The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1877-05-30
noRroN,s OPEN LETTER.

publish an open letter, addressed TO the
editor of the Journal" upon what he is
pleased to caption 1.-THE Presidents South
'ern Policy" and 1.-THE Overthrow of the
Republican State Governments of South
Carolina and Louisiana" BY this act Oliver
p. Morton challenges criticism. He assumes
to talk to the country as if his views were of
special importance to the people OF the
United States and to the world. Now,
who is Oliver P. Morton? What are his ante
cedents and what special value attaches to
his opinions? By an inscrutable providence
which has permitted other terrible curses to
fall upon this country Oliver P. Morton is a
United States senator. He is this in def
ance of the will of the people of Indiana, an
outrage accomplished by gerrymandering
the state for that express purpose, and there
fore fraud upon the people. He does not
represent the sentiments of a majority of
the people of the state. When such
man talks, il is understood that fraud is to
be eulogized and defended. Oliver P. Nor
ton is a radical politician. In his physical,
as in his moral and political deformities, he
more fully represents his party than any
other conspirator living or dead. To call
Oliver P. Morton great in any sense of the
term designed to convey an idea of dignity,
honor, or nobility of purpose, is vile SLAM
der upon every virtue of head and heart
that distinguishes enlightened craftsmanship
from the most despicable poltroonery in pol
itics. In all that is essentially devilish in par
tisan politics, o. P. Morton is without peer
and without a rival. He possesses every
brain quality of Nero. His mental charac
teristics are displayed in cunning, cruelty,
hate, malice and vindictiveness. He is self
ish and venal. Without intellectual grasp.
he is no more a statesman than a bat is an
eagle We challenge the record and ask his
followers whom he feeds-he has no friends
to point to a single measure that o. P.
Morton ever originated bearing the i'm
press of craftsmanship. He rose to
prominence on the fiery and bloody
wave of civil conmotion, and so did
Danton, Marat and Robespierre. and like
these fomenters of strife would forever keep
discord, anarchy and revolution with all of
their attendant curses in the ascendency A
more deliberate, persistent implacable foe to
peace, constitutional liberty and fraternity
does not live and this is the man who as
sumes to talk to the country about the
overthrow of the republican state govern
'ments of South Carolina and Louisiana
The first proposition of Oliver P. Morton is
to show that William Pitt kellogg is the
rightful senator from Louisiana, and S. b.
Packard the rightful governor of that
state No one, we presume, who
is at all familiar with the political antece-
dents of Oliver p. Morton will be surprised
at this cham pionship of the two Louisiana
villains. He advocated the seating of Pinch
back as United States senator from LOuisi-
ana and when the senate of the United
States declared that he had no right to a seat
in that body o. T. Morton's friendship took
another chute, and he favored paying the
negro out of the revenues of the country
more than $40, 900, which he received, and
with which he walked off If o. p Morton
has at any time denounced a radical fraud,
or ever gwen a vote to punish radical vii
lain, we should like to know when and where
the event occurred. But o. p Morton comes
before the country at this particular junctnre
to show that the republican state govern
ments of South Carolina and Louisiana have
been overthrow. 1t is subject that has
deeply interested the people, not only of the
south, but of the whole country. To assume
that South Carolina and Louisiana had re-
publican governments previous to the with
drawal of the troops is to obliterate the di-
Viding line between truth and falsehood.
Morton does this. He does more: he seeks
with vandal hand and vandal hate to oblit-
crate the records by which the country and
the world may be guided to just conclusions
in regard to radical rule in the states men
toned. He would arrest investigation,
torture truth on the rack and silence
its voice forever; while, as in the case
of the Louisiana returning board, he would
elevate perjury to the dignity of a cardinal
virtue. 1t is fact proved a thousand times
that the governments of South Carolina and
Louisiana were simply military despoisms,
warmed into life by the fierce heat of rad-
cal hate for the purpose of plumber aud
power, and maintained by means as directly
in antagonism to the genius of republi
can government truth is opposed
to fasehood. The whole country
looked on, as il saw states bayoneted
by Grant, with unutterable horror. There
was no appeal from Grant except to the PEG
pie, and as the months rolled on the indig
nation of the people increased, and when
the suspicious time arrived the representa-
tive branch of congress changed its political
complexion. Radicalism was overwhelm
ingly condemned. The people pronounced
against its southern policy, bloody shirtism
and bayonet rule were declared to be in OPP