Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1879-01-07
From the New York Tribune.
Garrison and the "BlOOdy Shirt.

Garrison and the "BlOOdy Shirt"
A LETTER FROM WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON
DEMANDING THAT THE 'BLooDY SHIRT" BE
MADE THE GREAT IssUE-''IN Hoe SIGNo
VNcEs THE SorTH UScHANGEp AT
HEART
The Tribune is permitted to publish the
following letter, recently written by William
Lloyd Garrison upon the Presidents South
ern policy and the stand which, in the writer's
opinion, the republican party should take in
order to succeed in 1880. The letter is as
follows:
BosroN, Dec. 49, 1873.
! DEAR SIR Il agree with you that marked
change for the better is taking place in pub
lie sentiment at the North in relation to the
intellectually disastrous policy of President
Hayes and the practical disfranchisement of
the entire colored population at the South. by
shameless fraud. brutal intimidation and re-
morseless slaughter. Still am not sangune
as to a republican triumph at the next Presi-
dental struggle. seeing that, with well-as-
surcd ''Solid South for the democratic NOM
inec, less than fifty votes will be needed from
all the North to carry him into the White
House.
The only feasible way to prevent such a
catastrophe--and this is demanded by every
consideration of truth, justice and rights
for the republican party, its organs and lead
ers, to meet this issue in an uncompromising
and infexible spirit. There is nothing which
strikes such terror or causes such foaming at
the mouth In the ranks of the armed conspir-
ators at the South. or ELECTS such responsive
howlings from their servile mnions at the
North, as waving the bloody shirt''-a term
of their own devising in order to make a Jest
of the most sanguinary outrages, but which
Complementary symbolizes long extended
'reign of terror" during which thousands
of innocent victims have been murdered
with IMMUNITY for daring to assert their
political rights as free American citizens.
Yes, let ''the bloody shirt continue to be
waved until an end be put to the shedding of
blood by the organized assassins who are
boldly and successfully setting the federal
government at defiance, and trampling the
constitution and laws of the country under
their feet. Let it be shown by coordination
strong as proofs from Holy Writ" that the
South (using that designation as of old is
still full of the habitations of cruelty; that
her hands arc stained and her garments satur-
ated with blood that her feet run to evil, and
there is no judgment in her goings that she
is as dsloyal in spirit as she was when she
fired her first shot at Fort Sumter; that she
only lacks the power to re-enslave the mil
lions who have been emancpated on her soil,
in order to save the Union and battle her
reasonable designs; that in nothing does she
so much glory as in her attempt to des-
troy the republic, and in the successes
Of her Confederate leaders on the battlefield;
that she has repented Of nothing that she has
done, but exactly the reverse; that she des-
pises the North (barbarism sneering at civil
ization) as she always has done, and counts
rs ''mudsills" the Northern working classes,
while endeavoring to use them for her own
ends that she is gloating over the prospect
of soon having the reins of government over
the whole country in her own hands; that as
for her leading men in Church and State, in
Congress and out of il 1.-THE best of them are
sharper than thorn-hedge,' and the most
deeply responsible for the numberess atroci-
ties that have been perpetrated upon the
Southern loyal population, white and black
and that nothing but perfect unity of spirit
and action at the North, to the extent at least,
of out-voting ''the Solid-South' at the ap-
preaching Presidential election, can avert the
most disastrous consequences to the country
"The bloody shirt. ~ In hoe signo rinces,
Yours, very truly,
WIN. LLOYD GARRISON.