Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1878-07-21
THE SHELBY COUNTY DEMOC-
RACY.


Eight years ago the Shelby county Democ-
racy was redeemed, regenerated and olsen
thralled from the rule of Barbour Lewis,
Pierce and Kortrecht. J. o. Pierce, the can
didate for circuit court judge, was presiding
over the law court of Memphis, as the ap-
pointee of Governor Brownlow. He held
that position because the white tax-paying
whites, whose votes he now soliclts, were dis
frauchised-an infamy which he sustained.
Kortrecht was shouting for Grant, indorsing
the reconstruction measures by which the
southern people were placed under military
rule and then robbed and prosecuted.
When the people of Shelby county were
struggling for enfranchisement-for the poor
privilege of exercising the rights which had
been given to the negro-Kortrecht never
lifted a finger to do justice TO the white tax
payer, whose vote he now impudently claims.
In the dark period of Tennessee's history,
when the Democrats of the State and a ma
jority Of her people were dis
iranchised, prescribed and dragooned by
both Federal and State authority, did
Charles Kortrecht, this newborn Conserv-
alive, throw the prestige of his great and
romantic name into the struggle for the
emancipation of a people driven from the
ballot-box2 The DISTINGUISHED people of
Shelby county held up their wrists, around
which were riveted the gives of Radical ha-
tired, and imploringly asked J. o. Pierce to
give them the rights of freemen, the rights
which the ignorant negro enjoyed Did
Pierce, like brave, magnanimous and gen.
erous foe, come to the relief of men made
aliens upon the soil of their birth? Without
a blush Of shame, and with joy beaming in
his eye, he marched to the polls and voted
that he and the negroes should continue to
rule the white tax-paying people, who had
built our railroads and made Tennessee a
great and prosperous State. The files of the
Memphis papers show that the names of
Kortrecht and Pierce are associated with all
the deviltry which Radical hatred had con-
cocted for DISTINGUISHING, defaming and per-
scouting an unarmed, Impoverished and de-
fenseless people" and now they have
the impudence to come forward and
claim the votes of the very men which
they were unwilling to grant the same rights
exercised by the negro. But Pierce and Kort-
recht were unable to stay the hand of retri-
button. The people arose in their majesty,
and in tones of thunder declared that there
could be no taxation without representation,
and that the DISTINGUISHED whites should be
made equal to the negro. No Democrat can
look back to that triumph over such Radicals
as Kortrecht and Pierce without feeling Of
pride. That glorious victory revived the
hopes Of the people. 1t impaired new vigor,
new enthusiasm. Since the enfranchisement
of the whites Shelby has been under the rule
of the Democrats, and they have ruled wisely.
When the Democrats assembled to power
county scrip was selling at thirty-three cents
on the dollar. II has been nearly at par ever
since. The courts have been presided over
-by sDOl4 judges Morgan, Yerger. He.skell
and Ray. What county ever elected officers
more efficient than Kelley, Rawlings, Wright,
M'Brooks, Avery and Anderson? The Demo-
cratic party is asked to repudiate its organi
eaton, and to defeat Winchester and Hutch
inson, and to elect Kortrecht and Pierce, who
opposed their enfranchisement nine years
ago. Politics make strange bedfelows, but
if the people of Shelby county spurn Win
chester and Hutchinson, and take to their
embrace Kortrecht and Pierce, who declared
by their votes that a rebel was unworthy of
the night guaranteed TO the negro, then, in
deed, we are prepared for any political
dation