Ashtabula telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1874-1880, 1876-08-18

!. nan from Mississippi, 1Alf Singleton ] thel
/ and hosea member of this House:
: The south VA never submit to that state 0
things, ii Iuattsrs net Ehgt evils come upol
US; Il natteTs not how deep We nay hay
, to wade through blood We are bound 70 keel
me ask YOU what geod Wonld you bring to tn
! slaves by this process of abolition? You ma
possibly have fhe object in view of bensftinl
the slave or benefting the white race or both
but suppose you could carry out your plans anC
eonane us to our present area, and suppose tn,
Institution Of slavery should abolish itsalf
what would you hare donef YOu know it ii
impossible for rs to live on terms of equality
with them. 1t is not to be supposed for mo
meat that we can do So. The result would Be
n involve the utter annihilation of one or thS
other and thus you see that instead of bene-
iting either yOu would have brought disaster
Il upon both. ~ sH
tiOn Of slavery must be sustained. The South
has made mp its mind to keep the black race in
bondage. If We are not permitted TO do this
done outside Of It. Yss. sir, and We viii eS-
pand this Institutions we do not intend to be
confined within our present limits and there
eperes three million armed men IN the sonth,
and prevent their going into the surrounding
territories.
/ In the course Of that deSste, the same
gentleman said:
I am one of fh5Ee who have ssid, and here
repeat it, if the black Republican party elect q
President, I am for dissolving the Union.
4 I have no doubt the gentleman fairly and
faithfully represented the opinions Of his
State. Not long before the date of this
i speech, it win be remembered that two dis.
tinguished members of the Republican
party had uttered their opinions on this
question. Mr.. Lincoln had said, that it was
impossible for a country to remain partly
slave and partly free. And Mr.. Seward
had ssid, that there was an irrepressibie
conflict between the systems of free and
slave labor, which could never cease until
one or the other Was wholly overthrown.
The Republican party, however, disclaimed
all right or purpose to interfere with slavery
in the States; yet they expressed the hope
that the time would come when there
should be no slave under our FLAG. In re-
sponse to that particular opinion, the dis
tinguished gentleman from Mississippi, (Afr.
LamaT,l then q member of this House, on
the 2Sd day of December, 1859, said this:
IEas upon tae floor Of the Senste when your
great leader, William b. Seward, announced
eet Sas sS', n sf f = q an{lZssVsTE M ssnti
ultation he ekclaimed=zfor / heard him 1ayself
that he hoped to see the day when there
upon this cOhtinsnt. And when h'S he uttered tsFe
sals atroelonsi sentiment his form seemed to
dllate, his pale. thin face, furroRed hy the
lines of thought and evil passions kindlgd
with malignant triumph, and his eye gloWed
and glaFed upon Southern senators as though
the fires Of he'll were burning in his heart.
have read this passage to mark the
height to which the RnsagOnism had risen
in 1859. And this passage enables Us to
measure the progress he has since made.
mark 1t here as one of the notable signs
OF the time, that the gulf which intervenes
between the position then occupied by the
gentleman from Mississippi and the posi-
ton he occupies to-day, Is SO deep, SO vast,
that it indicates q progress wOrthy of ali
praise. congratulate him and the coun.,
Try that, in 80 short a time, SO great a
change has been possible.
NOW ask the gentleman if he is quite
sure, as matter of fact, that the Democrat
&c party, its Southern IS wen as its Northern
wing, have followed his own illustrious and
worthy example in the vast progress he has
made since 1859? He assures Us that the
transformation has been so complete, that
the nation can safely trust all the most pre-
eiOus fruits Of the war in the hands of that
party who stood with him in 1859. If that
be true, / rejoice at it with all my heart; but
the gentleman must pardon me If 1 ask him
dence, some eonsoling proofs. When did
the great transformation take place? Ger
tainly not within two years after the deIiy-
cry OF the speech l have quoted; for two
years from that time, the contest had risen
much higher; it had risen to the
point Of open, terrible and determined
war. Did the change come during
the war? o, no for in the four terrible |
years ending IN 1866, every resource of
courage and power that the Southern States
could muster was employed not only to |
save slavery but to destroy the Union. So |
the Transformation had not occurred in |
1866. When did it occur? Aid our anx-
ious inquiry, for the nation ought to be sure |
that the great change has occurred before |
it can safely trust its destinies to the Dem. !
Ocratie party. Did it occur in the first |
epoch of reeoDsfruction-the two years i'm
mediately following the war? During that
period tie attempt was made to restore gov /
ernments IN the South on the basis Of the |
white vote. Military control was held gem
ersly; bat the white population Of the |
Southern States we're invited to elect their
own Legislatures and establish provisional
In the laws, covering period of tsxo and
q half years, 1865, 1856 and a portion of
1867, enacted by those Legislatures, we
ought to find proof of the transformation If /
It had then occurred. What do we find?
What we should naturally expect: that 8
people, accustomed to the domination of
slavery, Fe-enaeted in almost all of the
Southern States, and notably in the States
Of Mississippi and Louisians, laws limiting
and restricting the liberty of the colored
man; vsgrant laws and peonage laws, /
whereby negroes were sold at auction for
the payment Of q paltry tax or fine, and
held in a slavery as real as the slavery of
Dther days. ] believe that this was true of
nearly al Of the Southern States; SO that the
experiments of allowing the white popula-
ion Of the South to adjust that very ques-
sion provedafr afrightfaI failure; and then it was
hat the national Congress intervened. They
proposed an act of reconstruction, an act
which became law on the I'd of March, I
1857. /,
And what was that act Gentlemen of
he South, you are too deeply schooied in | .
lhilosophy TO take any umbrage at What 1 1
hall now say, for 1 am dealing only with
history. You must know, and certainly do ]
Inow, that the great body Of the nation
ghieh had carried the war 70 triumph and
nccess, knew that the eleven States that
lad opposed the Union, had plunged their .
people into crime; crime set down in the
AVA lsE signed by PTssiaent Washington
at the very top of ule catalogue of /
rimes the crime Of tressen and all that I
ollows il. You certainly 4 that, under g
hat law, every man who voluntarily took !
I'D arms against the Union, could have been
lied, convicted, and hanged, as g traitor
0 his country But | call your atten- Q
ion TO the fact that the conquering
lation said, in this great work of
Owe viii do nothing for re- I