New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1872-08-15

State Ticket, New Orleans, August IL
1872.
Mr.. President and gentlemen of the con
| veutiOn-I hope that the disorder and
! turbulence which has been exhibited this
morning by a majority Of the members OF
! this convention toward those who differ
| from them will now cease, and that
! although you differ from me, you will give
! your serious attention to what l am about
! TO tell you. am speaking to you with the
! deep conviction that the cause of Repub-
! licansm, and especially the cause of the
! colDred race, is standing in imminent
| danger in this State to-day, and that the
| rights and prospects of your people and
| your children are resting solely in the
| hands of this convention, and depend upon
| your wisdom and your Calmness, your de-
| liberation and your disposition, to take
| wholesome advice. Two propositions are
| pending before you. One is the substitute
offered by Mr.. Swords, of Assumption, pro-
| posing an alliance with that portion of the
white people represented in the late Liberal
convention in this city, and the indOrse-
ment and ratification Of their candidates as
your candidates. The other is the recon-
mendatiOn of the committee of conference
with the CustOmhOuse party, which advises
! yOu to nominate a straight ticket.
To follow the first course would give your
votes to Greeley and Brown; TO follow the
second you would vote for Grant and Will
son. Let us look at the proposition Of the
conference committee first. What does
that mean 1t means one Of two things
either to put up straight ticket and run it
out to the end, or to put it up to trade upon.
Which do these gentlemen intend you to
do If they intend in good faith to nOmi-
nate ticket to run until the election, what
hope of success have you? You have no
newspapers; no State patronage; no federal
patronage; no money; none of the requisites
for carrying on a successful. political cam
pagn-such a ticket could not but be
failure. 1t is not intended by these gentle
men to be put up to be elected. The idea
is in itself prepOsterOus absurdity, at
which you laugh yourselves, Then it must
be put up to trade upon. To trade with
whom With the CustOmhouse or with
the Liberals? If with the CustOmhOuse, is
it not remembered that we have been try
ing to trade with them ever since the con-
vention of May %. We followed them to
Baton Rouge, and there made honorable
propositions, and were spurned from their
doors.
They have met every attempt of ours for
reconciliation, and every request for reCOg
milton with cOntumely and scOrn, and now,
in your last effort when, against the judg
ment of many of u.s. you sent your commit
tee of conference again to beg recognition,
what answer have they sent back Z That if
YOU indOrse Grant and Wilson and the
whole of their ticket and acknowledge that
You have done wrong and they have been
in the right, and go down on your knees
and sue tor pardon, they will then give you,
perhaps, what Congressman at large on
their ticket7 l say perhaps, whyl These
men who are making this promise know
well two things: First, tnat they are not in
trusted with the power by their convention
to make this trade and that their promise
is unsubstantal and can not be performed
and second, that if the gentlemen whom
they propose to withdraw refuse to ratify
their action by Withdrawing, they have no
power to compel them to do so, and their
promise becOmfs simply null and void.
Your own committee of conference, ap-
pointed from gentlemen from this side, who
are anxious for union with the Custom
house, has been convinced that the PROPOSE
ton of the CustOmhOuse party was so in
sincere, so meagre, so insulting, that they
have unanimously advised you to reject it,
What better trade can you expect from
the CustomhOuse party by nominating a
ticket, than they have now offered you
under the present more favorable circUm-
stances? Is it to trade with the Liberals?
The Liberal convention has given you all
that can justly be demanded Of them.
They have recognized you upon their State
ticket by placing thereon the name of
coOred man for Secretary of State; they
have placed another straight out Repub- !
lican as Auditor of Public Accounts, and |
another original Republican and UniOnist, !
Wesley Mcdonald, who run upon the Tall |
aferrO ticket in 1868 as Superintendent of |
Public Education. Thev have nominated |
for Congressman from the fourth District |
Mr. Armstead, a member of this c0nven- |
tiOn, and q COlOred man, and they have |
offered the nomination from the first DIS |
=, ~ hap If This
vention, and the second to General Barber, |
both colored men. They have recognized |
your rights in their platform as amply and |
positively as they have ever been reCOg- |
nized in the Republican party. To put up |
a ticket, therefore, to trade with those |
gentlemen would simply be an insult.
To sum up this subject, to put out a |
straight ticket, if done in sincerity, would |
simply be stupidity; if done to trade on, |
would be simply a fraud; and then you |
have left but one of two courses, either to |
indOrse the CustOmhOuse ticket and Grant |
and Wilson, or to ally yourselves with the |
Liberal party and indOrse Greeley and |
Brown, and ratify the Liberal State ticket |
headed by D. B. Penn. But can you vote |
for the CustomhOuse ticket You voted !
this morning, threw up your hats and |
shouted and yelled as if mad when the |
was made by your conference |
to reject the propositions of the |
CustOmhOuse party and to put out straight |
ticket. By doing this you declared your de- /
not to vote for Kellogg, You !
would hardly listen to any one who would |
propose that. And now do you mean to go |
right back on all your words and all your |
enthusiasm and indOrse the very man and |
the very ticket that you have just shouted |
down with jeers of derisiOn!
But let me talk to you more seriously. |
An alliance with the white people of the |
State is the best and surest guarantee of |
your rights. 1t is not only the best way to |
them, and make them perma- |
nent but it is the only safe path, the only |
possible way. If this convention were un- |
to indOrse the CustomhOuse |
ticket, the two wings of the Radical party |
united can not win in this contest. The |
fight would then be black against white, as |
it was in 1868, with this difference, that |
then military law was supreme, and now |
civil law reigns, and that then the white
people staid away from the polls, and now |
your people will stay away. Large num- |
bers of representative and honest Repub- |
licans will not vote for Kellogg under any |
He is not Republican |
now, and never has been. He absented |
himself from his seat in the Senate of the |
United States when Summers bill protecting |
your civil rights was voted upon. l |
would a thousand times over rather |
trust in the sympathies, power and |
Justice of Mr.. Penn to protect your |
rights than to those of Mr.. Kellogg.
But let me show you further, why such a |
ticket can not be elected. By the census |
there are 364 900 black people, and 362, 900 |
white people in this State. With the Ordi- |
Dary ratio of five to one, there is a voting |
whites. The strongest Republican vote ever |
in tot IA in