Centre Democrat. [volume] (Bellefonte, Pa.) 1848-1989, 1880-03-04
General Grant and the South.

term, that the nomination of the hero
of San Domingo will insure break
in the South and bring to his standard
several States otherwise sure to cast
their electoral votes for the Democrat
ic candidate. Upon what foundation
they erect their temple of hope it is
difficult to see. During The eight
years in which General Grant held his
mailed hand upon the helm of State
were encompassed all the frightful
wrongs inflicted upon the reconstruct
ed States. He it was who turned
loose upon the unprotected and help
less people of the South the horde of
reckless plunderers, who in the name
oflaw and under the protection of Fed
eral bayonets, usurped their State gov
ernments, stole their revenues and re-
enacted upon American soil the bloody
policy of Russia, when she crushed
Poland beneath the iron heel of mill
tary dcspotism. 1t was General Grant
who dispersed their legally elected
legislatures, and seated in their guber-
material chairs men whom they never
elected. Who surrounded their polling
places with the armed soldiery of the
Republic and made the inalienable
right of suffrage a mockery and a
farce. He turned his back upon the
representative men of that section and
took to his bosom the most disreputa-
ble of all that class who swooped
down, vulture.like, upon a defenseless
and unhappy people to feast upon
their sorrows and hold high carnival
in their shame. His eyes were closed
while men in his name and by his au-
thority fattened upon the distress and
speechless agony of this brave, noble
though misguided people. While the
Lamars, Gordons, Hamptons, Vances
and Johnstons were turned unheard
from the portals of the executive
mansion, Mosby, Wells, Pinchback,
Bullock, Chamberlain and Alcorn
were met with outstretched hands and
hearty welcome. The fangs of car
pet-bag rule sank deeper and deeper
into the vitals OF government. The
people become poorer and poorer, but
the imperial Cesar of the White
House had no ears with which to hear
the wall of reproach and anguish
wrung from a dauntless and intrepid
people, who escaped from the dire ca
lamities of war only to be plunged
into the more awful maelstrom of civ
il misrule, robbery and official de-
bauchery. The fine sense of honor
and delicate consideration for a
fallen foe, which distinguished Gener-
Grant at Appomattox seems to have
withered and died the moment he as.
sumed the functions of chief magis-
trate. Unused to the ways of civ
ilian he plunged into the vortex of
politics only TO lose oil the ennobling
characteristics of the soldier. A
Democrat, if he ever knew enough of
the distinctions between parties to
make q choice, he became Mt once and
without effort the most violent and
malevolent of Republican partisans.
Elected as the President of the whole
people, he studiously ignored the wants
and needs of onc-half of our country,
and inaugurated for the first time the
policy of sectional hate. He seemed
to have so much regretted his chival-
rous conduct at the clcse of the war
as to wish to blot il out of the book
of his remembrance by such acts of
violence and malignity as have but
seldom in the history of the world
been charged to the account of any
civil functionary. Remembering oil
this, it Is strange that any one should
see in his candidacy for third term
any inducement for the South TO aid in
once more placing him where he could
take up again the disastrous policy
which did more to paralyze and Grip
pie her industries, than the destructive
simeon of war. But there are not