Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1869-06-14
The CANVASS.
OPENING or THE CAMPAIGN IN EAST
TENNESSEE.
Speeches Of SeHtsr and Stokes at
Cleveland.

rom the Nashville Banner.

From the Nashville Banner.J
CLEVELAND, Tenn, June II, 1869.
The canvass between Gov. Sentel
and Gen. Stokes opened here to-day
No previous arrangement as to who
should take the initiative having beer
made, it was finally decided that Gov
Senter should lead off, which he did
for about an hour and half, followed
/ by Gen. Stokes. Then there was a
short rejoinder by each to the other
for half or three quarters of an hour.
Gov. Senter said that he appeared
for the first time in his life before the
people of his native State as a candi-
date for the highest Office within their
power to confer. That he was here
under peculiar circumstances: his op-
pOnent and himself were members Oi
the same political party, and the party
to which they belong held, or attempt
ed to hold, in Nashville. a Convention
to nominate a candidate for Governor,
which resulted in two opposing can
didates. HeheId tbs to be a repubIi-
can form of government in which the
| people have a right to choose their Of
| ticers; that he was here as q candidate
in opposition to one not heretofore a
/ political antagonist; that the spirits
! who controlled or sought to control
/ that Convention We're in the interest
! of Gen. Stokes, and had sought to de-
stroy his. standing in the Republican
party.
The friends of Gen. Stokes claimed
that they had a majority in the Con-
venti0n. H that be true, why did
| they not nominate him instead of
! breaking up the Convention? The
resolutions introduced into the State
| Senate with the eview ofexpelIing him
from his seat were brought in at the
instance of Gen. Stokes, and intro
duced by the honorable Senator whom
! he characterized as the grizzly wolf
of Hamilton. He said that Gen.
! Stokes had been called the bald eagle
of the mountains, but thought that
when he was found at midnight in Sc
cret conclaye with the grizzly wolf of
Hamilton, he resembled more the
character, and displayed more Of the
instincts of the owl than of that noble
bird. The resolutions received but
one vote -HT-ss
He wanted Gen. Stokes to tell the
people whether or not he was q Re
publican in good standing, and how
and when he got his political disa-
bilities removed. He read Stokes
Duncan letter, and then portions of
the iron-clad oath, and asked Stokes
to reconcile them. When Stokes took
the oath, the ghost Of the Duncan let
ter stared him in the face, but he said.
down, damned ghost, I see ten
thousand dollars beyond YOU" and
down went the irOn-clad, without
winking.
Stokes, he said, c0ntended that he
fought out of the Duncan letter during
the war, but that the truth was he
sw0re out of it.
Mr.. Stokes claimed next to Andy
Johnson to be the Moses of the col
Ored men in this State, and in cOnse-
quence he claimed that he would start
in the canvass with forty thousand
colOred votes. But would voting as
Stokes did in 1859 to send all the free
men Of color out of the United States
to South America or Africa, or else
sell them into slavery, give Stokes
forty thousand cOlored votes to start
with. He asked how many colored
votes it would give him {Senter) for
voting to give the colored men all the
rights, privileges and immunities of
American citizens, including that of
suffrage. Stokes voted to send every
cOlored man out of the District of
Columbia, yet he is the special cham
pion of the colored race.
Governor Senter maintained that
colored men having received all the
rights, privileges and immunities of
American citizens ought to bear the
burdens and responsibilities of the
same, and that he was in favor of re-
quiring the cOlored people to pay
taxes, both poll and property taxes,
where they own property, and if elec--
ted Governor, he would recommend
the Legislature to call a Convention to
amend the Constitution. The colored
men owed it to themselves, to their
posterity and to the State to bear their
part of its burdens and not to be citi-
zens by charity. r7s
The time, he thought, had now come
for us to have peace, by extending the
elective franchise to all persons.
whether citizen or soldier during the
war, except to those who had made
themselves outlaws. If elected Gov
ernOr of the State, he would recon-.
mend to the Legislature the calling of
q convention to amend the constitn-
ton in that respect, and for that pur-
pose. He favored q liberal system of
public schools. He did not vote for
the present school law, because he
thought there was too much machin-
cry in it, as it then had been only
about seven months in operation. He
thought it needed some modification.
however.
Stokes SPEECH. a
Gen. Stokes now took the stand.
He defended his course during the
war and since, and was evidently
greatly annoyed by the position in
which he had been made to stand by
the comments of Governor Senter on
his Duncan letter, and voting against
the resolution cOmmending Major An.
derson for withdrawal from Fort
Moultrie, etc. He charged upon the
officers of the State Government the
responsibility of running the State in
debt, and squandering the school
fund and public revenues. He said
that it was controlled by railroad
rings and other monopolies. He de-
nounced the system of appointing
Railroad Receivers, and denied any
intention or effort to injure Governor
Senter's. standing in the Republican.
party. be had nothing to do with
the resolution introduced against him
by Senator Cate. The Duncan letter
was a private letter, written one
month before the State voted to go out.
of the Union, and still that letter is
dragged into this canvass. Every
rebel had met him with the Duncan
letter. He had been in the Federal
army three years, and thought that
ought to wipe it out. The only real
question between him and Governor
Senter In this canvass was rs to ex-
tending the elective franchise.