The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1876-09-21
For Presidential Electors.
GTaunting the Smith,

"Taunting the SOUTH has lately become a
favorite phrase with the Democratic organs.
If Republican orator refers to the war and
the attempts of the Confederates to disrupt
the Union, forsooth he is ''taunting the
South;' if he dares to give vent to feeling
OF horror at the massacre of innocent negroes
he is only "taunting the South = if be quotes
one of those disloyal sentiments with which
the Southern press is now teeming, no atten-
ton should be paid to it for he is s'taunting
the South.''
But look at the record and see how the
Republican party has "taunted the South"
After five years of war, the Southern scheme
to establish an independent confederacy was
everthrown. The Southern people lay de-
feated and powerless at the feet of the Re.
publican party. They had no claim to Glenn
ency, no claim to be treated otherwise than
as a rebellious people who had been COM
PEELED by vast expenditure of life and treas
are to submit to lawful auth ority. Had the
Republican party treated them as the nations
OF Europe treat rebeilious states they would
have had no just grounds for complaint. But
the conqueror was more lenient than ever
conqueror was before. No man, not even
the leader of the conspiracy, suffered the des-
ert OF treason. They were permitted to re-
main secure in their property and their liber-
ty and theRepublican party protected these
with the same safeguards which it extended to
loyal men. II was but few years before this
same Republican party admitted these
rebels to full citizenship and to a participa-
ton in that government which they had
spent their blood and treasure to destroy,
only requiring of them a verbal promise OF
fidelity TO the Union for the future, and to-
day they are enjoying, with hardly an excep-
tlon the same privileges as the men who
never wavered in their loyalty. No better
Illustration of the magnanimity of the Repub-
llcan party is wanted than that afforded by
the composition of the present House of Rep
resentatives and no better evidence of the
determination of the Democratic South to
treat that magnanimity with scorn and con-
tempt than is found in the sentiments uttered
by the majority of that body.
In the face of this record the charge that
the Republican party is taunting the South
falls utterly to the ground. Had it desired
revenge it would have taken it when the
South was suppliant at its feet. The truth
is the South is now seeking revenge upon the
Republican party and all loyal men at the
North who assisted at the overthrow of its
disloyal schemes. The Republican party has
no malice to crafty, no injuries to avenge,
and if it recalls the scenes of the rebellion, if
it tells the people of the murder OF innocent
negroes, if it quotes the disloyal sentiments of
the Southern press it is only to warn loyal
men of the danger and enable them to avert
it in time. 1t desires to see the South happy
and prosperous. Now as when Lee surrender
ed at Appomattox it would extend to the South
nothing but kindness, but it insists that the
results of the war shall be heartily accepted,
that the freedom of the black man shall be
real and not merely in name, that every citi-
zen shall be as secure in his life and liberty
whatever his political sentiment, in the South
as in the North.