Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1870-06-01
Remarks of Mr.. Willard.

Respecting the Democratic cidnlOT about the
nights Of American citizens abroad
When the diplomatic and consular appro
priation bill was under discussion recently
in the House of Representatives at Washing
ton, Mr.. Voorhees, Of Indiana took advantage
of the opportunity it offered to make fero-
cious att OK upon the administration for not
avenging the insults and outrages which, he
asserted, American citizens had suffered in
Cuba at the hands of the Spsniards, and in
England at the hands of British officials
Mr.. WILLARD got the floor, and briefly sug-
gested to the Democrats who were appa-
rently boiling -..he,iRSignation at the tslst
thought of va - ~isI--~sS "brvhd
were o-sr = tights Of peaoeabfs
American Citizens IN this country were of as
much concern as the rights of American fill
busters abroad.
We give below Mr.. WILLARD's remarks as
reported in the Globe:
Mr.. Chairman, it does not surprise me to
see gentlemen on the other side of the House.
when they think they can make a point
against Republican Administration, grow
warm and eloquent and violent in their de-
nunciati0n OF the Government, which they
insist Is not taking care of its citizens on for
eign soil but l should have little more
confidence in the sincerity of their love for
American citizens, and might be inclined to
look upon this efervescence Of patriotic in
dignation as something beside political clap
trap, if | did not know that in most if not
all of the late rebel States for the last two or
three years American citizens have been shot
down, not by twos or fves or tens or scores
only, but by hundreds, and no voice of gen
tlemen that side of the House has been
heard in denunciation of such murders. No,
sir ; the gentlemen on that side of the House
have no Indignation to express, no elOQuence
to expend in denunciations, when loyal
American citizens are murdered at home for
the crime of being Republicans. But when
they can find the case of one, two, three, or
half dozen American citizens, who have
gone on expeditions to foreign soil and vio-
lated the laws of other Governments, and
who have been visited only with the penalty
denounced for violation of those laws, then
they come here and huri their fierce words
against a Republican Administrati ton, charg-
ing that it is false to the rights of the Amer
lean people because it does not al once use
all the military and naval force of the Re-
public in avengiDg what they are pleased to
call these insults to our flag and these inva-
slons of the rights of American citizens
| remember further-and it is in the mem
DRY of all the members of this House-when
American citizens were shot down in cold
blood by day and by night all over the plains
of Kansas. And whenever a Republican
newspaper or a Republican speaker denounc-
ed those cold blooded murders by the border
ruffians, who then rode on their mission of
murder through that battle-ground of free
dom, we were told by Democratic presses
and Democratic politicians that these stories
were all manufactured for political effect
Now, sir, where one American citizen. in
violation of any American rights, has suffer
ed on foreign soil, one hundred or one thou
sand American citizens, good American
citizens as the gentleman from Indiana or
myself, have been shot down at home, for no
offence except that they believed in Gov
ernment of the people and acted with the
party that holds that doctrine as one article
of it's faith Elections have been carried in
southern States by terrorism and violence
and wholesale murders, and men have come
here with their cert ficates of election almost
dripping with the blood of such citizens.
But it has not been nv fortune to hear the
voice of the gentleman from Indiana, MIR
VOORHEES,, or Of any other gentleman on
that side of the House in this Hall, insisting
that the death of these American citizens
shot down on American soil, under the pro-
lection of the American flag, for daring TO
exercise the Americans right to the ballot,
should be avenged by the W hole power of the
American Government. Yet the gentlemen
raise their voices here in the loftiest and
most impassioned tones of denunciatfon and
invective, and in derision speak of the gen.
tleman who has charge under this Admins
tration of the conduct of our foreign affairs
as : the dead Secretary of State" because he
does not, at their demand, at once insist on
redress from Spain and England for the
wrongs which they assert a dozen American
citizens have suffered at the hands of these |
Governments.
Sir. the appeals of these gentlemen in be-
halt of people struggling for freedom else
where and for the rights of American citizens
abroad would come nearer to my heart.
would command more of my sympathy, n l
saw them standing by law and order here :;
if L saw them asserting the rights of all /
American citizens at home if l saw them
defending the purity OF the ballot-box. by
which alone the people can be secure in their