New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1876-08-20
NKW ORLEANS REPUBLICAN, SUNDAY. AUGUST 20. 1875.

AUGUST 20. 1876.
bic hatred of tho negro, and in this repre-
sented the lowest and most vulgar elements
Of his party. In the Senate be opposed the
freedom Of the slaves escaping into our
lines during the war. He bitterly opposed
tho repeal of the fugitive slave law long
after the issue of tho emancipation procla-
nation. and, speaking against the .esolu-
ton of repeal, said:
It was a. plain to him a. the multiplication t..
BILE that it should not be repealed
On the tenth of February, 1864, on the
resolution to allow negroes to ride in the
street cars in Washington, he said:
It seems to be considered great outrage that
the negroes in the District Of Columbia are not
allowed to take their sests in the same cars with
roads in this city. If were allowed to express an
opinion ON this subject should say the outrage
| would be tho othtr way.
On the fifth of December, 1867, in speak
| ing on the District of Columbia bill, he said
| he was opposed to allowing the negroes to
"policy which subjugates tho white to the
| cOlored race"
OPPOSITION TO AMENDMENTS.
Mr.. Hendricks was in the Senate when
| the thirteenth amendment to the cOnstltu-
ton was adopted abolishing slavery; when
the fourteenth amendment was adopted,
securing equal rights, protection and in
munities in all tho States, and prohibiting
the nayment for slaves and the rebel war
debt; when the fifteenth amendment was
adopted, providing that no person should
be denied the right of suffrage on account
of race, color or previous condition of servi-
tude, and he spoke and voted against all.
He not only voted against the thirteenth
amendment sbolishing slavery, but in an
excited speech declared to an ast0nished
Senate that the people OF the United States
had no power to abolish slavery by an
amendment to the constitution:
1t is enough to know, says he, that this consttu-
ton existed before the revolution in the Colonies;
that it continued during the revolution; THAI it
came with the c. lonies into their state Of indie
pendence and separate sovereignty, and when the
Colonies came into the Federal compact they did
not submit that institution or the other domestic
ment. The Federal government has had nothing
to with the institution of slavery except fe
and uave rom one State to another
shall be returned without respect to the law Of the
State into which he escapes
This was spoken of slavery in April, 1864,
in the last year of the war, when slavery
WAS in fact already dead, having been
K1ll0O ny LILO cuouCIpoLIOu prOcIbmdCIOuj
but he still carried the putrescent corpse
about in his arms and entertained the vain
hope of calling it back to life.
He opposed the enlistment of negro SOL
diers, and in q speech at Shelbyville. Indi-
ana, in February. 1868. just after his cleo
ton to the Senate, said:
The last and browning act of infamv On the part
of this Congress is to be the enactment Of the law
to organize $50 600 negroes int regiments The DILL
has passed the House, and believe will pass the
Senate, and be approved by Mr.. Lincoln: Three
should be preserved in letters Of gold. What does
this legislation mean! II it that the 20 900 600 white
men at the North can not cope with the 1000 900
white men at the S0uthi Or ia it that the negro
will make better soldier than the white mani
Further on he said:
Can it be possible tAst the safety, the honor
and the glory of my country 10 to rest upon the
shoulder Of negro regiments! In Chur; n poetry
find the lines:
Upon what slender cord
Hang everlasting things."
If our country's fortune depends upoa negro
valor, then may we sing:
Upon what slender cord
Hang earthly things"
The men will be marked who have done this
The people whose sons and brothers are in the
field will not forgive the insult.
Looking at these remarks in the light of
the past, We would question the sanity Of
the author did We not know that his oppOsi-
ton to negro soldiers was because he was
opposed to the use of any means for putting
down the rebellion.
As q member of the House of Represents.
tives in 1854. he voted for the repeal of the
Missouri compromise, that slavery might go
into Kansas and Nebraska AS member
of the Indiana Constitutional Convention in
1850. he made but enc speech, which was
against permitting free negroes to come into
the State.
GRAND OPPORTUNITIES.
With grand opportunities for usefulness,
and connecting his name with the greatest
reforms of the century, he was blind to the
time and place and remained bigoted sd-
herent to slavery. His political record. ex-
tending over period of nearly thirty years,
is dull, mOnOtOn Gus page of weary COM
monplace, diversified only with blots, and
recording no act to which his friends can
point with pride or pleasure.
His unbroken record of blunders, unre-
deemed by any good measure, presents the
question whether he is promising material
tor great reformer. Reform should be the
normal condition of every political party.
Abuses are constantly arising; old ones are
being discovered; new improvements in ad-
ministratiOn are necessary. Reform should
be steadily made, as daily business, and
not merely by fits and starts just before an
election.
THE WORD DIsHONORED.
The very word reform" becomes odious
when it is used as q mask to conceal the re-
pulsive features of men who have cham.
piOned every great abuse in the past, who
have blundered continually; who have
brought upon the country its chief misfor-
tunes, and whose names are indissOlubly
connected with the greatest political crimes
of the age.
WHO ARE THE REFORMERs!
Think of it, the leaders of the rebellion,
the Ku-Klux and White Leaguers, the Or
ganizers of murder, the plundering hacks
aud humbugs that have come down to Us
from twenty years of Democratic misrule
before the war, the broken-dOwn fugitives
from the Republican party who had been
kicked out for incapacity and fraud, and,
in short, all the authors of the great mis-
fortunes that have fallen upon our country
for the last quarter of Q century, uniting
together and shouting themselves hOarse
with the cry of reform. With such men
plumber is the purpose and reform the pre-.
tense. They are as incapable of reform as
they are of making reparation and atone
ment to the country for the innumerable
crimes they have committed. Many of
them are bankrupt from the rebellion, lank,
starving, fierce and ravenous as tamished
wolves, and at the first opportunity will
bury themselves in the public treasure as
the vulture does it's head in the newly found
carcass.
These relics of the rebellion, these linger.
ing remains of the Sons Of Liberty, these
connecting links with former generations
of frauds. robberies and shams, these
putrescent "reminiscences of slavery, con-
gregated at St. Louis and dubbed them
selves reformers.
Remember that they are the men who
brought the war upon the country. who