The Indianapolis leader. (Indianapolis, Ind.) 1879-1890, 1881-06-11
INDIANAPOLIS, IND, SATURDAY, JUNE II,

In the late War the white men oi
the South were nearly all called away
from their homes to the battlefield;
they left their wives and their chill.
dren dependent, not only for support,
but for protection, on the colored peo-
pie. The latter knew that their lib
erty was involved in the struggle,
and that the success Of the Federal
armies was freedom for them, while
success to their own meant slavery to
them; yet it may be stated as a gen.
eral-indeed, as an almost uniform
fact that they were kind, faithful,
and true to the unprotected wives
and children of the Southern soldiers
left almost wholly at their mercy,
and that they labored as formerly to
supply them with food and with cloth
ing. This historic truth has secured
to the colored race of the South the
lasting gratitude of the Southern
white people.
The freedom of the colored race
was the result of contest between
the two sections on questions of con-
stitutional law and State-rights neith-
er originating in nor imbittered by
any sanguinary uprising or cruel acts
on the part of the emancipated peo-
pie
While the latter are indebted to
the Government of the United States
for the precious boon of freedom and
the full rights of citizenship under
wise and impartial laws, the white
people of the South owe to the Consti-
tuition and principles of that Govern
ment, as framed by their fathers, a
boon no less benefcient and still more
striking in the history of mankind.
1t is this:
At the close of the War the white
people of the South were, in a
military point of view, as PROSTATE
before the North as the Saxons Of En-
gland were in the year 1906 before
the Normans under William the
Conqueror. Engendered by the War,
there existed between the two sections
the bitteranimosities always following
such contest, and there were not
wanting those who sought to infame
and perpetuate these animosities for
their own purposes.
But, Notwithstanding all this, the
Southern people were, in ten short
years, restored to their full rights un-
der the laws and Constitution of the
Union, and placed on the same plane
of civil rights as our Northern broth
ers, participating equally in the con-
troll and direction of the Nationa
Government by their own chosen
Representatives, and in the full pos
session of their own local State Gov.
ernments.
This we owe to the healing, vigor-
Gus, and invigorating principles of
Republican liberty created, planted,
crystallized into constitutional law
by our fathers hundred years ago.
They saved US when we could not
save ourselves. After armies of brave
soldiers had failed by the
most brilliant courage and de-
votion to achieve Southern in
dependence, had ceased to battle,
and had melted away, those inde-
structible principles of constitutional
law came to our rescue, and restored
us to our former rights as equals of
the Northern people in the Nation.
This wonderful result could not have
occurred in any other country CIR un-
der any other form of government.
The entire people of the South owe
to that Constitution and its princi-
pies more than any other people.
They should cling to the Union as
the true and only ark of safety"