Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1876-03-11

course of the democrats in Withholding tes-
timony from the grand jury, and then aid
ing or blunderingly permitting Marsh to
leave the country, has prevented both in
dictment and impeachment.
| From Harper's Weekly.
| NO APPREHENSION VIA 7EFER.
| In late speech at Atlanta, General
Gordon, one of the Senators from Georgia,
said that what "the South" has to fear in
the elections of this year is the groundless
apprehension of '.the North" He also
declared that republican legislation for
"the South" was tyranny. Does General
lican Congress to justify General Sheri-
dams action in Louisiana last year, or its
rejection of the Presidents proposed poll
cy in Arkansas, tyranny p' Force laws
were directed against the KuKlux and
White League. and what have General
Gordon or his friends done to suppress
those organizations? There has undoubt
eddy been unspeakable tyranny in the
Southern States; but upon reflection Sena-
tor Gordon will probably agree that it was
not, upon the whole and in any great de-
gree, the work OF republicans. In the
very Georgia in which he made his speech,
colored citizens are virtually excluded
from juries. There is no tyranny more
absolute than that of which this is an illus
tration, and such an illustration implies a
feeling and system. Is the republican
party responsible for such tyranny? In
the county of Chatham, in Georgia, there
are more than ten thousand voters. OF
whom six thousand are colored. On cleo
ton day those votes are required to be de-
posted at one polling place in the city of
Savannah. The purpose is plain. 1t is
practically to disfranchse a large part of
the voters, who must come into town from
the country. Is that a republican form OF
tyranny Three weeks before Senator
Gordon spoke, Robert Toombs spoke in
the same place, and said that he gloried in
having defrauded voters at the polls. Is
that also republican tyranny? These things
are done, and things of which these are
but illustrations, under the national as
tendency of the republican party. But if,
with the full knowledge of them, the
country should intrust the control Of the
national government to the party whose
success is earnestly desired by Robert
Toombs and Jefferson Davis and the pub
lie opinion which ostracises the colored
citizen from the jury-box and crowds him
from the ballot-box, does Senator Gordon
does any man in his senses-suppose
that these things would cease?
The general says that 1.-THE South" has
to fear groundless misapprehension at the
North. But be is mistaken. There is no
misapprehension in this part Of the coun-
try, and there is, Notwithstanding the most
vehement denunciation of Northern hate
and tyranny, no vindictive feeling what
ever The people of this part of the
country are as friendly to those of the
Senator's part as they are to the North.
As we have heretofore said, Mr.. Blaine is
quite as conciliatory IN feeling as Mr.. La
mar. Nobody here desires any injustice
or harsh dealing with ex-Confederates.
General Gordon himself has seen this part
of the country. and he knows that it is so.
There is no misrepresentation, no i'll feel
ing, no "hate." Northern men and re-
publicans are not hyenas. They do not
misapprehend the sincere wish of many
intelligent Southerners to have done as
soon as may be with the war and all that
belongs to it. They will cordially CO.
operate for union of hearts as well as
hands. But they are sagacious enough to
know the significance of all that they OBJ
serve, and they do not believe that the
welfare of the Union or of its white and
coiured citizens demands that the demo-
cratic party should return to power. We
assure General Gordon that there is not
the slightest misapprehension upon that
point. There was the recent case of Ham
blston, Tor instance. Itleaked out that the
clerk of the chief committee in the demo-
cratic House. appointed by the demo-
cratic leader had named child for the
assassin of Mr.. Lincoln. The story was
Justify denied, but it was very soon put
beyond question. The father was also
notorious before the war by his black list
of anti-slavery merchants in New York-a
kind of black Email in the history of slav-
cry. These were small things. But why
is it that in the first democratic House
since the old Slavery days-a House full
of "concilialion" and reform and ERA
ternal love"-the leader should have APP
pointed as clerk of the chief committee
man who had been conspicuously often.
sive for devotion to slavery, and who so
honored the assassin of Abraham Lincoln
as to give his name to his sonp 1t was,
we say. little thing, and so is dried
leaf. But dried leaf shows which way