Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1886-09-17
FRIDAY MORNING. SEPT. IT. 1885

FOR THE TENTH DISTRICT,
JAMES BUMGARDNER, jr.
OF AUGUSTA.
The VMpIcAToR cannot drag us into the dis
cussion of a question the threatened reduc-
ton of the Souths representation in the Elec-
toral College and Congress by the Republican
party if it should get the power which Is not
an issue in this campaign and has never been
one. There will be time enough for us to ex-
press our views when the time comes for it,
Highland Recorder, Rep.
Our contemporary makes mistake about
the time for such discussion. 1t is here,
now, and this has been burning question
with the Republican party for the last two
years. The attitude of our contemporary
reminds us somewhat of that taken by
some old Bourbon Democrats during the
REIMBURSEMENT issue; they. declared that
the question should not be dragged into
politics but the people made them drag it
In, and upset them on it besides. No party
can formulate programme, reinforce it
with threat, and repeat that threat year
after year without being forced to submit
it to discussion. The time for discussion
must in the nature of the thing be CO.
eval with the threat. and In this
case the time is mow. When Mr.. Blaine,
the candidate of the Republican party for
the Presidency, fully ascertained after the
count in New York had been announced,
thas he was defeated, he made his remark
able speech at Augusta, Me-, declaring
that the election had been carried by the
suppression of the Republican vote of the
South. He said:
The colored population, almost to a man,
desire to support the Republican party, but
by a system of cruel intimidation, and by vio-
lence and murder, whenever violence and
murder were thought necessary, they are alb
solutely deprived of all political power. If
the outrage stopped there it would be bad
enough, but it does not stop there, for not
only is the negro population defrauded, but
the power which rightly and constitutionally
belongs to them is transferred to the white
population of the South to exert an electoral
influence far beyond that exerted by the same
number of white people in the North"
This was Mr.. Blaine's answer to the re-
fusal Of the American people to elect him,
and this was the key note of the next
National campaign of his party which he
sounded thus early. 1t was made indeed
in defiance of the fact that in the very
election in which he was defeated, South
Carolina cast greater vote in proportion
to her voting population. than Rhode
Island which voted for him; that Florida
voted more of her voting population than
Massachusetts which voted for him, and
that Virginia which rejected him voted
IS per cent. of her voting strength, while
his own State, Maine. only voted So per
cent. and while of other States that sup
ported him Pennsylvania only voted 50
per cent. New Hampshire SO. Maine SO,
Illinois 81, Massachusetts so and Rhode
Island AZ pes--xt. of their voting strength.
Notwithstanding this evidence of the
manifest injustice Of the charge, the Re-
publican party has reiterated it, engrafted
1t in its State platforms, delivered it in
the speeches of its candidates all over the
North and West, and made it as openly al
issue between the two great parties as ii
1t had been made plank in its national
platform. Only last week in canvassing
his own state, Mr.. Blaine said:
The Democratic party, that brought men
and women to the auction block and sold them
to the highest bidder, is parading now in the
blood-stained garments of their 100000 vic
Tins, for which they have never yet been tried
and for which they have never yet asked for
giveness. The Democrats defeated the admis-
sion of Dakota, and hold that State out by
thirty-fye to forty representative votes, which
they have stolen in the South. They not only
take 100000 of men in the South and ex-
clude them from the ballot and take that elect
men, but they go into the Congress of the
United States and use the vote thus taken to
keep white Northern men from their rights
This is the issue-the sectional, outrage.
Gus issue made by that Republican party.
of the principles Of which the Highland
Recorder is an effective. consistent, and
earnest exponent. Will our cotem porary
say that this is not an issue in the election
we will show him that the very candidate
he is supporting holds and has uttered the
same opinions that Mr.. Blaine holds. Mr..
Yost is, and has for many years been one
Of the editors of the Valley Virqinian of
this city. Let us recall his editorial ut
terances on this question Of vital interest
to Virginia and the other Democratic
States Of the South land in recalling them let
us mark with care the peryading idea that
the ballot-box must respond to the census
returns. In his issue of September 10th,
1885, he says:
''The negro is counted in the census re-
Turns. He is counted in estimating the basis
Of representation in Congress and the electoral
be is not counted. He is either intimidated
from voting, or the ballot he casts perverted
from it's object and counted for what he did
not vote, or it is overcome by fraud. Yet if
allusion is made to this great crime against
the constitution the clamor is raised that the
bloody shirt is being waved. Do the partizan
malignants and marplots of the Democratic
party think the American people are all fools?
Do they think they are all craven towards that
they will permit such fragrant wrong to be
Derpetrated apainst the foundation princin1ae
OF Republican government? Do they think !