The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-05-20

breeding front forever; and that slavery In ALL
It's various DISCUSSES, was banished, never more
to protrude It's hateful form upon our liberty
loving land That was indeed the supposition
and belief which everywhere pervaded the Ma
ton wnen rebellion was conquered by the le-
gions OF the Union-and which especially per-
vaded the South"
But the old leaders soon began to recover their
power, and were unfortunately too we'll aided
by tie mistaken clemency and macninimitv OF
the Republican party In hastily removing the
political disabilities of those leaders Resistance
to reconstruction and to the constitutional
amendments, intended to garner the fruits Of
the war continued without hesitation until 1.-THE
Mississippi plan" at last succeeded in making the
South solid, thus:
.'The plan was this: BY the use of shotguns,
and rifles, and cavalcades of armed white Demo
Gratis 10 red shirts, riding around the country in
dead of night, whipping prominent Republican
whites and negroes to death, or shooting or
hanging them if thought advisable, such terror
would fall upon the Republican colored voters
that they would keep away from the polls, and
consequently the white Democrats: undeterred
by snch influences, and, on the contrary, eager
to take advantage of them, would poll not only
full vote, but majority vote, on all questions,
whether involving the mere election or Demo-
cratic officials or otherwise; and, where ntimida-
ton of this or any other kind should fail then
resort to be had to whatever devices would De
found necessary to make a fraudulent count and
return, and thus secure Democratic triumph;
and, furthermore, when evidences of these
ntimidations and frauds should be pre-
sented to those people OF the Union
who believe in every citizen OF this free
Republic having one free vote and that vote
fairly counted, then to laugh the complaints out
of court with the cry that such stories are not
true. are campaign lies devised solely for 'po-
ltical effect and are merely the production
of Republican outrage mills, ground out to or
der.
This plan was first thoroughly tried in Mis-
sissippi and has hence been called the Msssis-
sippi PLAN So magicay effectual was it that,
with variations adapted to locality and circum-
stances, this Mississippi plan soon enveloped
the entire South in its meshwork of fraud, bar
barties and blood The massacres and other
outrages while methodical, were remittent
wave-lke-sometimes Ia one Southern State.
sometimes another-and occurring in years OF
hot political conflict, until one after another OF
those States had by these crimes, been again
brought under the absolute control of the old
rebel leaders"
Briefly touching on the attempt to buy the
presidency in 1876, and upon the potency at
tariff agitation in securing Democratic defeat in
1880, the author mentions the result in 1884 in
these words:
Eat last, after an exciting campaign, the
presidential election of 1884 was held. and for
the first time since 1856 the old free-trade De-
mocracy of the South could rejoice over the
triumph of their presidential candidate.
"Great was the Joy of the solid South. Az
last its numberless crimes against personal
freedom and political liberty would reap gen.
erous harvest At last participation in rebellion
would no more be regarded as blot on the DO
litical escutcheon. AT last commensurate re-
wards for all the long years of dshonorabla
waiting, and OF hard work in nght-ridings and
house burnings, and Niger whippings, and
Niger shootings. and niger hangings and
ballotbox stufings. and all the other dreadful
doings to which these old leaders were impelled
by sense of solid Southern patriotism and
pride of race, and lust for power, would come,
and come in profusion.
Grand places in the Cabinet and foreign mis-
sions for the old rebels of distinction chiefs
of the Solid Southern conspiracy and for those
other able Northern Democrats who had helped
them during or since the Rebellion; fat consulates
abroad for others of less degree postofices with
out stint for the lesser lights-all this. and more
must come. The longhidden light of a glorious
day was about to break"
In the closing chapter it is shown that the
Northern people. because their State gov
ernments yet are free, fail to see that a republic
an form of government has ceased 80 exist in q
part of the States; that there can be no republic
where part of the people hold all the power and
the rest are kept in subsection by terrorism; that
all rights which the Constitution intended to
guarantee to the people now, and for years
have been, persistently denied in certain States;
and that the Constitution makes it the duty OF
Congress to guarantee to every State repub-
lcan form of government, which it has not done,
The closing thoughts may best be given in Gen.
Logan's own words:
Were Abraham Lincoln abs bodily to revisit
the United States to-day, how his keen gray
eyes would open in amazementto find that many
legitimate fruits of our Union victories had
been flched from US; that-save the honorable
few who accepting the legitimate results of the
war, were still honestly striving for the success
of principles harmonizing with such results,
and inurlng to the general wefare-they who
strove with all their might to wreck the govern
ment were now-through the fraudulent and
forcble restriction of voters in their right to
vote-at the helm of the state that those who
sought to ruin the Nation had thus wrongfully
usu-ped its rule; that free trade-after running
amuck of panic and disaster from the birth OF
the Republic to the outbreak of the Rebellion.
with whose failure it should naturally have
expired-was now terminated and stood de-
family threatening all the industries of our
land; that all of his painstaking efforts and
those of the band of devoted patriots who stood
by him to free the Southern slaves had mainly
resulted in hiding from sight the repulsive
chains Of enforced servitude under the outward
garb of freedom that the old black codes had
simply been replaced by enactments adapted TO
the new conditions; that the old system of
African slavery had merely been succeeded by
the heartess and CALLING system of African
peonage; that the sacrifices made by hm-includ.
ing that of his martyrdom-had to a certain ex.
tent been made in vain; that All the sacrifices,
the sorrows the suferings of this Nation. made
in blood. in tears, and in vast expenditure OF
time and treasure, had, IN some degree and in o
certain sense been useless; that the Union, Co
be sure, was saved-but saved to be measnrably
perverted from its grand purpose; that the power
which animated rebellion, and which was sup
posed to have expired in the last ditch with tha
lost cause had, with political legerdemain and
jugglery, with violence, been recained; that the
time had actually como for patriots to take back
seats, while unrepentant rebels come to the front;
that the Republic still lived. but only by suffer
ance, with the hands of Southern oligarchs about
its palpitating throat-a republic, not such as he
expected where all men equal before the
law and protected in thsir rights, but where the
rights of a certain class persistently tram
pied under foot; that the people of the Northern,
Middle and Western States, observing nothing
beyond their own yicinage, so to speak, and find.
ing that each of their own States is still repub
lican in its form of government. persistently and
perversely shut their eyes to the election terror
ism practiced in the solid South, by which the
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