Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1873-11-17
MISSISSIPPI.
The State ElectiOns-Are the White
Voters Responsible for the
Success of Ames!
The Utter FaIlacy Of Such a PROPOSE
tion-The Reason Why i'm PLAN
Facts and Figures.

EDITORS APPEAL-In your issue of
the thirteenth, you conclude an article
on the Mississippi election by the state
ment that "Whatever may be the futu e
of Mississippi, the white voters of the
State alone are responsible for it." Ifl
you mean by this that the white people
could by any possible energy or man
Rgement have prevented the general re-
suit of our recent election, your state
ment is incredibly erroneous, and truly
surprising in a journal usually so well
informed as your own. Before proceed
ing to show its utter fallacy, permit me
to remark that the Memphis press have
ever since reconstruction, seemed to be
unable to recognize the difference be-
tween Virginia and Tennessee, with
their overwhelming white major
tiles and Mississippi with an al
most equelly overwhelming black ma
jority. The problem in our State this
summer was, what is the best policy to
be adopted to defeat the Radical party?
The situation was this: There was a
clear negro majority in the State of fif-
teen thousand Ia moderate calculationl.
There were about five thousand white
Republicans. Taking the white Repub-
licans from the whites and adding them
to the blacks, they count double. The
blacks being all Republicans, this calcu-
lation gives q Radical majority of twen-
ty-five thousand, in a voting population
Of one hundred and forty thousand.
How could
THE WHITES ALONE
overcome this majority? And yet you
say that they falOnen are responsible
for the result. Two plans Of campaign
were discussed-one was TO nominate
some such man as Humphreys, or
Clarke, or Walthall, and, by the enthu-
siasm which they would inspire among
the whites, make a rush at the negroes,
and capture enough Of them to carry
the day; the other plan was to support
Governor Alcorn, who had split off from
his own party, in the hope that he had
sufficient negro followers to turn the
scales. After long and anxious deliber-
alton, the latter plan was adopted. Per
haps the Conservatives of north Missis-
sippI were partly induced TO
this course by the persistent adj
vice of the Memphis press and
the Memphis merchants, who have
| followed Alcorn With laudstions, and
who have boasted Of his great power to
save Mississippi ever since he Joined the
Radical party. The whole programm me
of supporting AlcOrn rested upon the
| idea of his having some controlling ln-
| fiuence with the negroes; an idea, by
the way. as to which have always been
utterly skeptical. The result has proven
/ its absolute falsity. He not only could
] H. of his county
I but he failed to carry those on his own
plantation, Indeed, / would not be
afraid to bet that the negro who blacks
| Alcorn's boots and drives his carriage,
voted for
| AMEs.
II is said that one of the negroes who
ran on the State ticket with him an
/ pounced his intention of voting against
him, and I know it to be the fact that
negroes in my county, who were nomi-
mated and ran for county offices on the
Alcorn ticket, openly voted for Ames
It was evident, very soon after the cam
vass opened, that he stood no chance OF
election, and AlcOrn himself, like every
other sensible man in the State, knew
perfectly well, a month before the elec-
ton, that he was overwhelmingly de-
L
large number of Democrats did not
! trouble themselves to go to the polls, but
if they had the result would have been
/ the same. Indeed, / think that under
the circumstanc AlcOrn did astonish-
ingly well among the whites. The
white men OF Mississippi do not love
him, and it would be surprising if they
did. They know that Notwithstanding
all his newborn zeal for public honesty
and his present burning hatred Of car
petbaggers, he has done more than any
man in the State to saddle upon Missis-
sippi the robbers who are plunderinG
her, and that the men whom he nov
denounces as thieves have been for five
years his own chosen political associate
and allies. If
NISSISSIPPIANS
could have seen a reasonable chance, b!
/, using AlcOrn, to regain control Of thei
State, they would have used him just a
, he usedI the negroes and carpetbagger
/ four years ago to ride into the Unite'
States senate Seeing no hope of sucl
a contamination, there was cOnsidera
bic per cent. of them who did not rusl
very frantically to the polls to vote 70
him. 1t is not true that they could hav
I cDangeu TIE Icoult II NhSy haus
: every Democrat in the State ha,
voted for him he would have beeI
I Overwhelmingly defeated. When tn
Conservative papers of the State deplor
the apathy of the whites IN the election
aud speak of the possibility of havin
changed the result Dy increased zea
/ They refer TO local contests in particu
: lar counties. Every intelligent ma
: knows that, with the Republican par
!, solidly united, as it was for Ames, hi
election was assured, and that nOthin
, thar the whites could have done wOul
have changed the result. Your editoris
. is calculated to produce a different i'm
= preston. DE SOTO.
| November "A, 1873.
Brutal Attempt OF a Husband 10 Murde
e his Wife.
= Nl.r,-,,1..r