The Hancock Jeffersonian. [volume] (Findlay, Ohio) 1857-1870, 1868-08-28
Let the People Read.
Reminiscenceaof the Old Masters.

. ReminiscenceAof the Old Master
! The Democratic platform and Den
lOcratic candidates take the broa
lground that the acts of reconstru(
Ition are 'snull and void" and thi
they will be overturned if Seymou
and Blair are elected. Gen. Blai
invokes force against them, and hi
apped is re-echoed by all the rebt
papers and politicians. The effect
if this plan should succeed withOu
war, which is simply impossible
would be to leave the insurgen
States almost precisely as they wer
before secession. 1t would serve
good purpose to show how the Gov
ernment of the United States wa
Regarded during the war by thos
who now arrogantly demand this
they shall be restored to all th'
franchises they had under it in 1860
In January, 1868, Jefferson Davi.
said in speech at Richmond, as re
ported in the Richmond Eaqrier, o
January Z OF that year:
"You fight the offscourings of th'
earth. If the question were propos
ed to you whether you would com
bine with hyenas or Yankees, l trus
every Virginisn would say give m.
the hyena.'" Cries of "good,'
"good,' and applause 4l
COMMENT.-Recollect there were
no "carpet-baggers" in the South
when the gentle JEFF. used these
words, and that Seymour & Co.,
were in hearty sympathy with the re
bellion at that time. =
The Richmond Dispatch of the 1Ott
of January, 1868, used this Ian
|guage:
We warn the Democrats and Con.
servatiyes OF the North to dismiss
from their minds the miserable de.
lusion that the South can ever con.
sent to enter again upon any terms,
the old Union. If the North will
allow US to write the Constitution
ourselves. and give US every guaran.
tee we would ask, we would sooner
be under the government ofEngland
or France than under Union with
men who have shown that they can
not act in good faith, and are the
most barbarous and inhuman, as well
a. the most treacherous, of man.
kind.
CoMMENT.-Recollect this was be.
fore Reconstruction" was ever
dreamed of, and when peace on al.
most any terms would have been
agreed to by the North.
The New Hampshire Democrats
having proposed that, elf the South
would come back into the Union, the
Democracy of the North will do all
in their power to gain for them 1.-THE
Southern States) such guarantees al
will secure their safety" the Rich
mond Sentinel at the same time de-
clared:
Do the New Hampshire Democrats
reason fer one moment that we would
SO much as think of reunion with
such people2 Rather tell one to
be welded to a corpse. Rather join
hands with a fiend from the pit.
Even the meek and sainted A. II
Stephens declared, July %, 1862, in
a speech at Charleston, S. c., after
the battles of Gettysburg and Vicks.
burg:
As for reconstruction, such thing
was impossible--such an idea must
not be tolerated for moment. The
only terms on which we can obtain
permanent peace is final and COM
plete separation from the North.
Rather than submit to anything
short of that, let US all resolve to die
like men worthy of freedom.
CoMMENT.--But having been con.
quered in honorable battle, Mr.
Stephens now proposes not only to
come back against the laws of the
conquerers, but to take command OF
the Government itself.
On the 18th of August following,
Robert Toombs, of Georgia, said, in
a letter dated Washington, Geor.
gia:
can conceive Of no extremity
to which my country could be re.
duced in which l would, for single
moment, entertain any proposition
for any union with the North on any
terms whatever. Whom all else is
lost, propose to unite with the
thousands of my own countrymen
who have found honorable deaths, il
not graves on the battlefield.
This is the same gentleman who
on the 10th Of July, at A tlanta,
Georgia, Endorsed the nominations
of Seymour and Blair, "because he
knew them in the past, and was will.
ing to trust them in the future. Rad.
icalism, the greatest criminal the
world ever saw, is now on trial be
fore the grand inquest of the De
mocratic party"
Howell Cobb. the associate Of
Toombs, and President of the rebe
Congress, and all through the wal
a violent agitator, is the author o.
the declaration, as early as the 4tl
of June, 1861, that, secession is ,
fixed and irrevocable fact, and separ
alton is perfect, complete, and per
petual."
And at the same Atlanta meeting
on the 10th of July, at which Toombi
spoke, as we gather from the rebe
organ the Atlanta Constitutions
Grant and the Chicago platform
were scared with the fires of hi
{ (Cobb's) indignation. The election
of such a man upon such a set O
principles would be the greatest ca
lamity that could befall the Who'll,
country.
Governor Zebulon B. Vance, O
North Carolina, made an elaborat,
speech at Wilkesboro, in that State
| in the fall OF 1864, in which he de
clared that
There is no more possibility o
reconstructing the old Union, and re
constructing things as they wer
four years ago, than exists for yo1
to gather up the scattered bones o
your sons who have fallen in thi
struggle from one end of the cou1tr,
to the other, reclothe them with flesh
It'll their veins with the blood the
have so generously shed, DC.
And yet this same Vance, at
public meeting in New York on tn
evening Seymour was nominated