The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-03-26

A Charge That the New Minister to England
is a Vilifier of Lincoln.

Charge That the New Minister to England
is a Vilifer of Lincoln.
Burlington (vt) Letter in New York Times. Sept. 6.
The Democrats made foolish move in crowd
ing their nomination for Governor on Mr.. e. j.
Phelps. An able and successful lawyer, an inhu-
entail member of the last Constitutional Con-
vention (which is constituted without regard to
politics), the graceful president Of the great
Bennington Centennial Celebration. interested
and prominent in securing game laws and or
ganizing State and National Bar Associations
and in various matters of art and general cul-
ture he had been of late years brought before
the people in other than political aspects, and
many had forgotten that he was, during the
war, one of the most pronounced and bitter pro
slavery and anti-war Democrats in the country.
Had he maintained his resolution to accept no
political nomination. the memory of his atti-
tude from 1860 to 1865 might have quite passed
away; but the Democratic nomination and his
speech of acceptance, in which, with surprising
want of TACT he aired afresh his old hatred of the
African and attacked the Southern Republicans,
white and black with a virulence which few
Southern Democrats could equal and which
showed his absolute sympathy with the Black
burns. Buffers, Davises and Hamptons of the
South, have brought it into strong prominence.
Still stronger light has been thrown on it by the
publication of careful stenographic report of a
speech made by Mr.. Phelps in September, 1864,
before little club of copperheads in Burlington.
In this he called Mr.. Lindoln wooden head"
anu a LWenLl6tn-rato DacK-COunLry attorney"
declaring that the North was fighting simply to
turn loose all the niggers' and 'whitewash the
niger in the blood OF Millions said that the
national debt had reached point where it could
not be carried, though no one was ready to say
how it could be repudiated, and otherwise talked
in way which would have delighted jeff Davis,
but which jars pretty rudely on loyal sympathies
among the Green Hills. The Vermonters are
willing to shake hands with any rebel who is
truly reconstructed and is willing to render such
allegiance to law, order and equal rights in kind if
not in degree, as they render themselves; but
the people of a freedom loving State which gave
to the war soldier for every ten of its inhab-
itants, male and female old and young, and
which lost in killed and wounded more men in
proportion to its quota than any other State but
Kansas, and about as many as that State, would
not be very likely to regard with favor the few
Vermonters who held back while the rest pressed
forward, and called the soldiers ''Hessians" and
Lincoln hirelings," and would gladly have let
the Union slide if slavery could have been pre-
served. Whatever else the Green Mountain boys
forget, they do not propose to forget the war; nor
the purposes for which it was fought nor the
freedom and equality Of rights which were sup
posed to be settled by it; and as between viii
fer of Abraham Lincoln, a denouncer Of the
war and friend Of rebels in arms, and man
like the Republican nominee, Colonel Farnham,
who, in addition to being an able lawyer and a
citizen of the highest integrity, was one of the
first volunteers in the First Vermont Regiment,
and has an honorable record as Union soldier,
few, if any, voters that ever voted Republican
ticket have found any room for hesitation.