Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1878-11-02

with the ponderous hogsheads
which will shortly fill it, furnished
a splendid arena for the combatants,
and would have accommodated
even a much larger crowd than that
which assembled there.
Judge Marks opened the discus
sion. He is a man of commanding
with great fiuency of die
ton, and possesses in great perfec-
ton that valuable faculty of the
stump orator, the judgment which
determines accurately what sort of
a discourse will suit the crowd he is
He looks his audience |
in the eye, knows instinctively |
what they want, and gives it them.
He defined his position at starting
by saying that his opponent, though |
a Greenbacker, was not in favor of
fiat money any more than he was,
and that therefore there was no
practical question between them, SO
that the controversy between them
was one of organization exclusively.
His antagonists position was that
the Democratic party was, equally
with the Republican party, incoln-
petent to relieve the distress of the
country, and that therefore there
was a demand for new party to do
it. This heagreed to make the issue
between them. He undertook to
show that the Democratic party
was the one hope of the country;
that any policy which should lead
to its disruption would secure the
Republican party in power, whose
vicious policy had brought the ma
ton to its present depressed condi-
ton; that that vicious policy had
been resisted step by step by the
Democratic party, and that the
Democracy which had been fighting
this policy for twenty years against
terrible odds had been gaining
steadily on its antagonist till it had
already acquired the control of the
Lower House, and was certain to
gain that of the Senate in the next
Congress, and the Presidency two
years hence, if not baffied by d'vis-
ions within its own ranks.
He then detailed the series of
vicious legislative measures by
which the Republican party had
crushed the productive energies of
the nation. He commenced with
the national debt. This enormous
debt was contracted while the Rad
icals were in power; it was made
payable in the same currency as
that for which it was incurred.
Presently the same party, in the
interests ofthe capitalistsand against
that of the people, restricted the
mode of payment first to coin and
then to gold coin. All the steps in
this process were taken by the Re
publicans and resisted by the Dem
ocrats. Then the greenbacks having
lost value by being no longer re-
ceivable for the public debt, and
having thus becOmeredundant, they
too must be called in by Govern
ment and redeemed in gold, pro-
ducing the ruinous effect inevitable
where eXtrayagant imitation is fol-
| lowed by sudden contraction /; and
| that measure was resisted by the
/ Democratic party and would have
been repealed in the last session of
Congress but for the resistance Of a
| Republican Senate. And so, one
after another, the speaker went
| through with all the items of vicious
legislation which the Greenbackers
complain of, and showed that one
and all had been enacted by Repub-
licans and resisted by Democrats,
and so far remedied by them as they
had the power; and now that there
/ is every prospect of their obtaining
the power to carry out their resist
ance and complete the purpOsed
remedies, strange to say it is the
Greenback party which throws
every obstacle in their way, and
pursues a course which, if it have
any effect at all, will have that of
reinstating in power the very party
which, on the showing of the Green
| hackers themselves, has done the
mischief.
Strangely enough, the speech of
Col. Edwards went over nearly the
same ground, proved the same
points, and he did not seem to see that
he was thereby refuting the very
position that it was his purpose to
establish, viz: the necessity of a
third party. 1t is true that he did
quote the platform of 1875 to show
that the Democratic party was in
favor of resumption at some time,
/ when circumstances might be favor
able, but this was answered by
Judge Marks by showing that the
Democratic party was at that time
willing to compromise all other
matters and subordinate them to
the purpose of rescuing the South
from the letters of carpet-baggery {;
that Col. Edwards had consented
to it at that time. as well as the
other Democrats who are now re-
sisting the resumption bill of 1874,
which is to take effect in 1879.
Col. E. is a pleasant-looking gen.
tleman with popular manners, and
| though he does not carry guns
enough to meet Judge Marks in de-
bate, he will probably stick, and
not fly the track as the two preced-
ing nominees of the Independent
party have done.
Neither of the gentlemen had a
word to say about State politics,
which was rather a remarkable
omission, the contest being for the
GubernatOrial chair of the State.
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Mr.. EVARTs has written to the
| Marquis of Salisbury about the fish