The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1885-09-30
The Southern Problem.

Since Senator Sherman, in his open
ing speeches in the Ohio campaign, dis
tinctly charged that the democratic
bourbons had Systematically disre-
garded the Constitution of the United
States, and defed and disobeyed its
laws for the protection of citizens in
their rights, and had thereby robbed
a great number of citizens of the
South and wronged all honest voters by
presidential success obtained through
fraud, not a democratic journal or
speaker, or one of their mugwump
allies, has ventured to refute the charge.
They merely denounce it as an attempt
TO revive sectional feeling and the ami
mosities of the war; and make the point
that if the evil really exists there is no
immediate or practical remedy for it.
Admitting that no adequate remedy
can be applied under existing circum-
stances, it does not necessarily follow
that no remedy is possible in the future,
or that the republican party would be
justified in abandoning the issue.
The leading men in those states of
the South where the methods of vio-
lence and fraud in elections are system
atically practiced make no denial of
the facts; but they boldly declare that
the negroes must continue to be de-
prived of the rights given them by the
nation because any other policy would
ensure the political predominance of the
colored voters and imperil the white
domination. This condition of things
is what gives the republican party a
clear right to criticise and resist what
ever is plainly wrong in the political
conduct of the southern bourbons. 1t
is urged that when the republican party
was in power it proposed no practical
measure to cure the wrongs against the
colored voters. 1t is true that the re-
publican party did not go far enough
in its measures for the protection of the
political rights of the southern negroes.
But its failure to do more was in part
due to the obstructive tactics of the
democratic party; in part to the efforts
of certain class of republicans who
wanted to crowd out the southern issue
in order to bring other issues promi-
nently to the front; and in part to a
temporizing policy pursued by two re-
publican administrations, which it was
hoped would allay sectional feeling and
accomplish by Cancellation and persua-
sion what could otherwise be secured
only by coercive measures. This policy
proved a failure, and resulted in max
ing the South more solidly democratic
and restoring the democratic party to the
control of the national administration.
There are those outside of the demo-
cratic party who, as the Tribune re-
marks, would overlook a wrong be-
cause done to a black man, and who
insist that every other issue must be
put out of the way incontinently, and
called settled whether it is or not, in
order to give them room to thrust their
theories and isms to the front" Some
of these unstable republicans discuss
the southern problem in such a squeam-
ish and trucking spirit as to convey the
impression that they are more than
half ashamed of the part taken by the
republican party and the northern peo-
pie generally in the suppression of the
rebellion, and would like to have it put
out of sight and out of mind as speed
lily as possible. The issue cannot thus
be evaded and avoided. Yet there will
be no difficulty in developing thor
oughly amicable feeling in the North
towards the South when the latter sec
ton accords equal political rights to the
colored voters; but it ought to remain
a vital question in national politics I'M
til political equality has become an es-
tablished fact in every part of the land.