The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1879-08-28
[Harper's Weekly.l
4 National Question.

A National Question.
We have been reminded that the
principle of State rights has been in
voked for the protection of liberty
more than once, and that our state
ment Of the contrary was too sweep
ing, as it certainly was. The fact,
however, remains that the distinctive
State-rights party was the party of
slavery and disunion, and that the cry
is now raised again by those who
count upon fraud and violence to car
ry elections, and upon so great scale
that it is matter Of national impor-
tance. The Springfield Republican
thinks that to call attention to an i'm
mense electoral wrong, which involves
possible civil convulsions, is to show
an anxious desire to help the stalwart
plan Of a sectional campaign. If the
statement of such a wrong be untrue,
the Republican very properly depre-
Gates its repetition. But if it be true,
it ought to be emphasized, whether it
helps the stalwart plan or any other.
A sectional campaign resulting from
suppression of the colored vote would
be one for which ''the North would
be in no sense responsible. Such
campaign arising from such a cause
would be deplorable. But it would be
much more deplorable if sensible men,
seeing such a situation, should play
that it did not exist, because to recog-
nize it, and to deal with it by an ap-
peal to the country, might be called a
stalwart programme. That such is
the situation is incontestable, and it is
not to be dismissed with the remark
that there are always irregularities at
the polls. We quoted last week from
a letter addressed to us by Southern
Union man, in which he says that he
gives money to stuff the ballot-boxes,
and that he does it in self-defense.
Sir George Campbell, in his white
and Black in the United States" says
that he was in the South during the
elections of 1878. He describes the
cheating In detail as practiced in
South Carolina. There was no con-
cealment, and no pretense that any
thing but fraud was intended; and he
states that there was matter enough
within his own knowledge to have vi
tiated such elections in England a
hundred times over. The result was,
he adds, that "South Carolina returns
a solid Democratic majority to the
next Congress. The question raised
by such elections Sir George frankly
admits to be whether the amendment
Of the United States Constitution Sc
curing equal electoral rights to the
blacks is to be enforced, or whether it
may be set aside in practice by the ac-
ton of individualStates-''Is, in fact,
the settlement at the end of the war
to be maintained or surrendered?"
Sir George is not stalwart shaker of
bloody shirts, but an exceedingly sen
sible and shrewd observer, who sees
the situation without party spirit or
sectional prejudice, and his testimony
is of the highest value. It is precise
ly the situation that he describes
which keeps alive the sectional aspect
of politics, and which renews the dis
cussion of State rights. The Louis
vile Courier-J ournal, with the anus
ing turbulence Of the old fre-eating
epoch, remarks in effect that the con-
dition-of-the-negro question is not
national question. But even that jour-
nal will not deny that party MAORI
ty in Congress or a party President
secured by an elaborate, open, and
general system of fraud is matter in
which even voting mud-sills may
rightfully interest themselves. The
puerility of the effort to set off against
the suppression Of the colored vote
the influence of large proprietors in
Northern and Western States over
their laborers is merely contemplate.
Instances Of sporadic cheating and un-
fair influence at the polls are always
possible. but does any well-informed
man allege that in any other than Ger
tain Southern States there is deliber-
ate coercion of the vote Of an immense
voting class? In the election Of 1874
that eminent Louisiana politician John
Shdell, by his Plaquemine frauds, Sc
cured Democratic majority of go
in a parish in which the whole Demo-
cratic vote of the previous year was
306; and this grand fraud gave the
electoral vote Of the State to the Dem
ocrats, whose whole majority was only
800. Would anybody pretend to put
against such systematic and wholesale
electoral swindling at one point, the
cases of farmers and proprietors i'll
other States who may have threaten
ed to dismiss their hands if they did
not vote as they were told?
1t is both to facilitate and to con-
ceal this enormous wrong that the cry
of State rights and of soldiers at the
polls has been raised. What invasion
of State rights is alleged? The su-
pervision of national elections III the
States by national agents. If that be
a danger to just local right, 1t is III
pursuance Of law whose constitu-
has not been questioned by |
the courts. The cry of military inter
ference is raised to confuse the real
question, which is usurpation by fore
ible and fraudulent suppression of the
colored vote. 1t is dismal prolonga-
ton of the war, which is to be regret
ted on every account, but which can
not be avoided by ShuttinU orr ewes. |