Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1880-07-10
GEN. HANCOCK Is CAPTURING
PHILADELPHIA.


lowing copious extract from prog
ress," a weekly journal hitherto
strictly republican, and devoted to
denomination Of Grant at Chicago.
Col. Forney, the editor of Prog
ress," has, since shortly before the
war, acted and written and thought
as republican, but the nomination
of Hancock has aroused his graft
tude to the conqueror Of Gettys-
burg, and caused him to return to
his old love, the democratic party
Who won that great fight? Who
saved Philadelphia from tire and
spoil? Who drove back the enc
my, and saved US from a fate of
which the burning of Chambers
burg and Carlisle and the forced
contributions upon York were in
tended to be grim preparations A
brave army of patriotic citizens, led
by three Pennsylvania generals:
George Gordon Meade, of Philadel-
phia John Fulton Reynolds, of
Lancaster and Winfield Scott
Hancock, of Montgomery. Meade
and Reynolds are both gone. Meade
died on the 9th of November, 1872,
in the house presented to his wife
by the people of Philadelphia, af-
forwards supplemented by a contri-
button of one hundred thousand
dollars from the same source. Reyn-
olds was killed in battle on the 2d
of July, and is buried at Lancaster.
Hancock is to-day the democratic
candidate for president of the United
States.
To show how / felt at the critical
moment, seventeen years ago, re-
print what I wrote in The Press on
| Tuesday, the 7th of July, 1868, not
only to prove my plain duty to Gen.
Hancock, as the survivor of this glO-
rious triumvirate, but also the duty
of all the people of Philadelphia to
that incompatible soldier. / recall
it at once as a personal pledge and
promise, and the solemn covenant
of a great community to great sol
der:
Meanwhile, the army of the Po-
tomac, suddenly placed under the
command of General Meade, whom
we are proud to claim as a fellow
citizen, fastened nOrthWard, and
/ fell upon the rash and audac;ous en-
envy. We know the result. Nei-
4 ther our children, nor our ehildren's
children, to the remotest generation,
shall ever forget it, or fail to remem-
! Der il with thrill of gratitude and
/ L Il
| sailed with unexampled fury, and
the gallant General Reynolds, a
Pennsylvania soldier, laid down
his life. The struggle ragged for sew
eral days, the losses on both sides
were fearful, and still the result
seemed doubtful. If we should fail,
Washington, Baltimore, Philadel-
! phia, perhaps New York, would be
I doomed. In this crisis of the ma
I TONS fate it was Pennsylvania that
came to the rescue. II iCdS General
Hancock, q PennSyluulidJl, 3chO 50
nO6Ly bore the 6TlUlt Of the hattie on
Cemetery hill"
| do not stop to debate the other
I considerations that enter into this
vital issue the grave considera-
( tons that demand the release Of my
dear native state from the desperate
men who, i'm the last ten years,
have cOldly crushed out the pride
of our people, and placed under the
iron heel of brutal inferiOrity the
! hopes of our youth and manhood,
making of this fair commonwealth
| a vast political GOlgotha, and of our
/ ,.ro,,I a;f,, nf Dhilodalnbia an of
| fensiVe root for the most desperate
and vulgar mercenaries since the
/ black days of Tweed and Tammany
| in New York. / do not stop to de-
bate these considerations now. 1t
/ is not the time. But this is the
| time to open to the common mind
our pledged word to the last of the
| great soldiers who placed us under
an obligation that we hastened to
avOw, and repeated over and over
again. My own pledge binds me as
my own note of hand. In law if it
had been signed to the promise to
pay money debt | could be held
/ by it, and my estate If | failed to
pay if. In morals it is as solemn as
| if I had gone before a magistrate
and sworn to abide by it. And
what is true of myself is equally
binding upon others. What my
/ fixed judgment, private and public,
is of the men who saved the Amer
lean republic, / have not concealed.
1t is passion that grows stronger
| the more l see the value of what
has been saved to ourselves and to
all mankind. feel it as the rescue
/ of human freedom for the ages to
come. | prize it, this overthrow of
/ the rebellion, as the best blessing to
/ the south which made that rebel
lion. / cherish it because the more
l ponder the priceless value of the
enormous destiny so saved, the
more eager ! am to convince the
south that they must aid to peTpet-
uate it. When / severed my con-
nectiOn with the democratic party
| twenty-three years ago, in company
with Stephen A. Douglas, Daniel
DOugherty, David G.. BrOderick,
and later, with Daniel S. Dickinson,
Matt. Carpenter, John A. Logan,
and many more, il was because that
party seemed dedicated to the cause
of slavery and rebellion. With vic
tory over both, with emancipation
declared and Obeyed, with free opin-
ion all over the land assured and
sufficiently established, with Kan
sas an empire of liberty under the
FeEistless dQGtrine of popular sOve-
reignty, all my prejHdices against
the south vanished, and /, who
would mt one time have seen the
rebels pursued with all the penal
ties of the law, and all the rigOrs of
the war, speedily saw that | might
have been a "rebcP' if | had lived
in the south, and that l must, to
use Abraham Lincoln's loving max
i'm, "put yourself in their place."
and forgive them, as i hope God
will forgive me my transgreSsiOns.
Hence, ever since General Grants
first election / lahOrnd to convince
my old southern friends that have
been forced to stay in the Union,
that we intended to keep them in
by love; and Grant knows how
often pleaded with him to bear
with them, to remember that they
were still our own, that we had
both been reared as democrats, and
that we had known the south, he
i'm the army at Mexico, and | in my
long years of residence in Washing
ton, and must make allowances for
them. And how willingly the
great soldier listened tome il proved