The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1885-05-14
from the Ohio Stat Journal
DEMOCRATIC CONCESSIONS AND
CLAIMS.
BY GEN. JOHN BEATTY.

In the April number of the Century Mr.. Ed
ward P. Clark, of Brooklyn, gentleman who
| is either a Democrat of royal copperhead ante.
cedents. one laboring under a viruient att acs
of mugwumperv, m -kes confession to which
desire 10 call the attention of those who deny
that the Democratic party ever resorted to vio-
lent and fraudulent methods to attain and
maintain its ascendancy in the South.
In speaking of the manner in which that sec.
tion was solid fed, Mr.. Clark in article on
the Solid South. says:
ssThe negroes were intimidated from going to
T. polls 40 tar as possible. and when violence
di' not suffice to keen them away. their ba lots
were lamp red with and neutrarfzed after tn y
had been cast. BY force or fraud the race which
possesst d in more than one State an actual nu
:. erical majority was reduced into an apparent
minority. The negro vote was practically sup
pressed and the majority ceased to rule"
Has any Republican ever claimed more than
this? Has any Northern Democrat ever before
admitted so much? The truth is the evidence
is becoming too abundant for Democratic lead
ers to successfully lie about it any longer, and
SO they plead guilty to the charge of fraud and
intimidation, and undertake to justify it.
The Oxford (Miss.) Falcon, Secretary Lamar's
home organ, in a recent number, said:
at is the boast of an American citizen that
a his magistrates; the elective franchise is The
foundation alone of our liberties; and vet the
these sacred rights. Instances are too numer-
GUS for us 10 deny it But it has heen Govern
and. as we believe in this instance, the end we
were to attain justified the MEANS"
The belief that the end justified the mean
has been the plea of the thief robber, higot and
tyrant from the beginning of time, as it is now
the plea of Mr.. Clark, the Oxford Falcon and
the Democratic party.
The end which is supposed to justify the bru-
fa1vV ic hi he
negro, the exclusion of Northern white men
from Southern States, the death of Southern
white men who decline to vote the Democratic
ticket, the forcing OF Cleveland into the execu-
tive office, the control of the United States Con-
gress, and the possession of the federal offices by
a hungry horde of ex-Confederates.
Mr.. Clark and the Oxford Falcon admit that
gross outrage was committed by the D-mo-
cratic party in the South, and is now being per-
petuated there, but they say the carpet-bagsers
were corrupt, and the rule of the majority ga
carnival of misrule" When Democratic lead
ers are driven from one falsehood we may nat
urally expect to find them entrenched in an
other. The carpet-bag governments which Mr..
Clark denounces So bitterly, although far from
perfect, guilty of many errors, and possibly of
some crimes, were as rule superior tn those
which have succeeded them A dishonest white
man like Tweed, or his confederate Manning,
or the defaulting Treasurer of Tennessee, the
Democratic party can forge and forgive, but
for one who has black skiu ii has neither for
giveness nor forgetfulness. If there any
brihes to be taken by the members of a Legisla-
tive body on the election of United States Sem
ator, they belong exclusively to the white men
of the Democratic party If a pegrn were to get
a share of plumber it would be disgrace to free
government.
Mr.. Clark might have cited some insta noes
showing that the majority rule in Mississippi,
South Carolina and Louisiana was in many
spects had. bur it would have been dif1cult for
him to find a more disorderly. unidentified and
incapable body than the Democratic General
Assembly of Ohio. And it would have been
i'm possible TO find a more unjust Legislature
than many of those which have disgraced the
Southern Stat swithin the, last ten years. The
governments, thty are called,
found the 8 nth without schools, and under
took to bnild school-hnuses and provide for the
education of the people. They found the pub-
lie buildings and roads out of repair and sought
to improve them. They found the planter pay
ing one-tenth of per cent. on the valuation of
hi land; that is to say, s25 per annum on s25 900
worth of real estate, while the barber paid S25
on his shop, the contents of which may not
have been worth SIS, and the carpenter, brick
mason and other mechanics taxed in like pro-
portion. These inequalities were equalized and
the rich planter compelled to bear his fair pro-
portion of the burden. This the rich planter
objected to. The negro had heretofore sup
ported HIM and the governm MT too, and TO his
mind it was .n outrage 10 put him on an equal
ity with "njggers" in the matter of taxation.
And so in his anger he began to invent the lies
about the majority rule which the Democratic
party has been industriously circulating ever
since, and which the Century is now sowing
broadcast. Governor Chamberlain. of South
Carolina, and Governor Packard, of louisiana,
carpet-baggers they were, would have COM
pared very favorab'y with either Governor
Hoadly. or Governor Bishop, or any other Dem
ocratic Go oernor of recent years.
I do not claim, of course, that it was simply
to avoid taxation that the eex-Confederates over
turn ed the legal governments of Mississippi,
ETC.. for suppose many of them had not dol
lar to be taxed on. They liked the negro as
slave but not free man. They would not
treat him as an equal politically, and for time
would not recognize him as a voter; would not
vote at the polls with him. and would not con-
suit and advise with him on political subjects
The negro was honest and loyal, and at first
held his old masters family in great esteem,
asked to be advised and instructed rs TO the du
ties of citizen, and was ready TO join with his
master in the selection of public officers, but
no, no, the proud Southron could not conde-
scend to cooperate with a "nigger'' in politics,
and so treated him with derision, contempt and
scorn. Is it any wonder that the colored man
thus spurned should pave turned to the North
ern soldiers, who had gone there to settle and
make homes, for assistance, instruction and
guidance in his new duties?
The ex- Con federates not only disliked the ne
gro a voter. but they disliked the man of
Northern bilth; they hated the party in control
of the federal government; they hated its flag;
they hated everything it had ever done and so
prompted by ararice in part. by their desire for
VENGEANCE, their contempt for the negro. and
their prejudices. they revolted against the legal
governments; by force of arms made the South
solidly Democratic, and to-day Cleveland is
President, not by virtne OF free votes and an
honest count, but by reason of fraud and vio-
lence. He has no equitable claim TO the seat he
occupies. The electoral votes of South Carolina
Mississippi and Louisiana were WI enched from
the grasp of an honest majority and given to
him, when in all fairness they should have been
cast for another. Mr.. Clark in effect admits
this the Oxfo'd Falcon in effect admits it, and
every intelligent Democrat knows it.
Mr.. Clark tells us that Democracy is Inherit
ed. ''The slave States,' he says, "were strongly
Democratic before the war. 1t was therefore
not only natural, hut almost inevitable, that by
the law of p. lifical he,edify they should have
continued strongly Democratic after the war;"
NJ. Clark may be right in this. Democracy
certainly does not come from the schools and
churches, from study and reflection from an
honest desire to deal fairly and justly between
man and man 1t is possible, therefore, nay,
probable, that it is tainf of the blood, and,
like the scrofula, transmitted from father to
son. That Republicanism is not hereditary is
proven by the fact that the party originated
with the present generation and the founders of
it still live.
Mr. Clark says that the Republican leaders
who carried through the measures of recon-
struction believed that the enfranchisement of
the negro would make the South solid for the
Republican party, snd assumes that this was
their sole purpose This assumption is wholly
false. The purpose of the Republican Congress
was to put the freedmen in position to protect
| themselves from the rapacity and brutality of
their former masters, from the men who, arcor-
ding 10 Mr.. Clark's own statement, "viewed
them not only with distrust, but with violent
hostility The RaOuhlicaO marty knpxv bat