New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1872-05-19
THE NATIONAL ISSUE.

| of SecCOmaH EartlBam6nIp at an Emu
and the Way to Safety Opened
The Late Speech of General George
A. sheridan, of New Orleans.
The St. Louis Times of Thursday last re-
ports the recent speech of General George
A. Sheridan in st. Louis, as follows:
FelIOw-citizens of st. Louis-The intro
! duction / have received will, / fear, lead
you to expect altogether more than l can
| give you. l have been identified with the
interests of Louisiana for some seven years;
| have been identified with the Republican
party-a thorough believer in all the prin-
| ciples underlying its organization, and a
| deYOut adheFent to its cause. And, my
| friends, to have been a Republican in the
State of Louisiana during the last three
| OF four years, or since the war, more
! properly speaking, has been anything but
pleasant.
1t was very different thing to be a Re-
publican in the North, because the great
heart of the North beat in sympathy with
| that party. A million of men flushed with
triumph had come marching home from the
| South. Every town and hamlet in the
| great North had it's group of brOnZed sol
| diers, and the people, in the joy of their
coming back from the war, forgot for the
! time the thousands they had left behind
| sleeping quietly beside the streams and in
! AAlleYB
] of cannon and the clash of bells from every
steeple in the land gave welcome to the re-
/ turn of the soldiers of the nation. From
| the pulpit and the rOstrum brave words
| were spoken the door of every household
| in the land was opened, and fair women
| gave graceful welcome to all the boys in
! blue who chose to grace the threshold of
! their homes, The people loved the army
! because it had saved the nation; they
1 hn hapanGn
! the existence of that party the North had
| been saved, and they spoke in its defense
| and recOunted the glOries that had been
! won under its administration.
THE SOUTHERN CONTRAST.
Everything was different in the South.
| There were no thrOnging thousands, no
| laundering guns, no clashing bells to vel
| come back the soldiers of Lee and Jackson,
| or give Immortality to the synny land that
sent them forth. Applause In broken
squads they marched throughout the South.
Their welcome was silent, but it was not
less heartfelt. They came back without
any wreath Of victory about their standards.
They came back conquered but they came
not back, as every soldier of the North who
frOnted them upon the battle fields can
testify, dishonored. [Applause. They were
still, from the Instant they grounded their
arms, citizens of this common republic /
say, therefore, while it was an easy thing in
the North, even from Maine away westward
to the Golden Gate, to be Republican, it
was difficult thing to be Republican and
maintain the principles of the party in the
South. -
The Southern people looked, naturally,
with anything but kindly feelings upon
those who had Overthrown them; looked,
naturally, with anything but kindly feelings
upon us because they saw us coming into
IL
they had hikbertO possessed; and they found
to their astonishment that the war was not
over. They found to their establishment
that there still existed a military power
pressing down upon them strong and heavy.
To the sense of modification and defeat was
added, ifpossible, the greater notifications
of seeing the men who had hitherto been
their slaves lifted high above them in the
scale of political power, for while they, as a
great mass, were disfranchised, the negroes
were enfranchised.
You could not make the people of the
South understand the state of things which
was about to come upon them could exist.
They could not understand how a white
man could advocate negro suffrage; they
could not understand how a man born and
bred in America could stand up before the
people of great State and say it is right
and honest and fair, and but Justice to the
black man that he should cast his ballot
Such was the State of affairs. After the
war closed, when went to Louisiana. there
were not five hundred white Republicans
in that State, and when the Republican
party was organized under the reconstruc-
ton acts of Congress, it was organized al
most exclusively out OF the black popuIa-
ton. And what was true of Louisiana was
equally true of the other Southern States
when they commenced this work of organi-
zatiOn.
A GRAVE DILEMMA.
The people of the South stand in very
peculiar position to-day. They do not know
where tolOok. They find themselves crushed
down by burdens that are almost insupport-
able and they look this way and that way,
and the other way, and are hardly able to
decide where their hope of safety lies.
LET us have peace" said Grant, standing
at the Capitol in Washington, in 1868. Let
us have peace" have the people of the
South been praying during the weary years
of his administration. But there appears |
to be no answer.
WHAT Is PEACE?
Is it a condition of society where men
look fearfully into each others faces and |
ask under their breath, ''What shall we |
do " Is it condition of things that ehokes |
up the arteries of trade and makes the |
streams of commerce flow sluggishly? Is |
1t condition Of things that thrusts Justice |
from her eminence, and makes her name a |
synonym OF wrong Does peace wiring from |
the tOileF his hard-earned wages No, no. |
A land of peace is a blessed land: a land |
filled with. happy. cOntented people; a land |
clothed with the smiles of perpetual harvest |
time; land upon. whose every mountain, |
and in whose every valley the sons of hR- |
erty are seen; land where Justice, clothed |
IN her immortal robes guards well the trust |
committed to her keeping; land where the |
great and good SIT In high places and work |
with heart and soul for the advancement
of the people, unswerved by princely gifts |
OF personal gain. lApplause
tell you, my friends, we have had no |
peace for the last four years. From the |
RIO Grande all along the Gulf to the Allan
tic border, gigantic schemes of plumber and |
robbery have been committed, millions |
upon millions of debt have been increased. /
until to-day, from Texas to Maryland, the
people feel that they are ground under a
weight from which they can not extricate
themselves.
THE SOURCE OF RELIEF.
/ 1t seems to me, my friends, clear pro-
position that neither the Democratic party
nor the Republican party, as now ORGAN
lied, is the party that the peopIe Of this
nation want. We propose to have a party
Uh8G VIII suit the nation. You know in a
great national crisis party lines always dis
appear, and men mingle together, forget
Hn 1g the past and looking only to the future.
How. was it in the North before this
gigantic rebellion broke out WHY. YOU
found Democrats from Maine to California
swearing that secession was right. and that
they would take their guns upon their
shoulders and go forth to fight with the
South. You found Democrats who felt that
while the salvation of the country depended