Ottumwa weekly courier., 1878-07-17
Some Plain Truths.

A gentleman writing from Hemp
stead, Long Island, says: ~ have
been q radical republican since 1854,
but neither an of1ice-holder nor an
office-seeker. / think the republican
party, as party, ever since the war
has been pusilanimous. has failed of
its duty, has surrendered its convic-
tions, has tcmporized and yielded, in
this, that it has not insisted at I'll
hazards upon all the rights and priv
ileges of every citizen of the Repub-
tic, South as well as North. When
it had the power it failed to pass
amendments to the Constitution that
would give the general government
power to protect those whose allegi-
ance it claimed. For ten years it al
lowed Southern lOyalists to be push-
ed to the wall, to be assassinated, to
be deprived of the franchise and of
such other rights as the rebels chose
to wrest from them, doing little more
than make voluminous Investigations,
while by their haste to reinstate ex-
rebels in power they let all possible
power to protect citizens pass out of
their hands. The result is that while
the rebels and their abettors arc din
ming in our ears that we have an
usurping President, the fact is that
we have in reality an usurping Con-
gress, the democratic majority having
been obtained by intimidation and
murder, while the republican party
have only family protested against
this Congressional usurpatiOn. /
complain that the republican party
did not meet the very first case of an
attempt to foist into seat in Con-
gress man whose only title was the
blood of bulldozed citizens as it
would have met an attempt to set up
king over us. l complain that the
Republican Legislatures of every Re-
publican State did not sound the
alarm and did not emphatically pro-
test and demand of Congress that the
suffrage should be free and untram.
meled in every Southern precinct and
insist that we should not and would
not be subjected to this Congression-
al usurpation. They ought to have
done on the side of right and consti-
tutional freedom what Maryland has
done on the other.
"The question now is, what is to be
done? Let there be q concerted
movement of the republican party to
restore the right of suffrage to South
ern citizens. Let that be the leading
issue of the campaign. Let every re-
publican Legislature in session pass
resolutions in which they assert that
from fifteen to thirty Cong1 essionsl
districts at the South have been so
terrorized that large republican ma
jorities have been deprived of repre-
sentation in Congress, thus putting
the government into the hands of .
minority. Let every republican con-
vention do the same thing. Let them
all demand, first and foremost, that
this usurpation, this outrage, this tyr
amy, be overthrown. In order to do
this let every republican district at
the South be most thoroughly can
vassed, if possible by republicans of
national reputation. Let delegations
90 down there to witness and report.
Let conventions, committees, and
newspapers everywhere repeat and
reiterate the demands, the assertions,
and the protests. Let the public be
thoroughly aroused to the fact that
we are governed by an usurping
Congress and to determination that
this state of things shall not contin-
noD