Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1876-08-03
HENDRICKS WAR RECORD.
Strong Exposition of the Duplic-
ity and COpperheadism Of the
Indiana Governor,
New York Times. |

me country unuerStdnus pretty We'll ho'
much of the force which compelled the nom
ination of Hendricks at St. Louis was due +
his pcrnicious course in favor of imitation an,
reputation. He was the avowed candidate
of that wing of the Democracy which wishe
to break the pledges of 1875, and to Hood tn
country with more greenbacks. In othe
words, he was the choice of those who no
only wish to repudiate the statute promise o
resumption, but also to pursue policy whicl
would inevitably lead to the ultimate repudia
/ tion of the Government notes. This is a bal
enough showing, but it is by no means thu
worst.
Hendricks is the representative in the Dem
ocratic party not only of its basest elements
as judged by their intentions relative to the
national credit, but also of the basest ele
ments of the party as judged by their course
during the war and previous to it. He is in
every sense of the word the candidate of the
! Bourbons and of what were known ten years
ago as the ''Copperheads. He has strong
hold on the ignorant, unpatriotic, narrow, bit
ter, and passionate partisans, who hated free
dom up to 1861, hated the Union during the
war, helped the rebellion in every way they
dared to, hampered the Union Army when
ever and wherever it was safe, and when the
rebellion was conquered, but their energies to
restoring to the rebels without conditions OF
guarantees all the rights and privileges they
ever possessed.
| 1t would be great mistake to underesti-
mate the strength of this section, if it may be
called section, of the Democratic Party. II
has more vitality, more sincerity, more de-
termined courage, and more unhesitating de-
votion to its own ideas than any other portion
of the Democracy. Compare it with the little
squad of so called ''Liberal Democrats" who
sought to maintain a standing in their party
without yielding to its most extreme demands.
The latter are found always paltering, always
ready to compromise, and, in the end, always
surrendering to the narrower partisans, with
their more intense will and better defined pur-
poses. The men whom Hendricks not leads,
but represents, and to whom he owes his past
are men without scruple, as they are without
patriotism, who seek not statesmen, but tools,
and who see, in the supple Indianian, fit in
strument to procure, in the National Govern
ment, all the qualification that is possible for
their prejudices and passions.
1t is not unfair to say that Hendricks has
always been in full sympathy with the class
who were, before and during, and have been
since, the war the most dangerous enemies of
the country. 1t is difficult for people in these
days to realize the lengths to such men as he
went previous to 1868. In the long struggle
with slavery, he was always found opposed to
freedom He bound himself to the slave
power with all the gratuitoas servility of the
Northern doughface. He devoted his inf1u-
ence to breaking down the Missouri Compro-
mise, and reopening that bitter conflict which
was to close only on the battlefield He was
willing accompliee in the disgraceful scheme
for forcing slavery by violeace, fraud, and
usurpation into the free Territories of the
Northwest. He was the inventor-and we
believe it is the only instance in which con-
spicuous doctrine in politics can be traced to
MS very limited brain-of the idea that ne
groes can not be citizens, an idea which,
when promulgated by the Supreme Court,
startled the country with its first glimpse of
the scope of the slsveholders' pretensions.
He lived in Indiana while the war was going
on, and represented its people in Congress.
He knew intimately the political outlaws who
did in that State the work of the rebels, who
sought to overturn its lawful Government by
revolution, and afterward to paralyze it by
usurpation. He was the friend and associate
of the desperate men who led the Knights of
the Golden Circle, and the companion and ad-
wiser of those who undertook to strip Governor
Morton of all his powers, and to rob the State
of all means TO assist in the suppression of the
rebellion. Did he oppose their schemes or
seek to shelter the State from the shame and
distress which they were plotting to bring
upon it !! Far otherwise. He aided instead,
as far as his courage would allow. He fought
the Government war measures doggedly, step
STOPPING to arouse against them every latent
passion of his ignorant and besotted partisans,
and prostituting his ingenuity to discover
means of presenting the cause of the country
as wrong, and that of its enemies as excusa-
BILE. All through those trying years, when the
great contest was being waged as distinctly
and with as important consequences in Indiana
as on the battle6elds of the South, Hendricks
voice was never raised in behalf of the Gov
ernment, and never whispered syllable of
condemnation against the rebels.
One motive has seemed to be specially
strong and constant in Hendricks breast
during nearly his whole political career. 1t
is an uncomfortable hatred of the negroes.
Nothing could more fully show his sympa-
thy with the lower elements of his party than
the peculiar influence which this narrow and
vulgar sentiment has had over him. He
showed II in all his public acts that could in
any way feel its effect, and in his appeals to
the public which were, when this matter was
concerned, invariably on the most contempti-
bic plane. He devoted his best efforts to pre-
venting negro immigration into Indiana. He
supported the Fugitive Slave law in its most
offensive and unconstitutional features. He
opposed the freeing of the fugitiues who
came into our camps from the rebel lines; he
opposed emancipation in the District of Co
lumbia; he resisted the proclamation of Pres
ident Lincoln; he voted against enlsting negro
soldiers; he would not consent to pay those
who were enhsted; and, finally, after the war,
he sustained the policy of Andrew johnson,
which must have resulted in placing the free
dom completely under the heels of their
former owners. There was not in Mr.. Hen
bricks breast one faint gleam of generous pity
for the dreadful disabilities, the inheritance of
generations of wrong and oppression, which
had left THAR r.,arlr On 4La ol,a.aa4a-