The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1883-09-01

strengthen the extreme opposition party
Of the South. It builds up the organi-
zation there which it can fight most
effectively here. It consolidates and
gives potency to those In the South
against whom it may most successfully
consolidate the North. Key was 81 an
original, fre-eating before-breakfast
secessionist." Woodcock. the Union
soldier recently elected from the In
ternal Revenue service at Nashville, has
been supplanted by Hughes, furious
secessionist of 1860-61. John Hancosk.
native Southern Unionist, who left
Texas and went into the Union service,
was pursued, as a candidate for Con-
gress, by the tools of the Administration
with unparalleled ferocity. With them
the original sccessionists co-operated.
and by this unnatural coalition Russell,
q conservative native Republican, was
prosecuted, and by it Hancock, now
elected, has been twice beaten for Con-
gress. Ex-United States Senator Al
corn, South Carolinian by birth, but
always Wing and Unionist and Re-
publican since 1865, is only too con-
sentative and too decent a gentleman
to be approached by the masters of the
now dominant party. Houk is its
proper impersonation. He is its beau
| ideal of Southern party leaders. 70
him has been conceded the sole
privilege Of distributing offices and pub
lie plumber in Tennessee. He has ctr-
rupted once respectable, honest old
Wing district, and is its perfect master;
He urges the payment of claims and
pensions from single county amount
| ing to greater sum than was the taxa
BILE wealth of this county when slavery
subsisted. He is thus claim-agent,
directly or indirectly, for two-thirds of
the people he represents, and each of
his clients support him that he may have
protracted opportunities for the collec-
| ton of their claims Public morals are
vitiated, all decency is violated and per-
Jury made commonplace through the
shameless depravity of a party which
has polluted popular and official and
| Legislative morals, until the people
themselves in many localities are as
thoroughly depraved as their worst rep
resentatives. "What am to swear to
in order to get pension?' What
proof must l make in order to establish
4 "
est, most patriotic aspirations Of Gov
ernment-corrupted mob. Perjury is
popularized fine art, and the great end
of human ambition is contaminated
when pension is secured. or an office
occupied, or ssclaim' established. In
i fact, the Federal Government, as
administered by the party in
power, is only q device through
which owners of mills, or rails, or bonds,
or banks may plumber the people on the
one hand, while the people are only
learning how, through the same MAJ
chinery, to plumber themselves. Not
only are brides preferred by Govern
ment in the shape of Offices and money,
i impelling multitudes to practices Of
perjury, but women are hired by the
i Governments pensioning system and
codes to prefer adultery to welded life.
The whole scheme, however just and
beneficent in purpose, is full of rotten
cess and vice. And it comes to this at
last that the concession of pension de-
ponds not upon the facts Of case, but
what is proven, and any facts required
always can be established by adequate
!. proof. Streams of gold flowing out
from the Federal Treasury through
bonds, Offices, banks, pensions and
claims, have corrupted and maddened
perhaps half the populations of towns
!. and cities. Toiling farmers of the interior
districts alone are unpolluted and I'M
bought, and to these cooperating more
thoroughly than ever before must we
look for the overthrow of q party which
has injected foulest poison into every
, vein and artery of the body polite.
Not content with the pollution of its
leaders, this Republicanism confesses
that its strength lies in the maintenance
of sectionalism. It demands popular
support because it "saved the Union, =
which it perpetually undermines and
, Systematically destroys 1t corrupts
the hearts of the people and buys votes
with offices and money. 1t even de-
| grades the Union in the eyes of South
: ern people by entrusting patronage and
offices to those deemed most odious and
most condemned by the people. Absurt
follies of twenty and twenty-fiv years
!. ago are practically re-enacted. Then
when fanatical Joshua r. Giddings, 81
{ Ohio, made most infiammatory sec
tional harangue he was most heartily
congratulated by Lawrence M. Keitt
the sword and fame swallower of Soutl
. Carolina, and when Keitt replied, Gid
. dings and his coadjutors circulated Owe
. the North half million copies of thu
pyrotechnical blazonry Of sectional fury
j The blessed Republican party so-callel
is never weary Of this sort of well doing
] and while polluting the morals Of til
: whole country and organizing distinc1
( classes Of society, widely removed from
each other, it still claims immortal re
: nown for restoring the Union. although
a its sectional and partisan conduct pro
: duced the war with all its dire calami
: ties, and the rupture in the Union who's
: parts it keeps asunder now by ever.
1 moral and legal force which Fedora
Y power may exert. American Register