Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1879-07-11
WHAT A DEMOCRATIC UNION
SOLDIER THINKS OF
THE SITUATION.

In recent address delivered at
Seattle, Washington Territory, by
W. II. White, an ex-Union soldier
and Democrat, he did some plain
talking, and doubtless represents
the feelings of great many others
of his class. Among other things
he said:
at will be we'll for those who were
recently in rebellion to remember one
thing. That while many who fought
for the Union, and who, at the close
of the struggle, extended 10 them the
hand of fellowship and pleaded with
the North once again to trust them,
did so, under the conviction that the
swords, the bayOnets aud cannon balls
of 10y atty had forever apnihilated Cal
hounism in the South. We mistake.
Is the false dogma that brought sad
ness and death to so many homes and
which plunged the nation into bur-
densome debt and sad mourning to be
rehabilimented and reinvigOrated and
set up again? We have the right, as
soldiers, to ask these questions now,
when but recently under the dom of
the Capitol, in sight of Arlington,
where lie our slaughtered comrades,
eulogy by United States Senator is
pronounced on Davis, the leader of
the rebellion and the embodiment of
Calhounism. We have right TO ask
it now, when rebel soldier who shot
at US and who is now Representa-
tive in the Congress of the United
To- in hsf to O
that if the next President be Demo
crat and the next Congress of the Uni
ted States be Democratic, that the re-
construction acts will be speedily re-
pealed, and that then the States would
take control Ofthe question of suffrage,
and would by legislation attach quail
fications of property to that right that
the poor negro and the poor white
would both go under. And that after
such Democratic administration was
assured, the Supreme Court would
be reOrganized, and that the Judges
would be increased so that a mai Ority
of them would declare the amend
ments to the Constitution, adopted af-
ter the close of the war, and accepted
to the present time, null and void, and
thus, under the form of law, re- estab-
lish slavery, and wipe out manhood
suffrage. AS one of many thousand
Democrats, but above ell as Union
soldier, | now warn the Hon. Mr.. Till
man, of South Carolina, and all who
believe like him, that we now know
you to be yet unreconstructed. and
that the man who loved the Union
for the Unions cause and fought
for it, will refuse to follow your lead
ers and will stamp you out as they
stamped out your armies in 1865. AS
soldiers we have the right to question
you men OF the rebel army. Do you
intend TO carry out the declarations of
Hon. Mr.. Blackburn, when he an
nounces that all war measures shall be
wiped from our statutes? Under that
declaration will the pensions of our
wounded and manned comrades be
withheld? Will the pittance already
granted under these war measures to
the widows and orphans of our dead,
be denied? For fear that these things
may be done and your threat executed
we hesitate to trust you longer. We
have right to distrust you now, when
you thrust from place our crippled
comrades to make room for those who
| manned them. We have the right and
it is our duty to indignantly repudiate
you when your Senators and Repre-
sentatives in Congress justify your re-
bellion, and charge the loyal men of
the Union, with being responsible for
that war which laid 600, 900 citizens in
their grave. We had hoped to estab-
| lsh on the firm foundation of mutual
forgiveness, that old fashioned frater-
nal feeling and love of liberty that
animated our fathers, when they stood
side by side in the struggle of the rev.
olution. But you have returned with
| revenge in your hearts and with
threats on your lips. It is this that
| of 1881 -