American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1879-09-13
Wendell Phillips and the Republican
Leaders.

Leaders.
The road of Hayes to the White
House, after the Eight-by-Seven Com
mission decided in his favor, was made
smooth by an understanding had be-
deep in the confidence of Mr.. Hayes, on
the one side, and certain "rebel Briga-
diers" on the other side, as to what
should be Mr.. Hayes policy, after inau-
guration, toward Louisiana and South
Carolina, then in the hands of the Re-
publicans. The terms were understood
to be the withdrawal of the Federal
troops from protecting the Republican
OfficialS-GovernOrS and members of
the Le9islature-so as to allow the peO-
pie of those States to govern themselves
without National Interference. With
the results of that understanding every
body is familiar.
Hayes Southern policy, the result Of
the understanding referred to, was
always gall and wormwood to the sin
cere anti-slavery men of his party.
They regarded it rs RELOCATION of the
colored people of the South to the con-
troll of their old masters, and as the
grave of the Republican party in that
section. The feeling that policy engen-
dered at the Forth served to diminish
Republican majorities in many States,
and was the cause, now and then, of
bitter expressions against its authors
and supporters.
The latest demonstration of ill-feel-
letter of Mr.. Wendell Phillips to Scion
Chase, of Maine. From his stand point,
great crime against the colored peo-
pie was committed by adopting and
carrying out that policy, and he ex-
presses himself freely on the subject.
He notes great difference between the
class of Republicans who freed and en-
franchised the black man and those
who suggested and had adopted the
Hayes policy. OF the first he says:
"You ask me what think of the Re-
publican party. If you mean the Re-
publican party of 1861-the party of
Sumner and Fessenden, of Wade and
Lincoln, of Stevens, Andrew and Gid
dings? That party know. Or do you
mean the Republican party of 1892
Well, that party 1 distrust and despise.
Its honesty and ability distrust and de-
spise. 1t has, either Intentionally or
heedlessly, surrendered to the enemy
two-thirds of what the war gained at a
cost of 500, 600 lives and S5, 900. 900, 900.
Some say this party is honest. Il has
done the best it knew how. Others
think it only timid. Ihave watched poll
tics for fifty years, and my judgment is
that the fault of this party is one-third
ignorance and two-thirds knavery."
The Republicans of 1861 did their
work well and thoroughly, thinks Mr..
Phillips. They carried the flag to the
Gulf and guaranteed personal liberty
to every man under that flag: Those
men, he says, have passed away, and
their seats are filed by the men whom
the Republican party created-Schurz
Dawes, Sherman and Fish. For ten
years these men, and men like them,
have ruled the party, and with what
result? inquiries Mr.. Phillips. He
answers: "All the Southern States
are again in the hands of the rebels;
there is no Republican State and
hardly the vestige of a Republican
party south of Mason and Dixon's
line" "The negro whose
freedom and citizenship are the plume
in the cap of the old and true Repub-
lican party is flying By thousands, and
wishing and planning to fly by hum
dreds Of thousands from the lawless-
ness and intolerable oppression of the
very men these cowardly, hypocritical
and corrupt successors of Sumner and
Wade have lifted into the saddle
Mr.. Phillips has a quick eye to per-
ceive the hypocrisy and false pretenses
of the managers of the Republican
party. They manifest in public great
indignation over the alleged ill-treat-
ment of the colored man at the South,
and call upon the people, white and
colored, at the North, to express their
resentment by voting for Charles Fos-
ter and such, who put the black man
in his present position, in order to Sc
cure power for the party and Office for
themselves. Mr.. Phillips knows they
are without heart for the negro. He
says that men who have watched the
Republican managers for the past ten
years clearly saw that they "never had
any sincere interest in the negro, never
really intended to protect him.
these crimes and made catalogues of
'outrages' was heartless and merci-
less calculation to use such records for
party purposes at election times" How
well he knows them and their tricks!
He declares of the hypocrites that
''they played, with dying men as counii
tiers, on the chess-board, the game of
party success. Sitting cold and calm,
they watched brutality and agony,
with no other feeling than exultation
as every hideous scene, broken house,
hold and agonized widow ministered
to better chance of party success"
1t is no Democrat that talks in that
way, but one of the foremost of those
who gave vitality to the Republican
party, and worked increasingly for its
triumph. He now declares of its rep
resentative power: ''While this Ad-
ministration of corrupt bargain and
sale-a willing mercenary-lasts, !
blush to be an American CITIZEN" and
of the party itself he says: .'No party
in our history has ever fallen from
such height, or to such depth of dis
grace" If Mr.. Wendell Phillips is not
true to the Republican party of 1879,
he is and always has been true to the
colored man, according to his own
light of duty. He prefers the welfare
of the colored race to the political sue
cess of the hypocritical Republican
leaders, who are always ready to sac
rifice the "man and brother" for party
Cincinnati Enquirer.