The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1872-04-04
A Scathing Dellunciation of the Republican
PARTY.

A Scathing DelunciatiOn of the Republican
Party.
The special correspondent of the Baltimore
Gazette makes the following report of speech
delivered by Hon. Daniel W. VOORHEES,, OF In
diana:
WASHINGTON, March "a, 1872.
Very unexpectedly, yesterday, MIR. voorhees,
got the floor in the House, and made one OF the
most thorough speeches, arraigning the Repub-
lican party and the present Administration,
that has yet been made in Congress.
Mr.. VOORHEES,, in opening, referred to the
condition of many of the States in the Union,
which, he says, excites the unmingled pity and
indignation of the civilized world. They are
the theme of sorrowful and of bitter comment
wherever the channels of human intelligence
penetrate. They engage the attention OF all
the departments of the Government. Execu-
tive proclamations spread evil tidings about
them, and hurl every principle OF their hoer-
ties, every muniment of their safety to the
ground. ...... =
Congress enacts laws against them which ut
terlv destroy every vestige of freedom, and
forge and rivet on their helpless limbs the fet-
ters of despotism. It also sends forth its pow
erfill missionaries of mischief in the form of
committees, backed by the money and the pow
er of the Government, whose labors are to
blacken the character and the fame of their
people under the guise of official Investigations
and official reports. The head of the Depart
ment of Justice, the late Attorney General, he
who led his people. into the war, and then re-
turned to plague and lay waist the hearthstones
of his followers superintended in person the
inouisition and the torture inflicted upon the
descendants of those who fought in the battles of
the Revolution.
The army of the United States, in time of
profound peace, has been launched like bolt OF
destruction into their midst. 1t is engaged in
seizing, without sworn charge or warrant OF
law, the youth, the middle-aged and the gray
haired grand-sires in the sanctuary OF Ameri=
can homes, and driving them like herded beasts
into crowded prisons. And the President him
self, in his recent message prepared, as he says,
in haste, as if he had affairs of greater lmpor
tance to engage his attention, yet found time
to give his sanction to all this, and to add
his malignant mite to the general accusa-
ton.
And so Mr.. Voorhees, proceeded TO- arraign
the Republicans, charging that since peace
came, seven years ago, that party has poured
upon the unresisting and helpless South the
floods of disorder, corruption, bankruptcy,
crime, oppression and ruin; that by its conduct
and policies every blessing of free government
has been scourged from the face of country
containing over twelve millions of people, and
larger in extent than many of the foremost
powers of Europe; by this party the Constitu-
ton has been trampled under foot, dwarfed into
dead-letter, or rwidened and extended by frau
dulent amendments, according as the unscru-
pulous purposes of powerful party would be
best promoted from turret to foundation the
Republican party have torn down the govern
ments of eleven States; have rent all their
local laws and machinery into fragments and
trampled upon their ruins. Mr.. VOORHEES, de-
scribed the ostracism and political punishments
visited upon the old citizens of the South
Every man who, during the conflict between
the sections, was clothed with the slightest re-
sponsibility, has been marked by the blight OF
ineligibility, and, like the leper of old, it was
made crime for the people to again reach
forth to him the hand of friendship. Even the
sacred instincts of human nature became dis
qualifications for Office The ties of kindred
we're made criminal, and he who gave cup Of
cold water and a crust of bread to- the thirsty
and famished son, under arms for q cause which
he believed to be right, and for which he was
willing to die, was branded with dishonor and
driven out from the councils of his countrymen.
The loving mother who sheltered her weary
and wounded boy, laid him in his own familiar
bed at home once more, kissed his feverish lips,
wiped away the gathering dews Of death, and
with broken heart closed his dear eyes forev-
er. was condemned for these acts of angelic
ministering, and incurred the penalties of con-
fiscation. He who dismounted and gave his
horse to brother in the moment of danger and
close pursuit. the sister who wrought and sent
clothing to him on the toilsome march; the
maiden who prayed for her lover as he lay dy-
ING in the Wilderness or at Stone River, all fell
under a common curse. Even the white
haired grandmother of four-score years, whose
youthful husband, perhaps, was at the Cow
pens, Eutaw Springs and Yorktown, or, may
be, fought under Jackson at New Orleans, in
the war of 1872, was deprived of her pension,
that small morsel of bounty from an ungener-
Gus Government, if her heart yearned or her
aged hand was extended in sympathy to her
children and her children's children on the
plains of the South A more sweeping and
universal exclusion from NIL the benefits, rights,
trusts, honors, enjoyments, liberties and control
of q government was never enacted against
whole people, without respect to age or sex, In
the annals Of the human race. The disgrace
full disabilities imposed upon the Jews for near
ly eighteen hundred years by the blind and
bieoted nations of the earth were never more
complete or appalling.
The peroration of Mr.. Voorhees, was excel
lent, and to be thoroughly appreciated must
be read in full.
THE CINCINNATI REPUBLICAN CONVENTION
NH TI.;L, fi,p