The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1876-08-18
ssE~. GsREsaaD.s SPEECH
= Strong Description ofThe
Political Situation.


err in commenting on it. The speech
was an earnest attempt TO make pro
gress In the direction of return to
good feeling, and il is so far it met his
(GarfieId's) earnest concurrence.
The gentleman had complained of
two great evils and obstacles to re-
form first, the generally corrupt state
of the administration of affairs, aud,
second. the seriously corrupt state of
eiylI service. The deductions of the
speech were that the Republican party
was incapable OF effecting the great
reform needed, and that, therefore, the
Democratic party. ought 10 be brought
into power in the coming election.
This had been the main logic OF the
speech.
He (Garfield) should attempt to
show that the good which he (Larmar)
sought was not to be secured by the
ascendency of the Democratic party
at this time. He bad noticed one
striking omission in the logic of the
speech, and that was that it made no
attempt to prove the fitness of the
Democracy TO accomplish needed re-
form, and without that proof of fitness
the argument must OF course be an
absolute failure.
Was the gentleman (Lamar) correct
in the statement that the party con-
querred in the late civil war had ad-
opted or acquiesced in the results of
the war? He (Garfield) went farther,
and asked whether the results of the
war had been adopted? Great ideas,
he said, travel slowly, and oftentimes
noislessly, like the footsteps of the
gods, whose feet were shod with wool.
IJ would not do to speak of the gigan-
trc revolutions through which tue
country had lately passed as thing
to be bound up by mere change OF
administration. 1t was cyclical, ep-
ochial, century-wide, and to be looked
at in its broad and grand prospective.
He did not speak OF that revolution TO
laud or condemn those who acted in 1t
on either side, but he spoke OF it as the
memorable logic of events. He drew
an historical sketch of the last two
centuries, and of the contest between
freedom and slavery, eliminating In
the war of the rebellion. the men OF
the North and of the South were equal
ly honest in their convictions on that
subject, but the question was far be-
yond them.
In this connection he read extracts
from a speech made by Mr.. Singleton
in the House on the 10Th of December,
1869, declaring that the Institution of
slavery must be sustained; that enan-
cipation would produce war OF races
and that if the Black Republican
party elected its President he was for
dissolving the Union. He also referr-
ed to Mr.. Lincoln's saying, that it wss
impossible for country TO remain
partly slave and partly free, and to
NJ -. II oh
pressible conflict, and quoted from the
speech OF Mr.. Lamar, in wtrich he
stated that he had heard Mr.. Stewards
speech in the Senate, and described
Mr.. Stewards eyes as glowering and
glaring on the Southern members as
though the fires of hell burned in his
spirit. He referred to these speeches
for no other purpose than to indicate
to what height the antagonism be-
tween the sections had arisen in 1853,
and to congratulate Mr.. Lamar and
the country on the change that had
been wrought since then. The gulf
that interviewed between that speech
of Mr.. Lamar's and the one he deliver
ed the other day was so vast that it in
dicaued progress worthy of all praise
in the individual man who had under
gone that change.
Coming down to the era of the re-
construction measures, he said the
conquering party had acted on the
principle, Nothing-nothing for re-
Yenge; everything for permanent
peace" The simple aAd only revenge
which the conquering nation took
was to compel the conquered to put
into the National Constitution pro-
vision that the national debt should
never be repudiated, that the rebel
debt should never be paid, and that all
men, without regard to race or color,
should stand equal before the law.
Had this offer been accepted? No.
By the advice of Andrew johnson, a
bad adviser, and of the Northern DEM
ocracy, worse adviser, ten or eleven
rebel States had contemptuously re-
jected the plan of reconstruction en-
braced in the Fourteenth amendment
to the Constitution. They would have
none of it. They were invited by their
Northern allies to stand out, and assur-
ed that when they got the power they
should be permitted to come back
without let or hindrance.
The TRANSFORMATION spoken of by Mr..
Lamar had not come then. 1t had
not come in 1868, when Frank Blair
received the Democratic nomination
for the Vice-Presidency because he
had written letter saying that there
was but one way to restore the gov
eminent of the Constitution, and that
was for the President elect to declare
all these acts null and void and to
drive out the usurping State Govern
ments.
Had the transformation occurred in
1872, when the dreadful scenes of Ku-
kluxism occurred ?-scenes so dreadful
that Reverdy Johnson, man who was
fdcile princeps among the Democracy
of the slaveholding States, and who
went to North Carolina to defend the
criminals, held up his hands in horror
at the shocking barbarities of his cli-
ents. He referred to this only as part
of the conspiracy against the negro
race, and to show that reform had not
come in the days of the Ku-Klux.
Had it come in 1875? He read ex-
tracts from speech made by a cler-
gyman in Charlotte, N. c., declaring
that the South would have slavery
back, and that at no distant day the
stars and bars would be proudly float
ing over the Sunny South.
Mr.. Garfield went on to say that the
elections of last fall in Mississippi had
been carried by violence and intimida-
ton. He also referred to the Hamburg
massacre, and asked how had the
transformation occurred? Oh, it had
occurred long ago in the philosophic
and patriotic heart and mind of the
gentleman from Mississippi, but had
it occurred 10 the minds of majority
of the eleven million people who had
joined with him in the early days to
defend the S'lost cause % He quoted
an ex ract from a recent speech of Mr..
Toombs, of Georgia, that the man who
accepted negro suffrage should be ac-
cursed.
After all these facts was he not war
ranued in entertaining grave doubts
whether transformation had occurred
at all except in some philosophical
minds. The light struck first on the
mountain peaks, while shadows and
darkness hinge red in the valley. TIE
the masses of those in rebellion the
light Of this beautiful philosophy
which he had honored had not yet
penetrated. Was it, therefore, safe
TO trust all the precious treasures of
the Republic to their support? He
went on to say that the Democratic paI5
party had been the evil genius of the