The Dallas daily herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1887, 1880-09-24
An Open Letter 10 the Hon. Roscoe
Conkling, OF Utica, New York.
DALLAS, Tex, Sent. ~, 1850.

|
in New York, on the 18th inst, in which you
indict the Democratic party of the United
States for many intended offences and con.
spiracies against the peace, harmony and
brotherly love of our country Living down
here in the extreme southwest corner of our
great country, private citizen in modest,
but territ rally grand and rising common
wealth, Ipropose only to reply to SO much
of your indictment as relates to 1t.
You say, in substance that q part ofthe in
tended conspiracy is, on the accession
of the Democratic party to power
in the federal government-khat is, on the
election Of Democratic president in the
person of General Hancock, and a Demo-
cratic congress which, we already have-to
divide Texas into four states, W. ereby our
present territory will have eight instead of
two members of the United States senate.
You carry the idea into the absurd extent of
dividing New Mexico, Arizona and other
countries up so rs to increase the number of
senators enough to give the south, as Sec
ton, majority in the United States senate
l do not propose to discuss that part Of your
tsr.fetched and prismatic fancy beyond your
allusion to this glorious state of ours our
Texas. Yet did not know to the contrary,
| would be compelled to believe you were
born or at least left your moth
er's apron strings since the
Kansas struggle from 1854 to 1868, |
| in which it was irrevocably demonstrated that |
the south was hopelessly the minority sec
ton, and lay, politically speaking, at the
mercy of the north. As your section has |
thirty-six millions of our present population |
and the south only thirteen millions, one
fourth of whom are colored, how or where
by, Mr.. Conkling, do you imagine the wige
men of the south, or even its irratonals, |
could hope sectionally to be benefited in |
political power by dividing up tn wilder
nesses of Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona |
into six instead Of three states! How, and |
whereby, Mr.. Conklirg? Wenor the south, |
have the people to populate them. We are |
begging daily for people from your section |
and Europe to come and fl up the waste |
places we have, without looking for new
| fields in which to dissipate our strength and |
hopes. My dear sir, you, a senator Of h
| United States and a man of acknowl- |
edged ability, ought to know that those ter |
ritories cannot be populated from the south
and must either remain waste places or be |
peopled from the north or Europe, or both.
| Then why do you, sir, from your exalted |
station in life, send forth such appeals to the
passions and sectional jealousies of your
countrymen, when -the God of patriotism,
with arms extended, beckons us to peace,
| fraternity and reconciliaton-to a return to
that happy condition prevalent when you
were born on the frontier Of New York and
| / in the wilds of Missouri territory; when
Missouri took up Rufus Pettibone, fresh
from Connecticut, and made him a supreme
court judge; when Louisiana grasped by the
hand Edward Livingston, from
New York, and made him her
champion in the senate of the United
States; when Mississippi seized upon John
A. Quitman, New York preachers son,
and made him member Of congress and
governor of the resim the same state that
took up two young school teachers from
Maine, Sergeant ). Prenti;s and Nolney
4. Howard the one Whig the other
! Democrat, and sent them TO congress; when
Texas, on entering the union, delayed not,
but fastened to send MS her representative to
the American congress Timothy Pillsbury,
from Maine, and David S. Kaufman, from
Pennsylvania Yes, Mr.. Conkling, that
good spirit beckons us back, through the
election of General Hancock to the presi,
dency, to those days yesrned for and prayed
for and taught to the young by every old
and middle-aged man and woman in the
know any difference between meritori-
manhood nc
whether from Maine or Missouri, Massachu-
sets or South Carolina, Vermont or Ten
nessee, New Hampshire or Kentucky, New
jersey or Louisiana. You do discredit to
the memory of Seward, Sumner and
Blaine, all of whom visited an1 sbided for
time on this side of the Potomac, formed
many warm attachments, and learned to ap-
D eciate our virtues ami yield u rational
apology for our frailtes. Before stalking
your brilliant reputation, on such wild and
utterly illogical pronunciamentos, Mr.. Conk
ling, and leaving such legacies to your off.
spring. as an American statesman, the
honored senator of the empire state of this
union, yea should at least come to
our hearthstones, sec our wives and
: children, pat ko ut our humble
) boards, and try to see us as we are,
through the honest, blue eyes of Roscoe
Conkling, and not through the distorted,
preiudiced and gangrened vision Of Senator
Uonklipg, the irate and embittered partisan
: But enough of this and let us come back to
Texas.
You say il is part of the conspiracy to
divide Texas into four states whereby there
will be eight instead of two senators from
this territory. tell you that to do so will
1oquire an army equal to that which over
whelmed Lee at Apottor1sx. Texas with
the consent of her people, will never be divi
ded, and, without her consent, she will never
be divided, unless by tho sword OF an inva-
ding conqueror and that conqueror will never
he'll from the southland, never, Mr.. Conk-
ling. Nor do we think that all your elo-
: quence will raise even guerilla band for such
purpose in the north. With us there
are ten thousand reasons, ties
and holy remembrance against
and not one for division AS the true mother
! of the disputed child taken before Solomon,
nothing but our life and salvation would in
duce US to sever the ties that bind us in holy
union from north to south, and from east to
west. The temptation of six additional
T, senators, suggested by you, we trample UNI
der foot as wore than mess of pottage. In
Q the time to come we know, as a reading and
5 rejecting people, that two senators, repre-
9 senting our vast territory and millions of
=. freemen, whose eyes will ever be upon them,
y will be far better guardians of our rights than
\ eight rival senators from four petty states.
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