National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1875-09-23
"HARPER's WEEKLY" AND THE DEMO-
CRATIC PARTY.

"HARPER's WEEKLY" AND THE DEMO-
CRATIC PARTY.
Rarper's Weekly is of the opinion that
the political situation is exceedingly inter-
esting and adds that ga few months since
I" it was asserted that there were no practi-
zeal issues, that the country was tired of
the Republicans, and that it would not
"distrust the Democratic party to-day
"merely because it was the tool of slavery
yesterday" From this standpoint it
argues that things being equal as regards
the currency question, the former might
retain its ascendency IN the General Gov
eminent. But having asserted the idea
that the Democratic party was "the tool Of
slavery yesterday" it does not say anything
TO prove that it is unworthy of confidence
to-day. Here is where the Weekly and
other journals of similar political tendencies
make great mistake, to the injury of the
Republican party, because they do not
teach the public that the Democratic party
is as much the tool of slavery to- day as it
ever was. 1t is the omission to teach this
truthful lesson that has induced hundreds
and thousands of good citizens and loyal
voters in the North to become neglectful of
the obligations assumed by the party when
it solemnly promised to accompany the act
of emancipation by provisions for the per-
manent protection of the emancipated
in the exercise of citizens rights.
This forgetfulness or neglect of those
pledges has proved to be the germ
of new feeling regarding the
Southern people, from which has grown up
a mistaken belief that.the Government has
no authority, under any circumstance what
ever, to interfere in the Southern States for
the protection of the blacks. In other
days, when the Weekly rejoiced with US
that the party had been bold enough and
just enough to make the blacks the wards
of the nation" this belief did not exist.
On the contrary, it was admitted to be the
imperative duty of the Government to use
every legitimate resource at its command
for that purpose. The argument then
generally accepted as correct, was that the
emancipation and enfranchisement of four
millions of blacks, without removing them
from the midst of twelve millions of whites
who had fought four years to keep them in
slavery, could only be accomplished by
the use of force, and the force of the Gen.
eral Government was accordingly pledged
for that use. The result has proved the
soundness of this argument for the slave
holding whites, or their underlings, known
as ''poor white trash" have illustrated
their antipathy to- the enfranchisement of
their former slaves by constantly
murders whenever any political excitement
exists to arouse that antipathy. The Weekly
will not deny this plain assertion of
well-established facts, nor will it deny
the inevitable deduction from them that
inssmuch as these murders for political
reasons are done by Democrats and the
murderers are protected by Democrats, the
Democratic party is as much and as dis
tinctly the tool of the spirit OF slavery as
it was Of the living institution. Nor will
it deny that further proof of the subserv-
iency Of that party to the spirit of slavery
is to be found in the fact, readily proven,
that the tendency Of legislation in all the
Southern States under Democratic control
has been, through the levy of poll-taxes,
through gerrymanders, through the inflic-
ton of grand penalties for petty crimes,
through the establishment of systems of
petty convict labor, and through every other
imaginable means, directed to the destruc-
ton of the rights of colored citizenship. In
short, it cannot fail to admit that, by the
most criminal means, including unlawful
organizations known as Ku-Klux Klans or
White Leagues, the Democratic party has
effectually asserted its opposition to equal
suffrage and its consequent devotion to the
principles of slavery, and is therefore I'M
worthy of public confidence, unless, in
deed, the public is ready to abandon the idea
formerly upheld SO vigorously by the
Weekly, that slavery and all its ramifed
influences must be destroyed, root and
branch.
We find on close examination, however,
that the under-current of political belief
which controls the management of the
WeeklyIs free from the infection that induces
the surface indications of its political tone.
1t has really lost none of its old.time devo-
ton to abolition principles, which formerly
made it q terror to the slave holders of the |
South and caused Southern Democratic |
postmasters to throw it out of the mails as
an incendiary document. 1t is simply mis-
led by its utter adherence of what 1t mag |
ines to be apernicious system of party man.
agement by Southern Republicans. 1t in
dorses the advice of Fred. Douglass to his |
citizens to strike back, and to pro-
tect themselves, when the Government does |
not or cannot protect them, as judicious
and manly. "Let it be seen," says Mr.. |
Douglass, "by these cowardly mobocrats
" that in attempting to slaughter black |
" men they invite the knife to their own
" Threats and fire and rapine to their own
70 hearthstones," and the Weekly spplsuds
him more earnestly than we have assumed |
to do. But this is the under. current speak |
ing, and in the surface indications we find |
it relapses into quiet Endorsement of the
milk water, namby- PANTY resolution in
the New York Republican State platform,
which demands q just fidelity to equal
rights, accompanied by generosity and for
bearance-as though the mobocrats, with
the blood of innocent voters upon their
heads, were entitled to any generous for
bearance at the hands of people who have
already forgiven them for the hardly less re-
voting crime of treason. Then 1t cites Col
lector Casey and Marshal Packard as I'M
worthy representatives Of the party, and
finds fault with them for having been more
partisan than patriotic. '"The party, it says,
" las been wounded by friends rather than
by enemies" But we cannot see in this,