The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1876-10-18
ADDRESS
Of the Republican State Central Committee,
HEADQUARTERS REPUBLICAN !
STATE CoMMITTEE,

Eleven years after the overthrow of
the rebellion we find the men who
forced It upon the country again pre-
pairing to seize the Government. 1t is
the old Confederate army united upon
the old Confederate heresy. They
have never abandoned their cherished
idea-they still think with Mr.. Tildeu
that ours is cowedsracy, and not
nation. They have made him their
candidate because he never abandon
ed his declared conviction that "the
Constitution of the United States is
only organized revolution" and that
"any State has the right to snap the
tie at its pleasure.
This was the heresy that fred the
rebel gun from Charleston against
Sumter in 1861 and this is the heresy
they are remarshalled in 1876 to re.
establish.
To this end they have crushed out
Republican opinion in every Southern
State. To this end they have made
the white Republican an outcast and
the black Republican vassal. To
this end, coercion of Republicans is
their stern discipline. BY force, their
Confederate heresy is again the cement
to make Solid South.
The Confederate army is far more
united to day in the ne " effort to seize
the Government than it was fifteen
years ago in the mad effort to destroy
it. To-day treason is aided by their
sympathizers in the North. They
have concentrated the struggle upon n
single issue--the revolutiOn of the Gov
erament. They sink every other ques-
ton out of sight, and therein they teach
'ts oar duty
Shall they recover by the ballot,
conferred upon them by Republican n
maghanimi.y, what they lost on the
battle. field in conflict with the people
they betrayed?
We have met and vanquished their
assaulting columns five times since the
first Tuesday of September. 1876 lin
Vermont, Maine, Colorado, Ohio, and
Inriana-gaining ten members Of
Congress, electing five Legislatures,
including that of Indiana, which even
the rebel raiders from Kentucky we're
not able to capture.
Democratic victories in the South
are only evidences of Democratic ter.
rorism over Republicans. Sixty.6ve
thousand Democratic majority in
Georgia means 5000 rebel shotguns
at the polls.
Three weeks only are left to us to
meet the new crisis forced upon us by
these mer. What WW Pennsylvania
dO ? Our enemies, confident ofsuccess.
ful coercion all over the South, have
resol yed to make another attack upon
this great State. They leave the
South in the safe custody Of the reor-
ganized Confederate army, and they
are now, as in 1868, marching upon
Pennsylvania in determined array,
and their rebel yell already is heard
within our limits.
Let us be prepared for them. Our
great Commonwealth has always been
the stronghold of nationality. During
the war she gave her treasures of men
and money to the cause of her coun
try. Standing between the two sec
tipns, she has always been the foe of
sectionaliSm. She stood by Lincoln,
Grant, Sherman, and Meade during
all the struggles Of the war. The peo.
pie believed that when Vicksburg and
Getty ysburg fell on the 4th of July,
1868, the great work Of restoration
was accomplished aud the rebellion
was dead, but they are now brought
face to face with revolution rs dan
gerous as the rebellion itself.
When fifteen States can be more
unified by the shotgun and the bludg-
con than they were by armed secess.
ion stself, and when this combination
is enforced by the suppression of free
speech, free ballot, and free schools,
its success must end our Republican
experiment. These men tried to fight
their way out of the Union at an in
calculable sacrifice of human life, and
now they are trying within the Union,
by new forms Of violence and fraud,
to re-establish the dogmas supposed to
be destroyed on the battlefield All
they ask ia a sufficient contingent
from the free States to complete their
programme.
1t is in this Centennial year, when
Pennsylvania is inviting all the ma
tions TO her hospitalties, and profer-
ing encouragement and kindness to
her Southern sisters, that the Confed.
crates advance upon her borders to
make another effort for the heresy
which originated and prolonged the