The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-08-27

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not the want of merit in these two great leaders
of olr party. but the disappointments, personal
contests aud controversies incident to a long
lease of power.
But even this detection among Republicans
would have been ineffective but for the solid
South, held together in political fellowship by
crimes, violence and fraud. which. if continued.
will as surely renew ali the strifes of the civil
war as that the sun rolls around in its course.
REPUBLICAN GENEROSITY.
The Republican party was certainly liberal
and just to the rebels lately in arms against the
country. We deprived them of no political
power; no blood was shed; no confiscation was
had, and more generous terms were conceded to
Them than ever before had been extended to an
unsuccessful party in a civil war. Their leaders
emphasized that at the burial Of our great
commander. General Grant. The result of the
settlement by the constitutional amendments at
the close of the war was TO give them
increased political power upon condltion
that the slaves should be free ana
should be allowed to vote. and that all political
distinctions growing out of race. color. or
previous condition OF servitude should be abol-
ished: and yet to day. the Republican party IS
faced by a solid South, in which the negro is
deprived, substantially, OF all his polltlcal rights
bv omen violence. or by frauds as mean as any
that have been committed by penitentlary
convicts, and as openly and boldly done as any
highway robbery. BY this system and by the
acouiescence of a few Northern States, the men
who led in the civil war have been restored to
power. and hope, practically, to reverse all the
results of the war This is the spectre that now
haunts American politics, and may make 1t just
as vital and necessary to appeal to the Northern
States to unite again against this evil. not so
open and arrogant as slavery, but more danger
Gus and equally unjust. The question then was
the slavery of the black man. Now the question
is the equality of the white man-whether a
Southern man in Mississippi may, by deprivIng
Il majority Of the legal voters in the State of
their right to vote, exercise twice the political
power of q white mar in the North, where the
franchise is free, and open. and equal to all.
When this subject is pressed, we are some
times met with denial, but in the face of proofs
so conclusive, spread upon the public records
and in the public journals, and substantially
admitted over and over again in the South,
denial will not answer The actual returns OF
the elections show that in ali the Southern
States where the negroes are in majority, they
are either not permitted to vote Or the returns
are changed.
Now thirty EIGHT white Democratic p~residen-
tial electors and thirty-eieht white Democratic
members of the House of Representatives. based
upon more than six million colored people living
in the Southern States. are returned from those
States. and scarcely a single representative of
the colored race. or one elected by the colored
people, votes IN the electoral college or in the
House Of representatives 1t Is said that this is
a matter for each State to regulate. That doc
trine we hoped was overthrow by the civil war.
The right of representation is a right not given
to the State. but to the people of the State, part
of the people of the United States, and we in
Ohio are as much interested that the people of
South Carolina should be fairly represented as
we are that the people of Hamilton county
should be fairly represented. for the vote of
every representative in Congress. and of every
presidential elector, affects US alike, from what
ever place elected.
When we point out these offenses committed
in the South. il is said that W. are raising the
bloody shirt; that we are reviving the issues of
the warAthat the war is over. L hope the war
is over, and that the animosities of the war will
pass away and be dead and buried.
Anger and hate aud prejudice are not
wise councillors in peace or in war.
great qualities of the human heart, but, like
everything else that is good. they may be car
ried to excess, and may degenerate into faults.
They must not lead us TO forget the obligations
of duty and honor. While we waive the ami
mosities OF the war, we must never fail to hold
on. with coura go and fortitude, to all the results
of the war. Our soldiers fought in no holiday
contest: not merely to test the manly qualities
of the men of the North and the South; not for
power, Or plunder. or wealth or title. They
fought to secure to themselves and their poster
iy the blessings of a strong national govern
ment.
1t was for the preservation of the Union, a
Union NOT of States, but of the people of the
United States; not a confederate government,
but a national government. The preservation
of the Union was the central idea of the war.
The confederate soldier fought for what he was
led to think was the right Of a State to secede
from the Union at its pleasure. The Union sol
diers triumphed. The confederate soldiers were
compelled to an unconditional surrender.
The sacrifices, wounds and deaths of hundreds
of thousands OF brave men were suffered to save
the Union and strengthen its foundations. We
may forgive without qualification what the reb-
els did in the war, but we cannot, with honor,
surrender what our soldiers won in the war; nor
can we yield an iota of the benefits they have
conferred upon the country, greater far than all
the cost Of the war.
GLoRIFICATION OF TREASON.
Sometimes / fear that our moderation is verg-
ing on Indifference: that while our minds are
distracted by local politics. the old doctrines are
oeing revived again. We forget sometimes that
il was the Union cause that won, and not the
rebel cause. / have recently heard Jefferson
Davis. in the Senate of the United States, ex-
question for denouncing him AS a conspirator
and a traitor.
L have seen many signs of q disposition to
waive all the glorious results of the war; to make
no difference between the blue and the gray; to
revive again the doctrines of secession and State
rights taught before the war. The tendency of
the Democratic party is all that way. | do not
question the patriotism of my Democratic neigh
bors here in Ohio, but we know by old expert
ence they follow the leaders of their party. The
governing force of that party is with the South,
as in the days of Buchanan. We have no sign of
protest from Democratic orators or journals of
the Wholesale deprivation of the colored people
in the South of their right to vote, nothing of
the crimes by which the South is made solid.
The only hopeful sign was that Cleveland would
not appoint a man as postmaster III Copiah
county, Mississippi, who Endorsed the murder of
Matthews; but, as a rule, in all the North no
preference is given TO the Union soldier over anV
other applicant The Union soldiers appointed
by this administration are few and far between,
while in every case it was not the record Of the
soldier that was in his favor. but his services as
a Democratic partisan.
In the South it may be said that no known
Union man has been appointed to Office. The
Offices are filled from the rebel ranks. No man
who acquiesces in the results of the war, who