Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1877-06-01
Senator Morton on the Southern Question

| TIE INEyITABLE-THE future OF THE
SOUTH AND THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.
A long and able letter, by Senator Nor
ton, of Indiana, in response to a request for
his views on the political situation, has been
given to the public. Senator Morton says
The Republican governments of Louisiana
and South Carolina have gone down before
an armed minority, whose threats OF future
violence were guaranteed by long train of
bloody deeds in the past. | regret that the
real character of the transaction should be
obscured in the least by pretended investi-
| cations or negotiations.
Stripped of all DISCUSSES and pretenceS,
the simple fact is that Packard and Cham
berlain were not able to maintain them
selves in authority, and the Government,
in the exercise of its discretion, refused
them support Their Legislatures, finding
! themselves defenceless, fell to pieces, and
from their ruins in part new Legislatures
have been constituted whose legality con-
sists only in the fact that there are none
to oppose them. The Democratic ma lority
in Louisiana in the late election cost many
lives, and was the product of theom st in
famous and damning crimes. Murders and
| crimes had been proved, and the blood
stained majority was set aside by lawful
process. The Administration decided that
the contending parties must be lett to their
own strength and resources. Assurances
were given that the rights of all classes
should be protected, and the government
administered for the equal benefit of all.
General promises of this kind amount to
little, especially when left to the vOlun-
tary execution of a party which believes
the colored men ought not to have political
rights. even personal freedom, and who
never considered them part of the people.
| Hayes was urged to give up Louisiana
and South Carolina at once, and was told
that it vas only a question of time, that
| at the next election they would 90 as Mis-
sissipp, Alabama and other States had.
However repulsive this argument, it was
unfortunately too true. This was the argu
| ment of cxpediency, not Of right and justice.
| What might have been the result had
Grant promptly recognized Packard and
Chamberlain in January, and declared his
purpose to sustain them. 1t is not now nee
essary to discuss, but he did not, and
when President Hayes came into power he
found these governments existing only in
name, surrounded by enemies, living only
from day to day by the presence and pro-
| lection Of the troops. Would it have been
| in the power of the President to maintain
them by the army? Tho Democratic
House of Representatives recently withheld
| appropriations for the support of the army
except on condition that it should not be
used in the Southern States. This was
clearly unconstitutional. \ majority House
of the Southern Democrats late Confeder-
ates, and desperately in earnest, and the
Northern Democrats wholly subservient,
thus threatened the existence of the army,
and had it in their power to destroy it
The question was, Should the President
yield to the inevitable? There are and have
been for years many Republicans in the
North who have deprecated the use of the
army for the support of the Republican
State government in the South. The Re-
publican majority in the Senate, upon the
Southern question, is but nominal, if it ex
lists at all. While, in my judgment, it was
clearly right for the President, under the
Constitution, to recognize Packard and sup
port him by military, the undertaking would
have been futile and the failure disastrous.
W I'LL uhluCu puUIlS Ohh
party, and both houses of Congress against
him, he would fail in the end.
We have had so much talk about concilia-
ton and fraternity, that many well-meaning
people in the North had come to believe
that all that was necessary to secure tranquil
ity and equal rights in the South was to with
draw the army. Republicans to abandon the
struggle, and commit the government to the
white Democrats of these States The pro-
fessed yearning for peace and fraternity of
the very men who planned the massacres in
Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina
has been intensely nauseating to people who
understood the facts. The painful truth is
that the political murders in the South have
ceased to be shocking, and are readily iusti
fed by energetic talk about carpet-baggers,
scalawags and radical thieves. Not man
has been punished for the butcheries at
Hamburg, Elienton, COliax, Couchatta, Me-
chanics' Institute, Clinton, Vicksburg, or
any other of the hundred slaughters Of Re-
publicans that might be named.
do not believe the President intends to
destroy the Republican party and attempt
the erection of new one. | believe in his
patriotism, high integrity and undivided
purpose to make his administration beneti-
cent. President Hayes began the conduct of
National affairs under circumstances of ex-
traordinary difficulty, when the minds of
men were greatly divided as to what should |
be done; when all were agreed that some
thing should be done, and that things could !
not long 20 on as they were. He marked |
out his course, and addressed himself |
to it with undaunted courage. Hayes was
elected as Republican. and | be- |
lieve will be Republican President, not in
a mere partisan way, but in the sense Of de-
votion to Republican principles and the
maintenance Of the Republican organization,
by placing political power in the hands of
worthy and qualified Republicans.
Organization in politics is as necessary as
in war. The South are not preparing
schemes for future secession, but are with
intense earnestness revolving plans for re-
covering from their great losses. For this
purpose they will support the Democratic
party North as long as it is subservient to
their policy.
Mr. Morton dwells at length on this point
Ind says the South will stand by the party
hat favors their ends, among them payment
or rebel property taken or destroyed by the
Union army. lie says Tilden's letter on the
'ebel claims lost him his hold upon the South
ind had much to do in restraining them
rom filibustering to prevent the electoral
,ount. In the late House the dividing line
between rebels and loyal claims was ignored,
md with single Democratic administration
would be obliterated When this comes to
)ass, the distinction in the rebel and Union
lebt will be obliterated, and lost slaves will
,e treated as other property sacrificed by our
Government. 1t will not all be done or
vowed at once, but step by step.
The rebellion has ceased to be crime,
carcely a mistake. Complete restoration /
# fraternity will demand the abolition of all
distinctions in law between loyalty and
reason. The Republican party was never
more necessary to the nation than it is to-
lay. The proposition that the party which
aved the nation and which embodies in its
reed the immortal principles on which it
must live if live it does, and which has n re-
ord most glorious in the annals of human
EXAMINATIONS, shall commit suicide as an act !
( Cancellation to the late enemies of the re- ,,
ublic siiences comment, but in its audacity
re are but realizing what has been ,
isibly coming for several years from 1868.
Mr.. Morton refers to the overthrow OF the
republican party of the South, and charges =,
t to deeds of violence. lie asks il any one l
elieves that the Democracy Of the South
ad been converted TO an honest advocacy of !
he equal rights Of men. lie says the body a
the Democracy is unchanged, and if Til /
en- had been elected, the Fourteenth and :
fifteenth Amendments would have been sub .
tantially overthrown In most of the II
Outhern States this would have been t
by the methods recently illus A
'ated in Mississippi and other States. The =
,tter concludes as follows
I'm Georgia. Texas, Mississippi, Alabama,
part of Missouri and Middle and v
Western Tennessee, free suffrage exists v
hiefiY in name. Georgia, in which there n
not difference of s 900 votes between the
arties, gave Tilden majority of 81 600 in y
x counties. Not a Republican vote was b
oiled. Mississippi, with Il Republican "
lalOrity of 70 lilil wns made IN return IL l.