The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1876-11-02
PENNSYLVANIA HOLDS the FORTl
HDoRs. REPUBLICAN STATE COMMITTEE,
PAR AnvT ANA October Ia 1870.

HDoRs. REPUBLICAN STATE COMMITTEE,
PHILApELAuIA, October IA, 1876.
To the People Of Pennsylvania:
Eleven years after the overthrow of the re-
bellion we find the men who forced it upon the
country again preparing to seize the Govern
ment. 1t is the old Confederate army united
upon the old Confederate heresy. They have
never abandoned their cherished idea-they still
think with Mr.. Tilden that ours is q confederacy,
and not nation. They have made him their
candidate because he never abandoned the de-
clared conviction that the Constitution of the
United States is only organized revolution"
and that "any State has the right to snap the
tie at its pleasure"
This was the heresy that fired the rebel gun
from Charleston against Sumter in 1861 /; and
this is the heresy they are remarshalled in 1875
to re-establish.
To this end, they have crushed out Republican
opinion in every Southern State. To this end,
they have made the white Republican an out
cast, and the black Republican n vassal. To
this end, coercion of Republicans is their stern
discipline. BY force, their Confederate heresy is
again the cement to make Solid South.
The Confederate army is far more united to-
day in the new effort to seize the Government
than IL was fifteen years ago in the mad effort to
destroy it. They are still aided by their sympa-
thizers in the North. They have concentrated
the struggle upon a single issue-thc revolution
Of the Government They sink every other ques-
ton out of sight, and thus they teach as our
dUty.
Shall they recover by the ballot, conferred
upon them by Republican magnanimity, what
they lost on the battlefield in conflict with the
people they betrayed!
We have met and vanquished their assaulting
columns five times since the first Tuesday of
September, 1S16-in Vermont, Maine, Colorado,
Ohio, and 1ndiana-gaining ten members of
Congress cecting five Legislatures, including
that of Indiana, which even the rebel raiders
from Kentucky were not able to capture.
Democratic victories in the South are only
evidences of Democratic terrorism over Repub-
licans. Sixty-tve thousand Democratic ma
iiority in Georgia means 65, 900 rebel shotguns at
the polls.
Three weeks only are left to US to meet the
new crisis forced upon us by these men, What
win Pennsylvania do' Our enemies, confident
of successful coercion all over the South, have
resolved to make another attack upon this great
state. They leave the South in the safe custody
OF the reorganizcd Confederate army and the
are now, as i'll 1868, marching upon Pennsyl-
Vania in determined array, and their rebel yell
already is heard within our limits.
Let us be prepared for them. Our great
Commonwealth has always been the stronghold
Of nationality. During the war she gave her
treasures Of men and money to the cause of her
country. Standing between the two sections,
she has always been the foe of scctionuiism
She stood by Lincoln, Grant, Sherman, and
Meade during all the struggles of the war. The
tysburg fell on the 4th of july 1868, the great
work of restoration was accomplished and the
rebellion was dead, but they are now brought
face to face with revolution as dangerous as
the rebellion itself.
When fifteen States can be more unified by
the shotgun and the bludgeon than they were
by armed secession itself, aud when this combi-
nation is enforced by the suppression of free
speech. free ballot and free schools, its sue
cess must end our republican experiment.
These men tried to fight their way out of the
Union at an incalculable sacrifice of human
life, and now they are trying within the Union,
by new forms OF violence and fraud, TO re-estab-
lish the dog1nas supposed to be destroyed on the
battlefield All they ask is a sufficient contin-
gent from the free States to complete their pro-
gramme.
1t is in this Centennial year, when Pennsvl-
vania is inviting all the nations to her hospitali-
ties, and profiering encouragement and kindness
to her Southern sisters. that the Confcderates
advance upon her borders to make another
effort for the heresy which originated and pro-
longed the rebellion.
Pennsylvania demands "pcace and unity"
but she demands them as the result of cheerful
obedience to just law, and not as the sullen
submission compelled by the officers of the Gov
erument.
Pennsylvania demands industrial and CON-
mercial prosperity; but she knows that these
are the fruits of peaceful and orderly society,
based upon honesty and right, and cannot grow
out of the anarchy and chaos threatened by
solid South Pennsylvania will first have JUS
tice, then prosperity. Has the country no road
to prosperity but that which disgraces the scars
of the living soldiers and dishonors the graves
Of the dead
Pennsylvania will have purity in public ad-
ministration, but she wants none of the Elusive
promises of /" reform ~ made by Tilden and il
lustrated by Tweed and the disciples of Tam
many Hall
Men of Pennsylvania, upon you rests the re-
sponsibility-yours is the absorbing obligation.
Will you Hold the Fort's
By order of the Committee
HENRY NJ. HoYr, Chairman.
A. WILSON NORRIS Secretary