolina reinforced by some thou
sands of adventurous white loafers from the
North and West, will control as many cleo
toral votes as million of white men in
Ohio. Aye, and at this present moment
the Governor" so-called, Of that State,
elected by negroes, under an Act of Con-
gress, and through the aid of your army,
is citizen of Ohio, having a legal settle
ment here I; so that if he would become
pauper-and South Carolina is very poor
now, and no longer able to enrich Der SAL
raps-the proper township in the country
OF Henry, in this State, could be compelled
to maintain him as public charge. And
moreover, General Willard Warner noble
confrere of his from Ohio, has, I>observe,
just been elected United States Senator
from Alabama. no
These are the doings of the Republican
party, aud if not marvellous in your eyes,
they are at LII t costly to your pockets
These are part of the blessings over which
the Chicago platform exults, and contin-
uance, and, indeed, multiplication of
General Ulysses s. Grant.
Now, gentlemen. suppose for a moment
that the case were reversed, and TINT the
South had waged successful war Of con-
",
had compelled, by force and arms, the in
PRODUCTION of slavery here, and you surren-
dercd in good faith, under pledge and
promise of all other rights within the
Union, under the Constitution; ard that
when you had no further power to resist, a
Southern Congress had, at the point of the
bayonet, forced constitutions, government
and laws upon you against your will. and
that victorious and insolent South Carroll
ma had sen. up hero tho meanest and
basest of her vagabond "Sand Hill" citizens |
with carpet-bags in their hands, to repre-
sent you, the once free white men of Ohio, |
in the Senate and House at the Federal
Capital and to usurp the places once filed
by the Morrows, the Mel Leans, the Corwins
the Ewings, the Hamers, and the Aliens of /
this glorious Commonwealth, what would
have been the emotion of wrath; and indig-
nation which would ave.burned within |
your bosoms? And yet to just such indig-
mites are South Carolina and Virginia, |
and their sister States of the "Old Thir- |
teen," scorched and SCARED all over with |
the flames OF the war OF l776, subjected by |
the false and degenerate sons of New Eng |
land sires, who stood shoulder to shoulder
by them in that grand revolutionary con-
fict, which in blood and suffering, and with |
precious treasures first bought us our liber-
ties.
All but "these men are now rebels and
traitors, and you, the Democracy, received
them with open arms and gushing hearts
to your recent Presidential Convention"
Thank God, we did, and by none were they
hailed with more cordial welcome than by,
not the bloodless, though bloodthirsty
home loyalists of the war, but BY the gal
liant and noble heroes, the Hancocks, the
Franklins, the Ewing,s the Blairs, the
Slocums and the Steedmans, who had met
them in deadly conflict amid the sulphu-
Ious canopy and shock of battle We
mean to have peace, instead we intend
TO restore the Union in fact, aud to-day
we know these men only as friends, fellow
citizens and brothersLtne descendants of
The Washington, the Loes, the Hamptons,
The Sumters,- the Marions and Prestons,
The Haynes. the Laurens aud others, who,
side by side, stood with the Hancocks, the
Adames, the Starks, the Putnames, the
Gates and the Waynes of the North in the
heroic revolutionary struggle Of rs, or with
their sons and grand-sons IN the latter
conflict of 1872, or the Mexican war of
l646-American all. whose fame is the
m frimnnv IF tho wholo corpfrv This ;o