Knoxville weekly chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1875, 1872-10-02
THE OHIO CAMPAIGN.

the Republicans of Massillon had q rousing
demonstration on the night of the 14th on
the occasion of a speech from A. ]. Kicks,
Esq, of this city. The Massillon indie
pendent refers to it as the largest night
demonstration ever held there and says
that 5000 people were present. About
700 torches were in the procession. The
Independent says of the speech after refer
ing TO its leading facts: "But we can not
pretend to touch OH all the points which
Mr.. Kicks so ably, as well as earnestly pre-
sented to an attentive audience. Massillon
may well feel proud of this, one of her IA
vorite sons.n
The Canton Repository and Repulicdn
reports the speech as follows:
1t does my soul good tonight to witness
this grand imposing demonstration of the
people of this loyal city and county in be-
half of the great dierstatesman, who led
our people and our armies from the gloom
anxieties and uncertainties of long and
bloody war, to the peace and prosperity we
now enjoy. Forty days ago, the eyes of
the Union people of the South were turn
ed with painful suspense to the loyal and
populous North. We stood on tip-toe, with
anxious hearts, to see five could catch the
CLEAN of that patriotic fire, that all through
the war with undiminished fervor, warm
ed the heart of the martyred Lincoln, and
sent a glow of enthusiasm and hope
throughput the camps of the soldier boys,
from the Potomac to the Rio Grande, and
from the Ohio to the Gulf. We stood over
the slumbering volcano OF the PROSTATE re-
bellion, we felt the quakings of the sup
pressed wrsth OF a defeated but defiant foe.
and we waited with great suspense to feel
the first trobbing of the great patriotic
heart Of the nation. We felt then the fear
full import of that tidal wave, which a
chorus of million OF exulting Southern
voices proclaimed was to isweep the land,
we watched, oh, how anXiously, can not
tell you, to hear from the loyal North that
the sentinels on the watch-tower had
caught the alarm. We saw the bloody
hands eagerly stretched out from Balti-
more to clasp with hands proffered with
mistaken zeal from Cincinnati, across a
chasm, still yawning wide open with the
unburied hopes of a reasonable and cor
rupt political organization and still red
with the blood from the bruised backs and
mutilated forms of innocent and helpless
white and black victims of fiendish, in
human organization of bandits. 1 thank
God that see in the earnest faces and warm
hearts of this vast and imposing demon
stration, the proof that at least, the patri-
otto people of this great nation are arous-
ed and determined,to defeat the schemes
of this dangerous coalition that without a
record OF n history, save that of the oft de-
feated Democracy, aspiIes to rule the ma
ton.
am here tonight my friends to briefly
present what the people of the South feel to
be their interestin this.great and important
election. am satisfied by the fact that
most ofyou have marched long distance
and that this night air is chilling, that YOU
ought not to be detained here long and /
will therefore be pointed and brief, hoping
ut some other time to talk to you at greater
length. L have taken pains to gather some
facts connected with the history of recon-
-struction in the South, which 1 would like
to present, as affording a vindication for
thepolicy of the Republican party in this
matter, especially so as L see so many of
the Democratic orators are making that
subject the pretext for violent and unjust
assaults upon Republican administration
and Republican Congress. The meas
ures of the Republican party under which
the work of reconstruction was consum-
mated, are characterized by Mr., Voorhees,,
of Indiana, and by Gratz Brown rs tyrani-
cal, harsh and outrageous. There are two
sides to every question, my friends, and
especially to this one. In order to properly
Judge of
THE WORK OF RECONSTRUCTION,
you ought to consider the situation of the
South at the close of the war. At that
time it presented a picture of almost per-
feet ruin and chaos. Homes had been de-
sstroyed, workshops dismantled, farms laid
waste and the whole commercial and
financial interests OF the rebel States had
been Frustrated. The State and Confeder-
ate commercial debts due by the Southern
people in 1865, amounted to S2,976, Ia, 1855.
This exceeded the total debt OF the rich
and prosperous loyal States by 500, 907 ,7S2.
1t exceeded the total assessed value of the
property of the South in 1850 by $247 800, =
$40. 1t exceeded the value OF all property
in the South in 1865 by 81 1872, 743, l26. This
was burden too much for its defeated and
PROSTATE people. 1t meant reputation
and ruin. Ia addition to this material de-
-struction the political situation was chaot-
ic. There were no local governments of
any certain status. Hundreds of thousands
of soldiers were thrown from amid the de-
moralizing influences of army life upon a
society protected by but few of the re-
'straints of law. Four millions of blacks
liberated by the chances of war, were sud-
denly thrown upon the body polite to add
to the embarrassments of the government.
How to reconcile these elements, how TO
reorganiZe local governments so as to deal
justly by the union element in the South
and so as to secure to the government fair
protection against future rebellion was the
delicate, novel and difficult work present.
ed to the Republican party. / can not in
the short time at my disposal review in
detail the successive steps of this grea
work. You know, however, how by the
amendments to the constitution, the over