The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-12-17
TIE sourHERN QUESTION.
Senator MitchelIs Thoughtful summary of
the Philosophy of the Election.

the Philosophy of the Election.
Interview in Philadelphia Press.
I asked. 'FWhy has the Southern question
been so nearly abandoned by the Republican
partly"
gress of late years it has not been generally and
strongly sustained by the Republican press of
the North. When every Republican senator
made common cause with Malone at the extra
session following the Inauguration of Garfield it
was to warn the North against this danger.
1t was not because Mahone's party was or
was not tainted with Republication, but in
snite Of that and Of the fact that he and many
of his followers had been. engaged in the re-
belion. 1t was because he and they were bat
Ting for the rights of a free vote and a fair
count for equal rights Of all citizens. and for
protection of home industry against the Bour-
bon Democracy Of Virginia. There was a man
with a strong following of brave and influential
white men determined and able to protect the
colored people in the exercise of their rights at
the polls in that State, at a time when the pub
lie opinion of the country would not
iustify the employment of national force
for that purpose. Yet many good people at the
North saw nothing in that struggle but a mere
partisan strife for the offices of the Senate. Day
after day and week after week a Republican ma
jority asserted its right to ORGANIZE and control
the Senate, and this same solid South success.
fully flibustered against it to the end. When |
saw this power, sustained by a few Democratic
senators from doubtful Northern States, sue
cessfully exerted to prevent an expression of
the awful will of the Senate. l was reminded
of the feeling which prevailed in the Union
army in the darkest hour of the late war
when the copperhead Democracy carried the
elections in so many Northern States; and when
| saw that there was no true popular compre-
hension of the real significance of this and many
another warning of coming danger to the new
Republic, l felt that here indeed was the posi-
BILE complement and counterpart of the rebellion
which might soon be enthroned in the seat of ma
tional power"
lis there now, or likely to be hereafter, an op-
portunity to awaken the North to the serious
menace made by the reactionary Bourbonism of
the South2 What Of Blaine's Augusta speechF'
'Mr Blaine's Augusta Speech" said Mr..
Mitchell, ''dees not put the case too strongly.
l have no animosity against the South. She
suffered terribly by the war, and her people
have undergone very great tribulations since the
war closed; but the crime OF slavery has not
more certainly brought woe to the lives and sor-
row to the hearts and homes of her people than
the and cruel wrongs inflicted
upon q down-trodden race, which have de-
throned the vital principle of republican gov
eminent in the Nation must bring a terrible and
irresistible retribution upon the whole country"
'Retribution upon the North, toof
eyes, upon the whole country; for the North
has sacrificed its conscience for material gain, to
the neglect of the Nations duty to educate, ele-
waite and To protect millions of its poor, ~illiterate
and prosecuted citizens whom it was justly com
PEELED, in a most miraculous manner, to manu-
init and enfranchlse, and whom 1T was
righteously obligated to defend in the free and
full enjoyment Of all their natural, civil and po-
litical rights"
Cannot Cleveland. supported by the best in
luence in his party, largely ameliorate thisstate
of thingsf"
"a good administration by a party thus en-
throned cannot atone for these oflenses. The
disease is deep-seated and acute, and its treat
ment must be radical and heroic. Nothing but
a complete Overturning of the existing order OF
things at the South which shall truly make all