Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1878-05-24
Tells about the Complete and COntempti-
BILE Failure OF the Republicans in their
Attempt to Prevent the Inyesti-
CATION into the Presidential
Election Frauds.
ThWarted in this, they Attempt TO Gull
the Public with the Cry that the
Movement is Revolutionary and
Destructive OF Good Order"
The Tennessee Bond Case, an Important
Suit Now Pending in the Supreme
Court Of the United States-The
Texas Pacific Railway Title.
:nac,al corresnondance Of the Appeal. :

and contemplate failure has ever Oeen re-
corded of any party than that which the he
pubicans of the house last week reaped
as the result of their attempt to prevent an
investigation of the Presidential fraud.
There was nothing in the Potter resolutions
to Justify opposition to them. They set torth
clearly and plainly the grounds upon which
the investigation was to rest, the reasons for
it, and that 1T Is expected from evidence al
ready made public, and more that has not
been revealed, to prove that frauds were per-
petrated Ia Louisiana and FLORIDA, and that
Edward F. Moves, minister to France, and
John Sherman, secretary OF the treasury,
with others, were guilty, by bribery and cor
ruptivn, of influencing the frauds. There Is
not one word about Mr.. Hayes; not the faint.
est alIusion to impeaching him, nor a single
sentence that looks like revolution, peaceable
or bloody And yet the Republican members
of the house, after vainly endeavoring to
amend the Potter resolutions and neutralize
them by including an investigation of Ore
gon, Mississippi and other States, solemnly
resolved in caucus that the attempt on the
part of the Democracy to uncover great
crime, was Revolutionary and destructive of
the good order, business prosperity and peace
of the country, and that 1t bad been ode
vised by individuals for private or party
ends Subsequently, and after the Potter
resolutions had been adopted, IN the course OF
an address remarkable for its weakness IN
the statement of a position wholly untena-
BILE and not warranted by anything the Demo-
cratic members, as a body, have authorized,
it solemnly reiterates these charges, accom-
panied by other falsehoods and much of I'M
warranted abuse. It is not intended to unseat
Hayes, though 1t is possible that consum-
nation so devoutly to be wished for may be
the ultimate result of the investigation. But
even though that was the declared purpose,
there could not be anything In it to which
honest men could object, If the burden Of
proof is that way. No party should plant
itself barrier to the securing OF justice and
the punishment of criminals; yet this Is what
the Republican party, as 1T is represented In
the house, has done. 1t has attempted, by
formal resolutions, to impair the value OF the
Democratic movement to investigate the
Presidential fraud by denouuciDg it as revo
lutionary and calculated to impair the little
business left to the country by John Sher-
mans crushing and killing financial policy;
it filibustered for four days to prevent the
passage of resolutions which plainly and
squarely put the case of the people against the
schemers and villains who accomplished the
fraud; and it has, IN what it sets forth as a
solemn warning to the country, sought to in
timidate Democratic representatives from the
accomplishment of plain duty by denounc-
ing some of them IS rebels and the rest as
aiders and abettors of rebellion. II has put
itself in the attitude Of defending fraud and
upholding those of their number who are
charged with perpetrating that fraud. It
has resorted to intimidation and an appeal
to sectional passions, rebuked by every trl-
umph the Democrats have achieved within
the last four years, to inclte popular opposl-
ton TO the development, by documentary and
other evidence of the fact as Postmaster
General Key believes and states, that Louis
isiana and Florida were counted for Hayes
wrongfully' This is the attitude of the Re-
publican party. 1t is for fraud and against
justice. 1t favors tie protection of rogues,
and is opposed to the true interests OF the
people. 1t has thus made one more issue
with the Democratic party, UNANIMOUSLY de-
basing and degrading IN Its character; 1t has
assumed responsibility for the fraud by which
Hayes has been placed in the Presidential
chair-as Key says, I" wrongfully." But it
will find the Democrats in the house equal to
the emergency. undisturbed by its threats,
abuse or denunciatons. They Will prove
that Louisiana and Florida were fraudulently
deprived of their votes for President; that
Sherman, Stoughtop, Noyes, and one, If not
both, the Chambers were concerned IN and
privy to these frauds, and, possibly, that Mr..
Hayes was kept advised of them and was
thus party to them. 1t is also said that 1t
will be proven that Weber was murdered in
West FeliciaDa in order to get from him the
letter which Sherman sent him, IN which he
promised both protection and reward to him,
and his associate, ]. ?. Anderson, for the ac-
complishment of the frauds in East and West
Feiciana; and all the visiting Republican
statesmen will be stripped of their disguise
of high morality and decency, and the crime
and the criminals be revealed in all their
nakedness, so that there can be no more
doubt, now or in the future. Whether, when
this is done, and as Ben Butler asserts, the
criminals are impeacbed, Mr.. Hayes can hold
the place Key thinks he is not entitled to,
- ho ho 1c fl,.A
tious man the postmaster-general and others
who know him well say be is, don't think
he Will hesitate moment as TO the right
course for him to pursue. He will step down
and out.
But, besides the grand rascals with whom
Potter's committee will have to deal, there
are a squad of lesser and baser viiIains-sone
of them self developed, some of them the
result of the times and the peculiar oppor-
tunity that presented itself for dealing in
fraud. These fellows are comparatively safe.
They will not be sent TO the penitentiary, but
nothing can save them from the scorn and
contempt they deserve as the lick spittle
tOadies of the political bummers who plotted
the crime. They were the super
go. betweens who carried letters and tele-
grams, who suggested compromises that
would concilate the south, and who assumed
to sell the public voice of the south as a con-
sideratlon for certain concessions by Mr..
HAYES. They are the class who swarmed in
this city about the time Hayes was inaugu
to give away. They promised the destruc-
ton of the Democratic party as result of
their betrayal of it, and were very sanguine
it would never again ''come to time" as
they phrased it. The people of the south,
they said, were tired of the Democratic party
because it would not consent to the robbery of
the public treasury under the plea of subsidy
and appropriation, and with them, under their
lead they would desert the party and the
principles which made the independence of
the south from Federal control possible
These rascals, whose desires far outstripped
their capacity for crime, will be made known
and be visited with a whitening and right
eoUs Indignation.
A few well-meaning persons, some of them
of distinction, will suffer momentary con-
domination for their contact with the thieves.
| trust that nothing worse can be said of them
than that when they found John Sherman
and Noyes likely to succeed they began to
negotiate for terms, for the withdrawal of
the troops from South Carolina and Louis
lana and the freedom of those States from
Federal control. 1t is to be hoped that the
rumors of bargain by them will be proven as
baseless as rumor generally is, and that, as |
believe, they will stand away out from the
nasty crowd of fraud perpetrators the only
clean souled persons whose names have been
LuenllOOeu III CODUeCblOH Will the COHSuDnd-
ton OF the crime. The south cannot afford
to lose the services of these men or see their
usefulness impaired. And yet, that is what
impends, if the half of what is asserted OF
them Is proven true For one, utterly re-
ject the charge of purchase and sale as to
them. | have endeavored to find some basis
for it, but have failed. l therefore scout it
as impossible, especially in view of their high
character and standing as party leaders.
THE TENNESSEE BOND CASE,
which was argued before the supreme court
two weeks ago, will not be decided until
next term of the court. This case is one of
great interest to the people of Tennessee, as
well as to bondholders. The story of it is
well and clearly told by the Washington cor
respondent of the Baltimore Sun. In 1852
the State of Tennessee, by a gen.
eral statute, agreed to lend certain
railroad companies the bonds Of the
State to be used in building and equip Ing