New national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1870-1874, 1872-03-28
Mr.. Sumner at Cincinnati.

1t has been authoritatively announced tina
Mr.. Sumner will attend the Cincinnati Con
vention. We are doubtful whether the Demo
Gratis are anxious to have him there. On the
contrary we think that the expectant Graft
browns who are intent on leading the so.
called Liberal Republicans over into the
Democratic camp would be greatly obliged Ia
Nj. Sumner if he would stay at home. The
Convention that he attends must be thor
Oughly and distinctly Republican. He will
lend himself to no shabby pretences, no mat
ter what personal spite may be ranking in
his bosom. OF all our leading statesmen he
Is the one that best represents the Republican
Idea. He has battled with unselfsh heroism
and marvellous courage for Republican prin-
ciples, and he is not the man to give up the
contest before the victory is complete. As
long as there is any party, or any fragment
OF party, in this broad land that denies to
any man, or any class of men, equal civil and
political rights, Charles Sumner will be found
lighting on the other side. There is no man
IN the United States that is so cordially hated
by the average Democrat, North and South.
sixteen years ago a drunken Southern bully
struck him down with bludgeon while sit
ting at his desk in the Senate Chamber. and
from that day to this vast majority of the
Southern people have regarded the act as
heroic and the chastisement well deserved.
Scarcely a day passes that we do not see in
some of our Southern exchanges an exultant
comment on this brutal assault. When he
defeated the amnesty bill by lacking on his
Civil Rights" amendment the Democratic
newspapers from Maine to Texas charged
him with remembering the drubbing which he
received at the hands of Brooks. There is
not man in the United States who could
command so few Democratic votes.
We have great faith in Mr.. Summers sa-
gacity and intelligence. He is thoroughly
posted as to the real condition of the South
The maltreated and prosecuted Republican
writes to him and tells him the story of his
wrongs; the poor colored man who leaves his
cabin and sleeps in the woods to avoid the
Ku-KluX thinks that his deliverance will come
when MIR. Sumner has received the message
he has sent. We have seen good deal OF
political treachery in our time, but when Mr.
Sumner deserts the humble people who are
to-day trusting in him as their champion, and
looking to him for the correction of many of
the wrongs which they now suffer, our faith
in human nature will be severely shaken
We have no fears of his apostasy
When, therefore, the Cincinnati Conven-
ton takes Charles Sumner to its bosom, it
takes him standing on the speech which he
delivered in favor of his Civil Rights bill some
six weeks since. We do not think that he
would blot out one principle laid down in that
speech for the sake of securing the President
ial chair himself. He will consent to no plat
form in which the doctrines of that speech are
not substantially embodied. He will support
no candidate for President that does not
heartily endorse them, and promise to do
what he can to incorporate them into the law
of the land. When the Cincinnati Conven-
ton resolves in favor of amnesty it must also
resolve in favor of equal civil rights. When
ever the rural Democrats are willing to accept
Mr.. Summers civil rights speech as their pO-
litical platform we will begin to have some
apprehension of the election of the Liberal
Republican candidate.
On the enforcement of the laws Mr. Sum-
ner is also pre-eminently sound. When Gratz
Brown presents his resolution about "mili-
tary usurpations," Mr.. Sumner will probe it
to the bottom, and whatever of censure of the
present Administration for suppressing the
Ku-Klux it implies will be mercilessly eradi
Gated. The debates in the Senate have
thoroughly informed him as to how much of
the opposition to " military arrests" springs
from secret political sympathy for the
masked assassins, and he will commit himself
to no dogma that denies the authority and the
obligation Of the United States Government
to protect its citizens, guaranteed by the Con-
stitution, when the State governments fail to
do their duty. Any resolution that looks to
limiting of the jurisdiction of the United
States Courts, and the handing over of the
victims of the Ku-Klux outrages to the Courts
which are controlled by the assassins them
selves, Mr.. Sumner will resent as an insult to
the type OfRepublicanismw which he represents.
He will also take good care that all resolu- |
tons against Capitalization" are not so |
framed as to admit the right of local govern
ments to deny equal justice to any class of
citizens without interference by the Federal
Courts. -Bakimore american.