Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1880-09-24
The Main Issue.

coming election because it deserves to
win. So good cause no other party
ever had, nor did that party ever have
so good a cause as it has now in any
other contest. In 1860 it asked that
slavery should be restricted, But in
all but the name, slavery would be re-
vived and made National, if Southern
Democracy should get full sway. In
1864 we stood for putting down the
rebellion. But the same disloyal spirit
and purpose grasp to-day for control of
the Government which they tried to
destroy, and all that brave men fought
for during the war is still at stake.
True men of the North know it; men
of the South who are more candid than
cunning say with Wade Hampton that
tn cir cause is now the very sane for
which Lee and jackson fought. 1t
would have been far better had seces-
sion been made victorious, by the
shameful peace which Mcclellan s
friends wanted in 1864 than that the
mastery of the whole Union should be
given up to the men, the thoughts and
the spirit of secession, at the demand
of Hancock's friends in 1880. Yet,
strange as it seems, there are men who
do not see that Hancockism is only a
thin disguise drawn over the gray uni
form of rebelism.
What is the main issue in this con-
test? Whether the South shall rule,
the South made solid by force and
fraud, fired with the same spirit of hate
toward the North, and spurred on by
keen memories of defeat in war 1t
- ,-,,la lN,r,, ,,naonc IF not
meaning to get out of the Union, nor
expecting to be resisted, but full of
faith that beaten Yankees would soon
sue for peace, and consent to such
terms as would make Southern ideas
dominant forever in the land. The war
did not end in that way. The North
did not sue for peace, Mcclellan fash
ion, on bended knees. Now the same
South with no change of ideas or feel
ings, means to get the same results by
other methods if it can.
Was there disloyalty in 1862 There
is now, and the same Democrats are
the disloyal men. What is disloyaltyp
Resistance to law by force. The South
has resisted by force, and does resist
every act passed as means of holding
the results of the war 1t has amped
out negro suffrage with club and shot
gun and false counts, until there is no
part of the South where loyal majority
of ten to one can get its votes cast or
counted. This is not step toward re-
bellion; it is rebellion. Arms are there,
organization, and open defiance of law
No tax can be raised in the South nor
any law enforced, for the same lawless
al
there also shoots officials, packs juries,
and scares or kills witnesses. Look
with honest eyes! There is scarcely a
pretense that the vote in Alabama was
free or that the count was true. This
sort of thing, done in one voting district
or in one county, is an infamous fraud.
| Done all over the South, by concert.
with organization, and for the avowed
purpose of defeating the laws, nullify-
| ing the enfraDchisement of the negro,
and grasping the Government, it is
more than fraud; it is actual rebellion.
Go back to 1864, when Lee threaten
ed the Capital on one side and Mcclellan
on the other. Suppose it had then been
asked Shall the followers of Lee make
the next PresidentP Shall they cast for
him the solid vote of all the rebel States
| Shall they do this in open defiance of
lawP Shall they do it by the murder OF
1000 Union men, by stufiing boxes with
tissue-ballots, and by counting ballots
never cast, as smany as they needg" Was
there single loyal man who would
then have said "ayep" How is the
case changed by the change of sixteen
years in dateP The same men to-day
make a boast of their deeds with Lee,
strike down any Southern man who was
loyal then, and show the same spirit
which they showed in arms. The
change is only in mode of fighting and
in date. The defiance of law is the
same, and the refusal to submit to the
will of majority expressed freely and
according to law. The will to rule or
ruin is the same. The mean and cow
ardly prescription, the savage intoler-
anee, the quick resort TO means the
basest, the denial of free speech, are
all precisely the same as in 1861 TO
1864. Nothing has changed, unless il
be the devotion OF the North TO the
principles upon which all free govern
ment is based.
Had the North backed down in 1864
and elected Mcclellan, it would have
reached the same end that will now be
reached by electing Hancock, but would
! have saved great loss aud much dis
grace. We shall see in two months
whether it means TO reach that same
end az last, after sixteen years of vain
effort 10 preserve free institutions, its
self.respsct and It's manhood.-M "
Tribune,