Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1872-04-14

a few days, that call has beel
issued, signed, as | am told, by all bu
| two of the electors, and, l believe, bl
, every State officer who was elected OF
. the ticket with Abraham Lincoln il
1864, except, perhaps, the Governor o
, the State. 1t was signed, / know, by
the Auditor of the State, Secretary o
the State and the Treasurer of the State
who were elected on the ticket with
Lincoln. / have similar information
from other States. 1t can, if you will
!, at your hands be made success, but tC
make it success, the Republicans must
i be prepared TO face and put down miu-
ions of party, and demagogues, and
hirelings, and thieves, and robbers, who
plunder people, and who will eXc0mmu-
nicate you from what they cali the par
ty, because they set themselves up to
be the Republican party. Laughter.
No more like the Republican party are
these pIunderers and thieves party OF
purity and honesty, than the devil was
like the angel Gabriel. Laughter. ]
They will go on, not discussing the is
sues of the present day-nO; but during
the coming political campaign these
same persons viii engage in fighting
over again the battles of the war, and
abolishing slavery, and putting down
the rebellion. To your demand for an
honest administration of the govern
ment, they will reply, "YOu are a
traitor to the Republican party" Zap
plause.l TO your demand for reform in
the manner of appointing and removing
from Office, they will answer: eve
abolished slavery" To your demand for
reform, they will answer, "We put
down the rebellion" With the living
issues of the present they have nc
concern, further than to retain
power by seeking to Tesurrect
those which are dead. Now, if
there be any Republican who has not
independence and manhood enough to
meet with scorn and contemptableness
these denunciatiOns and subterfuges,
| he has no business to go to Cincinnati.
/ TApplause. Let him wear the collar
/ and bear the burthen which the whip
pers-in of the party put upon him; and
| let these old BOurbOns of both parties
those who talk of re-enacting the fugi-
tive slave laws, and expecting to vote
| for Andrew Jackson, and those who are
/ still talking of putting down the rebel
! lion and abolishing slavery, expecting
| to vote for General Grant, who is as
politically dead as Andrew Jackson is
physically. Applause. Well, let
/ these old BourbOns fight these battles
over and continue to bury their dead,
but Let independent Republicans all over
! the land believe in prOwess, in reform, in
/ the living issues of the present assembly
at Cincinnati, and let them there in
augJTate meaures.
by men high in authority that the
! States of the Union have such powers
only as are conferred upon them by the
/ Constitution of the United States,
when directly the reverse is true, and
! States have all power except such as
/ the Constitution of the United States
| has conferred upon us or has withheld
1 from the States. The difference is this:
! The government of the United States is
government of deriYative powers.
Thus, in the State the government IS in
herent where they have all the powers
not denied them, while the government
of the United States has no power eX-
cept such as is given it [applausel and
such as the Constitution of the United
States in terms for it declares in one of
its amendments that all power not
conferred by til constitution of the
United States is reserved TO the States
respectively, or to the people of the
State. But | pass from these encrOaeh-
ments of Federal government to
another matter that is complained
of, and Justly, and perhaps more
loudly than any other by the people;
that is the abuses and corruption
of the Government, This seems to be a
form of corruption on the part Of the
officials here in the city of New York,
first disclosed by the robberies which
were being practieed by those in au-
thority, and that awakened public
sentiment in the country that caused
the people all over the land 10 look to
their officers and be certain what dispo-
sition they were making of the money
which Yas collected from them, and in
the city of Chicago several city officials
have been convicted of receiving bribes,
and other offenses, and are now suffer-
ing the penalty of their crimes in prison.
Applause. In the government of the
United States, although we have not
been able to unearth and disclose all the
corruptiOns-in fact, l think We have
only lust seen the surface of what exists
below the stream-enough has been
seen to shOW that abuses exist. l
will Illustrate by reference to-
two other cases. One that has recently
occurred and been brought 10 light is
that of one of the officers that has
charge of all the national banks of the
country, without whose fiat the nation
al banks cannot exist, whose duty 1t is
to supervise and watch them when or
ganized so that there can be no fraud
upon the law or upon the people. With
in the past few weeks it has been dis
covered that that officer when he was
inqulring into the delinquency of one of
these banks, received, as a present
from one of its officers, a carriage and a
set of harness in the city of Washing
ton. He was observed walking
down one of the avenues in
company with an officer who had
neen summoned there to give
an account Of certain defalcatiOns
i'm his bank and the misuse of money
of the people afterward. He walked out
with the head of the bureau, and on the
way passed carriage-shop and walked
in and bought a fine carriage and har-
ness. The clerks, Il Is proved, also re-
eeived moneys. Well, what happened? ?
Why, the committee that investigated
this affair IA committee that was friend
Iy TO that officer and friendly 10 the ad-
ministration) reported that in their
opinion for the good management Of the
Currency Bureau IL was required that
there should be change in the officer at
the head of that department [laughterl;
thereupOn that officer was permitted to
resign and go out of office honOrably on
that resignation. Why, few years ago
now, suppose that officer had been de-
hnquent in the discharge of some politi- |
cal requirement; suppose he had refused
to pay an assessment for party purposes; |
that he refused to use his infiu- |
enoe to pack primary meeting
or control convention in the interest of
some faYorite purpOse-some Congress
man who got him his place-do you think |
he would have been permitted to resign? |
Why, the political guillotine would have |
come down and off would have come |
his bead, and his trunkless body would |
have tumbled out of office as a monu- |
ment to warn all other officers of the fate |
Ofthose who betrayed them. Applause.
There is another officer who has been
recently investigated only slightly-one |
of the Cabinet officers-the secretary of
one of the departments, And what has |
he been doing? Why simply this. A
few years ago-during the war-the gov
ernment entered into a contract with /
certain persons to build some war ves-
sells. After the contracts We're made
the government changed the plans some-
what, and, it is alleged, they delayed
the contractors in the completion of the
vessels, by which they suffered loss in
of the rise in the price of
and labor. In the year 1867,
two years after the war was over, they
that they had suffered great
losses by reason of this action of the
and asked to be paid.
Cou o,reas rasSad a laxU a,ithorizinne tho