The People's vindicator. [volume] (Natchitoches, La.) 1874-1883, 1880-10-23
Was the War q Failure:


1t appears from the stalwart Repub-
lican newspapers and speakers that the
war was q failure" after all. Accord.
ing to these authorities. slavery is. but
the Union is not, restored. Not only
J are the States in revolt. but the border
Union States, which furnished more re-
cruits to the Union armies than to the
Confederate armies. are engaged in
this new rebellion. The Southern peo-
pie purpose, it is said, to win by legis-
lation what they lost by an appeal to
arms. They lost BY an appeal to arms
four millions of slaves and the right to
secede. But, according to the stalwart
Republican, the success of the Demo.
cratic party at the polls will be the sue
cess Of the SOLID South -including
the Southern Union States-the success
of the doctrine of secession and the
restoration Of slavery. If this be not
so. then the "Solid South cannot re-
gain by legislation what it lost by an
appeal to arms. The New York irib.
une goes even further, and declares
that the negroes in the South are al
ready reduced to condition of servi-
tude as helpless as their condition be-
fore the war. The Chicago Tribune
publishes statement from Southern
Republican, who declares that:
The Southern people az ruling power are
to-day in worse state of rebellion than they
were in 1851
If these statements be true then the
war was failure. Those who agreed
with Mr. Greeley that it is impossible
to pin this country together with bayo.
nets, were wise in their generation.
Those who demanded peace at any
price were patriots; because they fore
saw that the blood and treasure ex-
pended in strife was an absolute, wan.
ton, cruel waste. If the South stands
where it stood twenty years since, with
the same hopes, purposes and plans; if
the negro has not been emancipated,
but is bound again in slavery, lacking
only the name, it would have been bet.
ter for the North to have united in the
sentiment of General Scott and bid the
erring sisters depart in peace. For if
the South is just where it was twenty
years ago, millions Of human lives and
treasure were vainly spent in the effort
to bind them to the Union and to abol.
ism slavery. 1t was all useless, all q
hopeless, Improbable, terrible mistake.
On this showing it would have been bet
ter to have let them 90; for nothing has
been gained, and an awful measure Of
life and wealth forever lost.
All this has been accomplished, too,
under the administration Of the party
that waged this unsuccessful war. For
twenty years it has had either = two
thirds share in the National Legislature
or a plant Executive. 1t has had
plensry power to pass and execute all
laws necessary to the success Of the war
policy. No law has been repealed. no
decree annulled, no prescript, statute.
ordinance, OF amendment rescinded.
And the outcome of it all is that not
only are the rebel States just as rebell-
ious as they were twenty years since,
but that they have dragged into the
"new rebellion the border States of
Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky and
Missouri, and by cunning legislationre-
enslaved the negroes whom the war
and the Constitution emancipated. II
this be true. as the Republicans de-
clare, then the war was CHASTITY farce,
q bloody burlesque, q phantom. o delu-
sion, snare, dead failure.
Such is the proclamation of the stall.
wart Republican organs and the stall.
wart Republican orators. day unto day
uttereth this speech, night unto night
showeth forth this knowledge of the
situation.
OF course this Is all nonsense. and
none knows it better than the journal
ist or the stump-speaker who declares
it. Is this the measure with which
they mete the intelligence of their read
ers? Do they datter and persuade
them by this perpetual flinging into
their faces the proclamation that the
war was q failure; that the negroes
were not after all emancipated, and
hence owe the Republican party no
gratitude; and that twenty years of
arms, coercion, reconstruction. confis-
cation and all. have left the South just
where it was when the Republican party
assumed the reins of Government
And in the very face Of this profound
protest that the party has so utterly
failed, it protests just as loudly that
there should be q political change of
Northumberland Free Press.
The "rebel claims" bugsboo was
always an absurdity, hardly calculated
to brighten anyone but old women and
children. The Southern people and
their representatives are those who
would feel more than any others the
burden of the taxes that would have to
be levied for their payment. These
olon. nlapoA tho 1yholx,