The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1876-09-28

AN OPEN LETTER TO COLONEL r,
G. LNGERSOLL OFLLLIN0LS.

fNA' ''---'
me to make few remarks. 1t would
not do to draw dividing line between
the North and South-there is only one
American people and one American his
tory--nor was the great war of rebellion,
in all its terrible features, any thing else
but an american war, civil war, a war
between Americans, the people of one
soil and one country. 1t will not do, my
dear Colonel, to 60 back to the Fugitive
Slave Law and prove that Americans
were the greatest rascals on earth, unless
you go further back, and prove thatAmer-
leans, who burned men and women, ex-
ilent Roger Williams and Hutchinson,
and enacted the Blue Laws, were the
greatest savages and hypocrites on the
globe. 1t will not do my dear Colonel,
to accuse the people Of the South Of the
institution Of slavery, with all its conse-
quences, unless you 60 back and prove
that the slaves were introduced on Span
ish, English, Dutch, German and Amer
ican vessels; that the slave trade was
kept up with persistent tenacity by Eng
land and New England; that it was favor
ed and maintained by all means in their
power; that the cargoes of the slave yes.
sells were emptied on American soil; that
not only the South but also the North held
slaves against even the protest of South
ern freemen, and that slavery was in
directly acknowledged and legalized as
an American institution in the fundamen-
tai law of the American people-the
American Constitution. 1t would not do
my dear Colonel, to accuse the Southern
people" of all the evils and terrors ofthat
black institution, unless you also show
thatit was introduced on account of COM
mercial considerations, and was forced
on American soil and made lawful in
heritance of the children and childerns S
Children ofthe American people. ltwould
not do, my dear Colonel, to throw.the
great responsibility for all the inhumani-
ty and crimes committed in the name
and in behalf of slavery upon the South
alone, unless you also show that the pow
er and the wealth of the American people
of which you boast, were the result of
Southern cotton and Southern gold; that
it was pressed out of the labor and the
sweat of the Black man by the Yankee
or American lash, exchanged with North
ern labor and deposited in Northern
banks. You,must, not boast ofthe abolition
of slavery by the Republican party, un-
less you also show that the majority of
the American people was not for sudden
and absolute emancipation of slavery
before the outbreak of the rebellion, but
that its abolishment was the result of the
war, and war was the result of that ire
pressble conflict whose germ lay in the
American Constitution itself. And as an
historian of the first order--as an honest
man-as you certainly are supposed to
be, you must not forget that slavery
would exist to day, if it had not been for
those millions of free men whom Europe
has sent you, and who gave you the ply
sical and moral forces that great balance
ofpower which made it possible for you,
the American people, to maintain your
Government and overthrow the South
ern empire. You must, therefore, be just
and not blind us with crippled ideas and
false pretenses, and as am one ofthose
who came to this, your great country, not
by chance merely, but by choice, and
who assisted you as much as he could in
the hour of danger, | maintain that we
did not fight for the purpose Of suppress
sion and eternal strife and war, but for
liberty and peace, and we mean to have
it now in spite Of bloody shirt speeches
and bloody shirt men. Yes, we mean to
have peace, not only in the North, but
also in the South; we mean to have the
great States of Virginia, Georgia and
Alabama as free and self governing as
the State of Vermont or Rhode Island,
your own State, Illinois. Colonel, you
have done well, beautiful we'll, You
have furnished to the American people
masterpiece of genius and malice. You
have thrown .Popocatapetle of poison
over the land-your native country--and
covered it with an immense blood stained
funeral sheet. You have done we'll, and
hope that every American heart will
gladden. at this mastery exposure of
American ferocity, because you have
it noted down, and 1t will stand
forever that a man, a nice man,
with the name of Jacob Thompson and
whelp, nice whelp, with the name of
Dodd did grow up in this great, nice Re-
public, and behaved like beasts, and wo-
men and children were burned by your
countrymen in the nineteenth century.
In comparison with your gigantic efforts
in vindication of American honor and
the bloody shirt. the efforts of Oliver P.
Morton, the Field Marshal of the Bloody
shirt Brigade, of Fitzpatrick, and innocent
pious brother Blaine, will dwindle down
to mere nothingness.
Butone word more, for the sake of his
tory. You speak of the Republic of We
nice. Did you ever know that Vene-
tan, with the name of Marco Polo, in
his last will and testament, emancipated
his slave, or that slavery was abolished
as far back as the middle of the fifteenth
century, and that Venice did never par
ticipate in American slave trade? Or do
you know that when the Venetian Repub-
lie elected Doge the first condition was
that he could not, under penalty ofdeath
enter into any speculation; while here, in
our palmy days, the President of the
United States or his Cabinet Ministers,
&C., can? Did you ever know that Ven
ice, although only city, had almost as
many vessels as we have. to day, and that
in time Of peace their naval fleet was
transformed into merchant feet and
chartered and sent out in all directions to
bring home the products of Asia, of
Africa, of Europe, while six thousand of
our vessels after the war were rotting in
our harbers or sold as old iron to the
lowest biddera And why do you pot
mention that little but glorious old Re.
public of Switzerland? Why not? Have
yol never heard of it1 do not think so,
but think you do not like to mention it,
because that Republic was purely dem
ocratic institution, based on democratic
principles, confederacy growing up as