The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1876-09-05
TERMS $500 PER ANNUM IN ADVANCE

10 convince US that we were nation OF
liberty. A Democratic victory now would
lay the foundation for another revolution,
would undo reconstruction in the South,
would deliver large class of citizens into the
hands of their old bondmasters, and distract
and d:sorganize our whole political and
social fabric. The brutality and disoyalty
OF the Ku-Klux, and the positive sympathy
and cowardice of Tilden, would wipe out the
advance of decade and make sedtion
rampant.
This, Republicans of Maine, is the danger
that threatens you. You can realize it in
many forms. Whenever the Democrats have
gained foothold of power in the South,
they have made themselves secure through
their old devices. Social ostracism, intimi-
dation, slaughter-these instruments of pow
er have been refined in deyiish-
ness since the Kansas-Nebraska days.
Disappointment has added new sting to the
old shareholders lash, and under the Demo-
cratic dispensation, the ballot must be subor-
dinated to the bullet. Every means at their
hand contributes to this end. The Republi-
cans established admirable educational insti-
tutions in the Southern States, and the Dem
ocrats have overthrown them. The Repub-
licans improved the judicial systems, and the
Democrats have returned to the old reign of
Judge Lynch. The Republicans reconciled
class differences. and the Democrats have re-
kindled the old preiudices and made peace
impossible under their control. The Repub-
iicans invited capital and industry and the
Democrats have repelled them. All this for
the purpose Of forcing their old rule upon the
late slave States, and through those States
upon the nation.
Republicans of Maine, you see the danger
that threatens. The disloyal Democracy
takes hope from this enforced rule at the
South and Tilden's corrupt use of ill-gotten
gains at the North. By the free choice of
the people the ex-Confederate freebooters
would be overwhelmed. By the weapons
which traitors and thieves have forged they
hope to overwhelm the people. The danger
is serious, and vigilance only in the right can
thwart them. The Republicans of New
York and Indiana, where the full force of
Democratic electioneering is felt, call upon
you, men of Maine, to send them cheerful
note from the preliminary battle-ground. In
other states, where the serpent has beguiled
the faint-hearted with the charm of politi-
cal death, your brethren need lifting up by
your example, and will take courage to act
from your resistless charge. And. finally,
the struggling and oppressed Republicans of
the South will revive their hopes if you do
your duty.
Republicans of Maine, you never have fall
tered in the darkest hour, and you have
stood in the breach where others have de-
serted. In the relapse of IA, when your
brethren were panic-stricken, your lines were
unbroken. That was but the natural result
of steadfastness in your convictions. You
can improve upon well-doing;if if you bring
out every voter, you can send US your largest
majority since the unreconstructed rebels
began to show their fangs again. Remem-
bering that ours is the party of the Consti-
ton and the Union, of liberty, equality and
justice, of peace and law, and that all these
are threatened by the advancing army of ex-
Contederates, Tammanyites, repudiationists
and White-line assassins, send US report on
the 10th of September that shall presage an
other Appomattox in November.