Ashtabula telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1874-1880, 1876-10-27

of the terrible threatenings fOretOld by
the faithful prophet. Ours is land and
this nation that has been most signally
blessed of God. Its. founders seeking a
home where freedom of thought and opin-
ion might be tolerated came to these, then
unknown, shores, and consecrated this
land by prayer in the cabin Of the May
flower to liberty and freedom. The infant
colony amid all its hardships and trials, did
not forget the hand that had guided them.
The struggle Of the Revolution was fearful
baptism of blood in oar infancy. The God
who had guided them to their new homes
was the directing force in every battle.
the history of the late struggle, where free
dom battled with slavery, even our mar
tyred President had no conception that the
war meant anything more than the preser-
walton Of the Union as it was, with slavery
intact. Full half a million cf our bravest
sons had confronted the foe on many hard
fought field, and we were seeking to work
out victory where there was nothing but
crushing defeat, and thousands of our slain
were sleeping the sleep of death on many a
Southern field; and all this sacrifice was
made to preserve the Union and save slave
nv. The God who had led US thus far as a
nation was leading US still, but by a strange
pathway of blood through the valley of hu-
initiation and defeat. Amid the confusion
of the conflict, the booming of cannon, the
rattling of musketry, the groans of the dy-
ing, there was voice louder than the noise
ofcannon- 1t was the voice of the Almigh-
ty, saying, LET my people 60" Atlength
the dull ear of the people of this nation
caught the sound of the portentOus mes
sage, and while the issue of the struggle
was hanging tremblingly in the balance, the
shackles of four millions of bondmen were
broken, and justice was cast into the doubt
full scales, and victory thenceforward perch
ed on our banners. The soldier soon faded
into the citizen, and the enfranehiSed took
his place on the statute book beside his for
mer master as a man, and not chattel.
The miracle by which God delivered his
chosen people out of bondage was no more
wonderful than that by which He wrought
out the delivcrance of the enslaved in our
own land.
He who doubts this would not believe
though one arose from the dead. 1t is not
enough that we have seemed in appearance
to emancipate these recently enslaved ones.
We might attempt, and often are able to
palm off gilded cheat upon the country,
some ingenious theory of hard money, or
soft money, or civil service, or meaningless
reform questions which are not ripple on
the wave in comparison with the weighty
interests affecting these new made citizens.
Scarce half a score of years has passed
since these days of darkness overcast and
confronted our national life, and when the
clouds of war rolled away and victory came,
in our magnanimity to these rebellioUs ones
we forgot that treason was crime, and lost
the last opportunity to write it down such,
as warning to those who might ever after
raise there bloody fratricidal hands in at
tempting the destruction of the Govern
ment. The former Shareholders, in spite of
the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments,
which have become part Of our Constitu-
ton, have by State enactments rendered in
operative and void every guarantee to the
colored man, and the condition Of the race
is today disgrace to our Christian civili-
zatiOn. They stand before the law as men,
but the only boon that freedom has brought
to them is the privilege Of being hunted and
shot in the daytime, or dragged from their
wives and children at night by armed assas-
sins and left mangled and bleeding on the
soil so lately drenched in blood to purchase
their freedom. Thousands of these men,
whom the God of the oppressed cares for,
have been most inhumanly murdered, and
every day adds to the list of martyred ones,
and in this land, so blessed of God in this
our Centennial year, it must be declared
that not one Of these murderers has ever
been punished with death or imprisonment
for life. A united South is the crHnow as
it was during the war, and that means the
sway Of Southern Shareholders, the payment
of the Confederate debt, the degradation
and reinstatement of the colored race, and
the accomplishment of all that they sought
to secure by four bitter years Of war, and
which cost the North five hundred thousand
noble lives and thousands of millions of
treasure to prevent.
Christian men of America, this very hour |
the future of this nation is being menaced
by its most malignant foe. 1t is no time
to parley with the enemy or daub with qn-
tempered mortar. Be not deceived, Gsd is
not Knocked; the judgments of the Lord are
true and righteous altogether,
Washington D. c., Oct. 1S, 1876.