Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1872-08-16

" to be in the future. I am bound to care
nothing for his "antecedents," except as they
furnish the means OF estimating his character
think | have found out with reasonable GER
taity how far we may confde in him.
devoutly believe that. if chosen President, he
will keep his oath, preserve the Constitution
inviolate, execute the laws faithfully. restore
the States to their rightful autonomy, protect
individual liberty by jury trial and habcGs
corpus, put the military in proper subordina-
ton to the civil authority, use neither force
nor fraud to carry elections, keep his hands
clean from corrupting gifts, set his face like a
f1intagainst all manner of financial dishones
ty, purify the administration of justice as much
as in him lies, maintain the public credit by
prompt discharge Of all just obligations,
economize the revenue and tighten taxation.
give to capital the right which belongs to it,
and at the same time see that labor is not
robbed of its earnings. He will certainly hold
his power of appointment as public trust,
and not as a part of his personal possession to
be used for the support of his family, or to
encourage the private liberality of his friends.
| He will, so far as he can without transgress-
| ing the limits of bis legal authority, relieve
the Southern States from the gangs that are
now preying upon their vials in open part
nership with the present Administration.
think he will do all this and my faith is
founded on the testimony of his friends and
enemies, on the known facts OF his history,
and on the moral Influence which the Demo-
cracy will necessarily exert upon bis conduct.
The errors of his past life were caused by GER
tain evil communications from which he has
clean escaped. He heads great revolt a
gainst wickedness in high places, and | do
not believe he will go back upon US and be
guilty of the same wickedness himself.
The contrast between the two candidates
being so very strong, no fair-mlnded Demo-
crat can doubt what he ought to do. Yet.
the reluctance which many of us feel to vote
for either of them is hard to overcome. did.
and do, most heartily sympatbize with that
class which received Mr.. Greeley's nomination
in much sorrow. am sure this feeling pro-
ceeded from no unworthy passion or prejud-
ice, but was the natural result of sober thought
on the condition of the county and the fitness
of things pertaining thereto.
| In our view the controversy between the
parties was not all about men, and not who'll
" on questions of mere administration. The
Liberal Republicans and some Democrats
think that we owe all our sufferings to the
corruption or incapacity of General Grant and
the rings that surround him. But the prime
cause lies further back and deeper down 10
wrongs for which the triumph of Mr.. Greeley
with all his reforms offers no immediate atone
ment and only partial remedy.
In England, after every civil commotion,
the victorious party vented its rage and graft
fed its rapacity by passing bills of attainder
and bills of pains and penalties against their
fallen and helpless opponents. The best and
greatest men of their respective ages were the
victims of these legislative DEGREES. In all
the most notable cases subsequent Parliaments
acknowledged the wrong, reversed the attain
ders, and made what reparation they could.
Our fathers determined that no such thing
should ever be DINE here, and so they put
} their solemn interdict into plain words, and
) made it part of the fundamental law that
neither Congress oor any State Legislature
; tof attainder more deliberately cruel, and with
pains and penalties more compendiously un-
lust than any British bill that ever was pass.
ed. But its authors were conscious that it
} could not stand, and they must replace i. with
; something else, for.sooner or later the courts
would be sure to pronounce it void. Besides,
the object being to put the Southern people
under the domination of greedy Adventures
from the North with unlimited license to op-
press and plumber them, the officers of the
army were not very good agents in such a
nefarious business. The negroes would be
instruments of tyranny much more easily
managed. But an act of Congress disfran-
chlsing the white people for offences real or
imputed, and handing over their State govern
ments to negroes to be run by them in the
interests of carpet-baggers, would be merely
another bill of attainder, or rather modifica-
ton of the FIRST one, making it much worse,
but equally within the reach of judicial cor
rection. In this strait they resorted to the
expedient of converting the Constitution itself
into a bill OF attoinder.
The fourteenth and fifteenth amendments
were frauds upon the spirit and letter of the
instrument, inasmuch as they effected the
worst outrage which it was made to prevent.
They were carried against the known will of
nearly every State in the Union-by shame
less deception in the North, and by brutal
violence in the South. "May this be washed
in Lethe and forgotten 2" Certainly not as
long as any portion of our people are COM
PEELED to bear the intolerable burden of the
yoke thus fastened upon them. need not
say how much they have suffered already
called to endure hereafter, but it is certain
that any ordinary despotism would have been
visitation of mercy in comparison. When
we reflect upon the number aud rapacity of
the thieves that have been upheld in their
pilage by means of the negro governments,
we cannot help but regret the non-adoption
OF Mr.. Stevenss observation-disclosures as it
was-for universal confscation. The perni-
cious consequences of this rule are felt ia the
General as we'll as the local Governments.-I
The legislation of Congress is largely controll-
ed by fit representatives of the carpet-bag in
terest, and the worst acts of the Executive
Administration are done to please the power
which corrdts the negroes at the meeting pla-
ces of the leagues, and drives them thence to
the polls.
Mr.. Greeley's election will not do all that
we could wish to free us from these evils it
will not even be popular condemnation of
the base means by which they were inflicted
upon us but it will begin the process of their
gradual extinction. 1t will give the white
people reasonable hope that the heritable
qualities of their fathers blood may some day
be restored In the meantime, if it does not
reverse the attainder, it will at least insure
merciful execution of it. Democrats who
disliked Mr.. Greeley's nomination have re-
Elected well, and think will support him with
almost perfect unauimity. The thought that !
a victory will not give us everything at once I
may diminish in some degree ''the rapture of /
the Strife" but it will not impair the efficiency