Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1868-03-09
FOrPresident and VicePresident
Of the United States,
THE NOMINEES OF THE DEMO
CRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION.
The Farce.

What was dignihed on Saturday Witn
the name of an election has proved, as
we feared, mere cheat and farce. We
should be obliged to King Brownlow if
he would appoint our officers, without
putting us to so much expense and trou-
BILE about it. 1t would be more respect
able to do the thing by his simple fiat,
than to use the blacksssas instruments,
wasting their time and demoralizing
them by false oaths, and teaching them
tricks and frauds. 1t was very easy to
carry pretended election by shutting
off white voters from the polls, register
ing negroes from adjoining States and
counties, gaining their solid support by
lying them into enmity to the white popu-
lation, and encouraging them to stuff the
ballot boxes with fraudulent votes, and
trample down the freedom of elections.
But the morality of the transaction is
another matter. And the evil of it, as to
the blacks, will extend itself far into the
future. Far better it would be if Brown
lovwould maintain the exclusive mon
opoly of playing the devil, so as not to
drag the poor ignorant blacks down to
his own moral level.
To affirm that there was an election on
Saturday, in which the wishes and will
of the people of Shelby county was fairly
made known, would be to affirm what
every honest man knows to be a brazen
falsehood.
We have no more had an election than
we should have had if there had been
a mass meeting of the whites and blacks
of Shelby county, with half as many
blacks from the surrounding counties
superadded, and the whole matter had
been determined by the sound, in riua
poce vote and stentorian uproar.
The Radicals from Maine,to California
will now exult over their little victory,
conceived in sin and brought forth in
iniquity. They have triumphed, of
course, as the pickpocket and the high
wayman triumphs over all law, rule and
restraint of good government. We are
glad of It. We desired fair expression
of the will of Shelby county in this case,
it is true, as we did that of the State in
the Governors election. But it is well
we are beaten in both, if it can be done
by such practices Decent uifn pill be
driven from all connection with eulprits,
thus convicted and heralded to the four
winds by their own act The yet sover-
eign people of America will take warning
that the days of intelligent republican
government are gone forever, unless the
proper corrective is applied. Men of
integrity, of thought, of capital and of
decency, throughout the country, will
ask themselves how they should like to
be thus under the government of
mob, composed almost entirely of
an inferior race, embittered by wrongs
and rendered revengeful by multitude
of partisan falsehoods. They will shrink
aghast from the appalling spectacle, they
will denounce the atrocious outrage, and
rise in their wrath, in numbers and
might, to save the republic from ruin
and the men of their blood from the
despoiling hand of usurping tyrants,
whose rule is ruin. We do not regret
the result. 1t lays upon our county a
new adversely, it is true. But it will
hasten the day Of our deliverance from
misrule and oppression. And it will
therefore work, as we trust, to our ulti-
mate advantage as well as to that of the
country at large 1t is well when Glover
Foot is about that he should be seen
horns, hoofs aud all