Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1880-09-01
zatlcaster fntellige,lcer.
WEDNESDAY EVENING. SEPT. /, 1890.
A Silly Campaign Cry.

A Silly Campaign Cry.
The Republican journals which are SO
solicitous to prove; to the country the
fact that the Southern states are govern
ed by ex-C x-COnfederates and that their rep
resentation in Congress is from the same
class might as wen save themselves the
trouble 'of demonstrating what no one
preeends to deny. We all know that the
Southern white voters were all rebels,
with such inconsiderable exceptions that
it is hardly, worth while to mention
them. There is no material among the
men at the South who were loyal during
the rebellion from which the voters there
could now select their officers, even if
they were SO disposed. And why should
they bo expected to do SO foolish
thing
Has it not been settled that those who
were in the rebellion have been restored
to the rights of citizenship? Scarcely
anyone of them now rests under any
political disability, and it is quite i'm
possible to conceive why those who are
deemed fit to vote should he asked to
consider themselves unfit to hold state or
federal Offices. The New York Times
says that seventy-two of the ninety-live
representatives of the South in Congress
are x-Confederates. The only matter OF
surprise in this statement is that the
whole ninety-five were not once rebels.
We hardly know where the twenty-three
loyal men were picked up. Certainly
they all could not have lived in the South
during the war, for there were very few
parts of the territory where man could
have failed to stand alongside his fellows
in their struggle and continued to main-
taintheir esteem. There was some disput-
edterritory where such a thing could have
happened, us in East Tennessee for in
stance; but few were the places where
the Confederate feeling was not SO
strongly One-sided as to coerce every
man to share it.
Besides the folly OF seeking TO make
Republican campaign thunder out of the
undisputed disloyalty during the rebel
lion Of the Southern people, it is the very
height of impudence in party which
has honored with Office such pronounced
COniederates rs General Longstreet,
Postmaster General Key and Colonel
Mosby. Every rebel of any note who
could Ike seduced with an Office TO en-
brace the Republican PARTY and enable
1t to establish itself in the South, las
been bought up at his own figure. There
is nothing that has been SO much hank
cred for by Republican leaders as South
ern men who were of mark in their
state during the rebellion. That they
did not secure more of them is due to the
fact that they attempted after the war to
cOe-ce the Southern people into accepting
them. A generous policy of considera-
tion and fair political treatment would
have given large share of the political
power of the South to the Republican
party. The people there came out of the
rebellion with little prejudice in favor
IL either party ut the North, and would
have been easily won to the party that
held power and therefore was in a posi-
tiOn to enable them to restore their
ruined fortunes, if the Republican lead
ers had been wise enough to recognize
the fact that the states must one day be
controlled by their voters, and therefore
it was sound policy to treat them with
and confidence.
When they failed to do it, the Demo-
cratic party stepped in to the control of |
The I" solid South - that now SO much |
bothers Republican politicians. Though |
its people have been in rebellion they are |
now in the enjoyment of the full rights
OF citizenship and the Dcmocs1!ticp 1l!tic party
Tf21l f6tl le t6nead oeileas s, ,tRei ts,. Votes.
There are any who think it wrong
nj