The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1876-09-14
From Hnrper's Weekly !
Mr.. Lamar's View.

peclolly OF southern Democrat, 10 treat
the situation philosophically. The tone
OF the speech is courteous and manly.
and it is by far the ablest Democratic
discourse in tone and temper ever deliv
cred upon the question But the true
criticism upon it is that it is only Dem
ocratic speech. 1t is a special plea
adroit and, inAmany respects, sound, but
again evasive and, as n whole, inconclu-
sive. 1t is OF course, a campaign speech,
and its peculiar significance is its con-
sciousness that the Southern question
is very likely to be the controlling con-
sideration in determining the wisdom
and safety of a Democratic restoration.
Mr.. Tilden is probably as conscious of
this fact as Mr.. Lamar But he is a pol
itician Of great craft and skill and he has
devoted all his energies to erecting ere
form" into the sole issue of the canvass,
and to avoiding all illusions to the
Southern question as a thing settled, and
not wisely to be disturbed. This ex-
plains the very brief and general refer
ence to it in his letter The blood Of the
Hamburg massacre cried from the ground
as he wrote. That blood, he said, in sub
stance, is due to the "misgovernment inn
posed upon the States of the South"
This is also the argument of Mr.. La
mars speech. and it is the vital defect of
the Democratic position upon the sub
ject. Mr.. Garfield, in his reply to Mr..
Lamar, effectually shows this Mar. La
mar asserts that "the South" honestly
and fully accepts the results of the war,
and that the friendly relations of the
whites of that section with the blacks
especially fit them to guide the latter in
progressive civilization. He insists that
their old relation, in which one rvce was
dehumanized, and, under the cruelest
slave system ever known, was treated as
cattle-for individual exceptions do not
not affect the rule-was one of "harmo-
ny, friendship, and confidence" The
words are incredible. but they are Mr..
Lamars. They give the kind of unreali-
ty to his discourse that similar fantastic
assumptions gave to Calhoun's specula-
tions. The relation between the races,
says Mr.. Lamar, was harmonious, friend
ly, and confding. 1t might have been
supposed, therefore, that the proposition
TO unite in an equal political community
classes holding such relations could hard
ly have been appalling Yet Mr.. Lamar
compares it to enfranchising four mil
lions of Mongolians, with 10000 voters
among them,in New England New York.
and New Jersey:
ask you weuld not the repose of society be
disturbed, would not all assurance OF law, OF
heaithinl lndns,ry' OF business arrangement .
give way to disinay and perplevity. TO restless
fears, wild passions, bloody scenes? Why, sir.
the more splendid their political civilization,
aa....the more hideous would be their ruin and
the more refined the agony OF the people sub
Jected TO such catastrophe.
This is entirely illogical If the en-
franchised multitude were Of a cruel and
treacherous race, suspicious, hostile, alien,
nfs.lI l.. 4.
might have been apprehended. But if
they were native TO the soil, harmonious,
friendly, confiding, that fact would have
shown that they had no reason to fear.
and by law of human nature they
would willingly and smoothly have fol-
lowed the counsels of those who, al
though holding them enslaved, had yet
treated them so like children and hu-
man dependents that the mutual rela-
tions were amicable and gentle like
those of the family. Mr.. Lamar quotes
from a message and a speech Of Governor
Morton in 1865 deprecating the political
equality OF the negroes. But Governor
Morton's remarks were based upon the
view Of slavery which was universal at
the north. 1t was held here to be a
crime against human nature, the sum of
all villainies. Had Governor Morton
supposed it to be, af Mr. Lamar now rep
resents, O relation of harmony, friend.
ship, and confidence, he certainly would
not have regarded enfranchisement, in
Mr.. Lamar's words, as a shock" a "thun.
der-bolt'" terrible avalanche" nor
could he have imagined the attitude OF
the master class toward the enfranchise
ment of confiding and happy dependents
as the appalled, feeling of the Southern
society upon whom it Gthe avalanche
was to be let loose" The truth Is. thai
a relation in which, as jefferson said
God has no attribute that could take
part with the master, and of which John
Randolph said that no white mother in
Richmond could hear the fire-bell al
night without clasping her child to hel
breast in nameless terror of awful insur
rection, was not one of harmony, friend
ship, and confidence. 1t was the worst
aspersion of human nature to saw so
There were, of course, kind maste RS ano
mistresses and affectionate slaves. But
the tyrannical code of sl.=e laws-tht
prohibition of assembly, the dispersion
by the bell at night, the entire black
code-was itself the declaration of the
infamy, the inconceivable wrong, the
conscious crime, of the whole system, and
of the consciousness that it was one o.
subsection and terror. not of friendship
and confidence.
Fortunately the enslaved race was nei
ther cruel nor treacherous. Not all the
distrust and the inhuman injustice o.
the master class succeeded in makina
them SO, But as to the actual nature o.
the relation between them, every fugi
tive slave who escaped, with a heroism
of resource and endurance beyond that
of Sidney or Bayard, is a witness as com
petent as Mr. Lamar. Fortunately in
this case the lien can speak as well as
the man. The testimony of the slave is
that slavery was not the friendly, bar
monious, and pleasing thing that Mr.
Lamar describes. His own vivid picture
of the probable consequence of emanci
patton and enfranchisement is still fur.
ther evidence that it was not so. The
black codes, the Ku-Klux, the White
League, the countless wrongs, oppres
sions, prosecutions, tortures, and massa
cres that have followed the war complete
the proofthat the relation between the
races was such that to have emancipated
the slaves and then to have abandoned
them, absolutely ignorant, abjectly de.
pendent, without piece of property and
without the idea of property, 10 the mer
cy of the master class. would have been
a crime almost as monstrous as slavery
itself. To have freed the slaves, and
then to have Withdrawn and left the late
rebel States to local selfgovernment.' -
would have been a tragically grotesque
parody of statesmanship.
Yet Republican policy was neither
hasty nor vindictive. Mr.. Lamar for.
gets to say measures were taken to as
certain the real sentiments of the South
ern States. Mr.. Garfield reminds him