Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1885-10-30
THE VIRGINIA CAMPAIGN.
Bret Abstract OF Speech Delivered By
senator John Sherman, at Petersburg,
Va, Before An Immense Audience.
PETERSBURG, Va. Oct. 2

PETERSBURG, Va. Oct. 90.
Senator Sherman spoke here tonight to
crowded audience. The stage was filled with
white people. while the body of the building
and the galleries was occupied by colored
people, and the outskirts Of the crowd was
white people. Sherman was introduced by
Gen. Malone as the foremost statesman of
the country, to whose warm heart and love
for every state in the Union and for the whole
country he bore cordial testimony. Sherman
was cordially greeted and accorded the most
respectful and attentive hearing.
FELLOW CITIZENS: l accepted with much
difhdeDce the invitation to speak in the can
vass in Virginia. chiefly because feared the
public prints might have made false impress
sion upon your minds As to my position in the
recent canvass in Ohio that WAS neither lust
to me nor to the republicans of that State.
accepted it, however, that might, face to face,
show how unjust is the clamor evoked against
the republicans of Ohio-to demonstrate to
that what the republican professed in Ohio
as to national questions, is the same that it
processes in Virginia, and that tn. practical
application of the principles of the republican
party would be of vast benefit to the State of
Virginia, while democratic success would
tend more and more to harden the times
and prevent the industrial development of
Virginia.
Not only your newspaper, but the iistin-
guished gentlemen who is the democratic
candidate for governor of the State of Vir-
ginia. has said to you that was waving the
bloody shirt while he was contending under
the Union flag. If he meant by waving the
bloody shirt that sought In any wa, to renew
the animOslties of the war, then he was greatly
mistaken, for in the speech to which he refers,
and in every speech made in Ohio, con-
stantly said that the war was over, and the
animosities of the war should be buried out
of sight that would not hold any confeder-
ate soldier responsible for what he did during
the war, and that all l wished was to maintain
and preserve the acknowledged results of the
war. Among these | claim is the right of
every voter to cast one honest vote and have
1t counted that every citizen, rich or poor,
native or naturaliZed, white or black, should
have equal civil and political rights, and tha.
every man OF lawful age should be allowed
to exercise his right to vote without distinc-
tion of race or color or previous condition.
l charge among other things that these
constitutional rights and privileges had been
disregarded by the democratic party, espec-
tally in the Southern States; that at the last
election, in the year of our Lord 1884,
wherever the votes of the colored people
their franchise by one device or another, and
thus political power appOrtiOned to the color
ed population was transferred to and exercis-
ed by white democrats of the South. so as to
make their political power greater than other
citizens, and, by these means, Grover Cleve-
land became President of the United States
instead of James G. Blaine.
1t was upon this declaration of mine, made
with full consideration aud with absolute Ger
tainty of its substantial truth, that the demo-
cratic press, and Gen. Lee as we'll, declared
that was raising the bloody shirt, when the
events to which was referring occurred last
year, and not in 1861 or 1865 that they re-
lated not to the war, but to frauds and crimes
committed long since the war, which over
threw the sanctity of the ballot box and up
turned the foundation of republican or demo-
cratic government. 1t was the war upon the
ballot box and not the war of the rebellion
that | arraigned.
The truth of what l SAID was not contro-
verted by Gov Hoadley nor Senator Thur
man, nor, as far as / am advised, by Gen.
Lee. | pointed to the public records, which
proved all said, and especially quoted from
recent leading publications in the South their
full and unequivocal admissions of the facts
stated by me so far as they affected the States
of South Carolina, Georgia and Mississippi,
and their frank avowal of and defense of
their conduct. l made no appeal to the Union
soldiers, but to all good citizens, south as well
as north, and said l would do it to the people
of Virginia. Gen. Lee, on the other hand, if
am not mistaken, has conducted his canvass
almost entirely upon the basis of an appeal to
the confederate soldiers. to the pride of Vir-
ginia, for the courage they exhibited during
the war, and with military trappings. flags,
and cavalcade, he tries to turn the attention
of your people from the questions of the pres
ent time, from your material development,
from protective tariff, to the memories of a
war in which Virginians fought bravely while
there was hope, and submitted honorablv
to the arbitrament of arms when their cause
was lost.
1t was of the present l was speaking, and
not of the past, and said that this evil of
depriving legal voters of their right to vote
was so great, wide-reaching in its influence,
that it would never be submitted to, but that
some remedy would be found to prevent Its
success. did not at that time dream that
the same tactics of fraud and violence in the
South of which l complained were about to
be transferred to the State of Ohio. Yet so
1t was. In the recent election in the city of
Cincinnati, where the democratic party had
cont. OF of the police, and substantially of the
election, they resorted to fraud and violence
so gross and shameless that even among the
democrats of Ohio there is an outcry against
such proceedings / denounce them as de-
nounce kindred frauds in the South, and in
woke against them the honest Indignation of
Virginians as did of the people of Ohio
Fellow citizens The great and pressing
issue of the times, to which l invite the ear
nest attention of every democrat as well as OF
every republican, involves the fundamental
principle of our government; that election.
must be free and open and fair that every
honest voter should be permitted to cast his
vote, and every honest vote should be count
ed. and no others. If this principle is once
overthrown republican government is at an
end, and the war of the Guelphs and the
Ghibeliines, the war of civil strife between
factions and of riots will commence, and
there will soon be an end of all elections. In
support of this might quote what has been
said by Washington and Jefferson and Jack
son, and all the leading men of the past, who
justly denounce any violation of the purity
of elections as the greatest crime against q
republic.
l therefore appeal to men of all parties, in
the name of all the great men of Virginia,
invoking your just pride in your history, to
see to it that in the present election. whatever
pay be the result of il, that every man entitled
by the constitution and laws of Virginia and
of the United states to vote, shall be allow ed
freely to exercise that right and that his vote
I