Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1881-04-29
SOLID SENSE.

From Senator MItcheIl's FavorIte Paper,
Philadelphia Evening Telegraph, Rep.
A solid South is, we think, a political
blunder committed by the Southern peo-
pie, but it was one the commission of
which was altogether natural. In their
four years contest for sovereignty they
were opposed and beaten by Republican
North, by the same were their slaves man
united, and later, after they had made
full submission, and were declared in full
standing in the nation, they were made
the victims of the oppressive reconstruc-
tiOn acts, and their state governments
we're seized and controlled by wretched
political adventurers, who preycd upon
and despoiled them under the name of Re
publicanism. In fact, whatever humilia-
tion or loss the South has suffered, OF
what wrong or oppression it has borne, it
suffered and bore as the act of Republl.
cans, and it would be phenomenal if it
should not solidify itself politically against
the party in the name of which it was
beaten and humiliated.
The bargain with Malone, and the speech
of Frye the other day in the Senate. have
done more to solidify the South than any.
thing all the Hills and Lamars from Della
ware to Florida could possibly do.
This bargain with Malone gave tho con-
troll of both houses of Congress to the Re-
publicans, and the Republican majority is,
with the Republican president, conse
quently the government of tho United
States And how is this governmen,
using its power? Not for the good of the
country at all, but for the benefit
of that part of the Repub
lican party represented by the
so-called leaders at Washington
The leaders, assuming to be the
government of the republic, are attempt
ing to break the solid South by agreeing
with Malone and NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.
rebels, oppressors of the colored man, ant
Democrats give them the disposal O.
the federal Offices in Virginia in order to
secure a Republican majority there, moi
under the honorable name of Republicans
but under the dishonest one OF iReadjuster!
or repudiators of honest debts. If the ma
jority of Congress and the president arr
| the government, then It is tho government
which is using all the power of the govern
ment to buy state, or to buy its betraya
for the use of the party. What business is
| it of the federal government to ask wha
the politics of any state is, or to try by
bribery to alter its politics, or by what
clause in the constitution is the Senate o
| the United States authorized to become :
mere partisan committee to obtain partisan
success in state election? With either
local or general politics the government
has no right to interfere, and the govern
ment was never in more indefensible po
sitiOn than it is in this effort to break the
solid South.
If the people of the South choose to be
Democrats why should they not be, or i
the Southern states choose to be solidl!
Democratic why should they not be
They have not complained, have raised nt
clamor, because the Eastern states ar
solidly Republican; did not when Con
gress was Democratic try to make the East
ern states Democratic ; did not criticise tn
Eastern states for being as sOlidly Re
publican as the Southern are solidly Demo
cratic.