Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1876-09-09

of President Grant, that party would
have rallied to his support and stood
by him.
The speaker was then asked to say
something about the Freedman's
Bank, and he remarked that he did
not feel that he could speak with pa
thence upon that question. Democrats
had been accused since the war OF
trying to rob the colored men of their
rights and murder them If they did
not vote the Democratic ticket. If
the white people of the South had
swindled, robbed and stolen from the
colored people of the South as the
managers of the Freedman's Bank
had done, what an cutlery there would
have been in the Republican ranks
No man could read the charter of the
bank without coming to the conclusion
that it was a willful and premeditated
fragd 4rom the beginning. They de-
liberasely banked upon the confidence
which they knew the colored men of
the South had in the republican party
and its leaders. The freedmen of the
South looked to Washington City with
as much veneration as ever the jew
looked to Jerusalem, and he looked to
the White House with as much reve-
renee as the jew looked to the Tenn
pie. they took the money deposited
by these colored men in the branches
and sent in to the parent bank at
Washington, there to be loaned out to
Hallett, Kilbourne, Boss Shepherd and
the other men who had built palatial
residences there. He would not take
the position that the Republican party
had not been friends to the colored
people, and he did not blame the ne
groes for voting for them. He wanted
them to vote for whom they pleased
1t had been repeatedly said in the
North that if the Democracy succeeded
to power the colored people would not
be secure in their rights, lives or pei
sonal property. So far as the Demo
cratic party was concerned, he believed
that if Tilden and Hendricks should
be elected every colored man would
be as safe in all his political rights as
he could possibly be under the admin
istration Of any Republican President
Who desired to rob the colored man
of his rights? Who wanted to reduce
him to slavery again Who wanted
to take away from him his right to vote
Just as he pleased? But every out
rage that occurred in the South was
magnifed into something monstrous.
When the news of the Hamburg affair
reached Washington there was great
joy among the Republican leaders.
They hunted up their old bloody
shirts, which had been laid aside so
long that the stain was almost oblite-
rated, and took them to Hamburg to
re-baptize them in blood. That affair
had no political significance whatever.
The right of the cOlored man to vote
was not interfered with. The white
people of this country did not uphold
the numbering of colored people be-
cause they voted the Republican tick
ct. He believed that the right of suf-
frage was conferred on the colored
man too soon, but all that had passed
and no one now proposed TO interfere
with their right to vote. If this con-
flict continued to go on over the
colored mans head, the result would
be, as one of their colored preachers
said in a letter from Richmond the
other day, that the colored race would
have to 60 to the wall.
He believed that the salvation of
the country depended on the election
of Tilden and Hendricks. No ordi-
binary man could take charge Of this
/ Government and reform it, 1t required
a man with head on his shoulders,
a man with iron will and one who had
positiveness to carry through the re-
form that was now needed. Mr.. Til
den had made himself eminent as
reformer in New York, having reduced
the taxes eight million dollars since
he had been Governor of that State.
Some men had called Mr.. Tilden a
scoundrel and brought various char
! ges against him. He would not stop
to notice these charges against man
who had been endorsed by nearly eve
ry respectable Republican authority
in the State of New York for his wise
administration of the affairs Of that
State as Governor.
The Republican party had con-
vention in Nashville the other day,
| but did not nominate q candidate for
Governor. Redfeld, correspondent
of the Cincinnati Commercial, said
they acted the goose. Mr.. House
would not say that much about them,
but he would say that they did one
thing that resembled a goose-they
had been standing on one "Foote" ev-
er since Laughter and applause.
The policy of the Republican party, in
not nominating candidate for Gov
ernor, was to divide and break the
ranks of the Democracy. This should
admonish Democrats to heal all preju-
dices, if any existed in the party and
they should see to it that the tactics
of the Republican party should not
prevail. The Democracy should rally
around their standard and give to Til
den and Hendricks their earnest and
undivided support.
Mr.. House then announced himself
as a candidate for reelection to Con-
gress from this district, aud returned
thanks for the patient hearing he had
received.