The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1878-12-19
BLAINE's NEW CRUSADE AGAINST
THE SOUTH.

view Of Mr., Blaine's crusade. These
journals soar above mere party scheming
and trickery, and will not assist in such
diaboliCal work.
Mr.. Blaine's assumption, on which his
whole argument rests, are that the me-
groes have been, are now, and must con-
tinue to be Republican. To this the
New York EUening Post says
"After the close of the war il was very
natural for the negroes to adopt the Re-
publican party" but adds that journal:
The Evening Post said at that time, when
it was first proposed to grant them an
unlimited suffrage, that after this first
expression of feeling had passed, they
would gradually gravitate toward the
Democratic party, or to whatever party
should succeed in getting the vote Of the
laboring classes, The negroes are most
ly laborers, and as they are informed of
the bearing Of things, will sympathise
with the laborers, and vote pretty near
ly as they do.
AS to the second assumption, that
whatever political changes have taken
place in the South, are the result of the
"forcible or fraudulent efforts" the Post
thinks it "wholly gratuitous," and adds:
"The negroes there were for the most
part ignorant and uneducated They
had had little experience in taking care
of themselves, and none at al, in the
ussges of civil and political life. Simple
hearted, con6ding, easily managed, they
trusted at first with implicit faith in the
promises and persuasions of the north
ern men who went down among them in
the character of protectors and leaders.
Those professed friends in the sequel
turned out as arrant set of unconscon-
able scoundrels as ever degraded hu.
manity. The history of their peCua-
tions and plumbers reads like the tales
that are told of the early English adven-
turers into India, when Give or Has
tings set the example. The freedmen
reyolted at their saviors and the kind of
salvation they had invoked. AS much
reason as they may have had for dislik-
ing their former oppressors, they had
much more reason for disliking their
present deluders and robbers. They
abandoned the one to take up the other,
or if not to take them up openly, to stand
as impartial spectators of the efforts of
the others to restore the lapsed and di-
lapidated fortunes of the several COM
monwealths.
Besides, the old rulers were still in
possession of the property, and particu-
larly of the land on which the freedmen
as laborers would be compelled to work;
they were in possession also of nearly all
the intelligence that was at the service
of society; great many of them we're
trained to leadership and management;
and in almost any community, as we see
at Washington at this hour, would have
taken their position Gs directors of the
political and social movements. Cover
nor Andrew of Massachusetts, we re.
member, in his beautiful and generous
farewell address to the Legislature of the
State, spoke of this class of men as the
natural leaders of society,"" and among
the methods of reconstruction discussed
at the time he proposed that they should
be expressly invited to take part in the
national legislation. Now that such men
should have acquired the control, and an
almost absolute control, of the peculiar
elements of the broken up and inexper-
fenced Southern societies is not a matter
of wonder at all, nor should it be of COM
plant. u is precisely aChdt aSe expected,
aUhGt 1OeprediCted IN fact, in 80 many words,
as a lUGTning 10 The precipitGte Republican
L'dders, Uho 0Oere determined 10 decree Suf-
frage aOithom probation and aOithOut limits.
The Post in conclusion, says Senator
Blaine, "will gain nothing in trying TO
turn the result of inevitable circumstan-
ces into q means of sectional accusation
and partizan attack" 1t points to the
remedy for his alleged grievances:
"What IL now wanted is not to produce
further division between the North and
South on any pretext, but TO cement their
union by increased industry, commerce
and intercourse; and then when we shall
be rightly busy in the improvement of
the immense resources of all parts, to let
the political divisions that must grow up
among the whites of the South take care
of the voters. There would be no dan
ger of "bulldozing" or of ballot stufing,
on any extensive scale, if two parties
were in presence, each sharing the negro
vote, each jealous of the other, each sup
ported by their friends from the North,
and each determined to watch the vote
of its opponent with vigilance and fear
lessness."
The New York Herald, very reliable
barometer of public opinion, says Mr..
Blaine's speech has made but feeble
impression" and criticises it right and
left, as blunder and fatal to bis aspire
tions. "An utter failure in logic" is
what the Herald says of Blaine's assault
on Southern representation in Congress,
and then it continues:
"Let us apply Mr.. Blaine's method of
reasoning to Pennsylvania, his native
State. In 1875 the Republican vote in
Pennsylvania was 1884 122 and the Dem
ocratiC vote 1865 158 In that year Penn.
sylvania elected eighteen Republican
and only nine Democratic representa-
tives to Congress. By a strict application
of Mr.. Blaine's political arithmetic it
will be found that it required only 81.
$40 Republican citizens of Pennsylvania
to elect one member of Congress, but
40. 684 Democratic citizens to elect one
member. That is according to Mr.. Baine's
reasoning, political equality is subverted
in Pennsy ylvania, because one Republi.
can citizen had as much representation
in Congress as two Democrats. This line
of reasoning is preposterous. 1t over
looks or ignores the fact that in all elec.
tions the voters of the beaten minority
are of no more account than if they had
never been cast, 1t is dagrsnt absur-
dity to reason as il, when votes prove to
be inefficient, the voters are deprived of
their rights In the last Presidential
election Mr.. Tilden had majority of the
popular vote; but will Mr.. Blaine carry
out his reasoning to its logical result, and
voo;rkoin khok n Vooinr;ku Of kho oiti1ano