Bridgeton pioneer., 1885-09-03
THE OHIO CAMPAIGN,

Both political parties, and also the
Prohibitionists, have nominated State
tickets in Ohio, so that the Fall cam
paign in that State may be said to be
fairly opened. All three of the Guber-
material candidates will stump the
State. The present prospect favors
the election of Judge Foraker, the Re-
publican candidate for Governor. At
Mount Gilead, in Morrow county, a
few days since, Senator John Sherman
made the first speech for the Republi-
cans. In the course of his remarks he
gave utterance to the following pointed
sentences concerning the suppression
of the colored vote in the South
''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 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 theWar was to give them in
creased political power upon condition
that the slaves should be free and
should be allowed to vote, and that all
political distinctions growing out of
race, color, or previous condition OF
servitude should be abolished; and yet
to-day, the Republican party is faced
bv Solid South, in which the negro
is deprived, substantially, of all his po-
litical rights, by open violation or by
frauds as mean as any that have been
committed by penitentiary convicts,
and as openly and boldly done as any
by the acuuiescence of few Northern
States. the men who led in the Civil
War have been restored to power, and
hope, practically, to reverse all the re-
suits of the war This is the spectre
that now haunts American politics,
and may make it just as vital and nee
essary to appeal to the Northern States
to unite again against the evil, not so
open and arrogant as slavery, but more
dangerous and equally unjust. The
question then was the slavery of the
the black man. Now the question is
the equality of the white man, whether
a Southern man in Mississippi may, by
depriving ma ajority of the legal voters
in the State of their right to vote, ex-
ercise twice the political power of a
white man in the North, where the
franchise is free and open and equal
to all. When this subject is pressed
we are sometimes 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 ac-
tual returns of the elections show that
in all the Southern States where the
negroes are in majority, they are either
not permitted to vote or the returns
are changed * When we point
out these offences committed in the
South, it is said that we are raising the
bloody shirt, that we are reviving the
issue of the War-that the War is over
| hope that the War is over, and that
the animosities of the War will pass
away and be dead and buried. Anger
and hate and prejudice are not wise
councillors in peace or war. Generos-
itE, forgiveness and charity are great
qualities of the human heart, but, like
everything else that is good, they may
be carried TO excess, and may degener-
ate 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 courage and fortitude
to all the results of the war
1t was for the preservation of the
Union, a Union not of States, but of
the people of the United States; not
Confederate Government but a Ma
tional Government. Wemay
forgive without qualification what the
rebels did in the War, but we cannot,
with honor, surrender what our sol
diers won in the War; nor can we yield
an iota of the benefits they have con-
ferred upon the country, greater far
thor, tho aoct Of tho lNar