Marshall County Republican. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1856-1878, 1872-07-25
i" CentralizatiOn.o
From the Chicago Inter-Ocean.


ment." This charge is not made in
good faith; 1T has no foundation in any
fact OF President Grants Administra-
ton; it is can't phrase bequeathed to
the Liberals by men who once sought
to destroy the Union, and who pray to-
day, if they ever pray at all, for the
time to come when they may once more
raise their hands, red with the blood of
Union soldiers and stained with the
murders of unoffending citizens, against
universal freedom and the Govern
ment that has sustained it, and made it
an irrevei sible fact in the Constitution.
That this cry o. Capitalization" should
be raised by men weighed down by the
shame and degradation of treason, thatit
should be made by the Democratic
party, which, in the language of Horace
Greeley, is "to-day rebel to the core"
is to be expected; but that this shout
should go out through the land from
the New York Tribune, the Chicago Til
6oae, and the other self-styled independ-
ent journals which follow in their wake.
shows to what base uses solely personal
ambition invariably reduces its subjects
and votaries. There is but one "pre-
tense" even upon which to rest the
charge of Capitalization" as against
President Grant. That pretense is
Ku-Klux law. President Grant did not
make the law; he simply enforced it.
But every Liberal in the country, who
now denounces its enforcement as an
act of despotism, demanded the passage
of the law, and based the demand upon
the notorious fact that numerous most
brutal murders were being committed
in various parts of the South by bands
of masked assassins. Conspicuous
among these advocates of the Ku-Klux
law were the New York and Chicago
ITibaneS; and that their demands were
warranted by facts supremely disgrace
full to American civilization there is no
doubt. The Congressional investigating
committee upon. the subject of "South-
ern outrages' piled up mass of evil
dence touching the scourgings, Danish
ments and murders of the infamous
klans, which chills with horror the
heart of every man who reads it. The
Washington Chronicle says upon this
subject:
" Since the close of the rebellion not less
than twenty-three thousand persons, black
and white, have been scourged, banished,
or murdered by the Ku-Klux Klans of the
South. The victims of their horrible bar
barity have been Republicans. Not sim
gle Democrat has suffered. Loyalty to the
United States Government brought pe-secu-
ton; oisloyalty, exemption. Since the en-
forcement of the Ku-Klux acts by the pres
ent Administration, peace and security have
reignei throughout these States infested by
the Kltns."
Evidence of these atrocious murders
of men for political reasons, by klans
organized to antagonize the new princi-
pies engrafted upon the Constitution as
the fruit of five years of bloody civil
war, was piled almost mountain high,
by committee of Congress, consisting
of Democrats as well as Republicans.
This evidence has been placed before
Tbs American people, and every citizen
in the land may, if he will, know how
much much more brutal, how much
more savage and bitterly revengeful,
a Ku-Klux Khan is than the worst rebel
army that ever served the Confederacy.
The atrocities of the Khan brought to
light by the investigation stand, not
only uncontroverted, but entirely I'M
committee, by Mr.. Stephenson, of Ken
lucky, denied no facts of the majority
report, but contented itself with simply
asserting that the cause of the Ku-Klux
outrages was the carpet-bag governments
of the South. This, then, was the stu
alton in certain States which had to be
met by the Government. No man who
was patriotic and supported the Union
of the States was safe from scourging,
Punishment on pain of death, or mid
night assassination. No man who did
not despise the American flag, and ex-
press wish to see it trailed in the dust,
could live in peace. No black man ana
no Republican was safe from insult and
outrage and persecution which ended
in Punishment or death. These woes
of Reconstruction people appealed not
only to patriotism but to humanity
and the Republican press of the North
unitedly called Congress to pass law
for the suppression of the evil. This
is briefly the history of the necessity
which brought about the passage of the
ku-Klux law. When it became known
in the South that the President had
been empowered to bring assassins to
punishment, many of the klans dis
banded in fear of the law, and SO whole
some was its moral effect that it only
became necessary to enforce its provi-
sions il parts OF two States. This is
the Capitalization policy" of President
Grant, about which so much is said
from day to day in the Liberal and Dem
ocratic journals.
No Liberal platform is complete
without charging President Grant with
GENERALIZATION. No Liberal orator
omils to denounce him as a g despot,"
and every man who supports him as a
"satrap." All these charges have only
one basis, namely-the Ku-Klux law,
imperatively demanded by the very men
and journals that now denounce it as
despotism,' and passed by Congress
as the only means of putting stop to
a system of wholesale assassination
which threatened to depopulate certain
districts of South Carolina and Georgia,
and other Southern States, of every
loyal citizen. Capitalization n Whom
has President Grant deprived of liberty !?
Whom has he oppressed? What execu-
tive act of his Administration has borne
heavily upon the people, or any of
them The charges of " GENERALIZATION"
and of despotism," as applied to Pres