Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1888-05-09
VOORHEES, SPEAKS.
AN ELOQUENT DEFENSE OF Dem ocRAoY
AND TIE ADMINISTRATION.

AND TIE
WASHINGTON, April 25.-1n the United
States Senate today, after the morning
hour, the motion to refer the Presidents
message was taken up, and Mr.. voorhees,
proceeded to address the Senate thereon.
He said that the issues which the two great
parties would present to the American peo-
pie at the ballot-box next November were
plainly laid down. On the principle pro-
claimed by Jefferson, that error was not to
be feared SO long as truth was left free to
combat it, the pernicious ideas and danger
GUS policy maintained by the republican
prehension, and, indeed, welcomed to the
great arena of debate. The republican
party leaders, driven by madness to suicide
and hari-kari, were going before the Amer
lean people opposing every reduction of
taxes except those paid by tobacco and al
coholic spirits. He did not intend that that
issue should be lodged in the coming polit-
ical campaign, at least in Indiana. The
position of the republican party might be
described thus: First, taxation not to be
limited by the expenses of the government,
with view to protection of manufacturing
monopolists; second, all the protection
given and all its profits to inure to the fur
Their enrichment of capitalists, but not a
dollar of it to the laboring men and women;
third, that if any reduction of taxes was to
take place it must be on alcoholic liquor
and tobacco, and not on the prime neces-
saries of life.
Passing to the charges that the democrats
in Congress have been hostile to the Union
soldiers in the matter of pensions, he con-
trasted the action Of both parties in that
matter, and claimed that the republicans
had made mean and parsimonious record
toward the soldiers, and that rank and bitter
injustice had been done to them by provis.
ions of law under republican sway, while
the democrats in Congress and in the execu-
tive Offices had been liberal in the e1trem-
est sense.
Referring to the attack made in the SEN
ate upon the memory of Mcclellan and
Hancock, he compared the Senator from
Kansas (AIr. Ingalls) to Thersites in the
camp of the Greeks before the walls of
Troy, cursing and railing against the heroes
of Achaia-Achilles,t Ulysses and Agamem-
non, and said that the objects of his veno-
nous spleen and rage were alive and
present to rebuke and chastise their inso-
lent defamer. But the presiding officer of
the Senate, holding the highest official po-
eition now held by republican, had descend
ed to the floor and attacked the memory of
American heroes who were sleeping where
flowers and tears were annually commiu-
gled on Memorial Day, resting from their
glorious lives in the quiet bivouac of the
dead. Mr.. Voorhees, then paid an eloquent
tribute to the valor, the patriotism and the
military skill of Mcclellan and Hancock
The Union would have been dissolved, he
said, if it had not been for these gallant
generals.
Mr.. Voorhees, then passed to what he
called the campaign of political luminosity
declared against the people of the South,
their rights, their security and their good
name. The especial anger of republican
leaders, he said, was excited because the
vote of the South in national contest is
solid against their party. Would some one
on the other side Of the chamber, he asked,
tell him how the vote of the South could be
other than it was? The republican party
had once political supremacy from the
Potomac to the Rio Grande. 1t had elect
ed republican Governors, State officers aud
Legislatures in every Southern State. 1t
had had the purse with which to corrupt,
the sword with which to intimidate, and
the republican Congress and President to
enact and enforce all laws necessary for the
overthrow of individual and State rights,
and for the consolidation of its power. 1t
had seized upon the enfranchised negro and
sought to organize and hurl him against the
peace and security of political and social
order; aud, for time and in many in
stances, it had succeeded. The republican
party and it's allies (allies not of the Con-
federacy, but allies for power and plunder)
had swept upon the helpless South like
Hyder Ali upon the Carnatic, and had left
scarcely vestige from which 10 hope and
with which to rebuild, except it's never
falling soil and it's staunch and splendid
manhood. 1t had despoiled the Southern
States of their resources and dismantled
them of their credit. 1t had ordered in
vestigations and sent committees and COM
missions composed of the bitterest parti-
sans into the South for the purpose of
scraping together and putting in perma.
nent form the perjuries of vagabonds and
scoundrels with which to defame and
blacken the reputation of the Southern
people. It would have overturned the
State government of South Carolina in 1876
;snd again sacked the substance and credit
Of the State had it not been that Grant
stood in its way, upheld by the public judg-
ment of the world. The career of the re.
publican party during its ascendency in the
South had been a career OF crime. 1t had
reared and left behind it no monument of
patriotism, wisdom or bsnevolence to tell
future ages that its presence had been
blessing and not curse.
Mr.. Voorhees, proceeded to speak of the
great development in the South since it has
been left to the control of its own local
affairs. Its progress in the last ten years in
all the great industri al pursuits was mar
vel in the history of mankind When to
this brilliant Y1iaturo of Y1afopia1 1oyaiou
ment were added the successful labors of
the people of the South in the cause of those
twin blessings and Christian re-
ligion-it need no longer be wondered at
that the Southern people were hopeful, and,
indeed, confident of their great future, and
that they felt at last that the shafts of their
political enemies would glance and fall
harmless from their shield of honor, indus
try and good faith. He spoke notof new
South as if new race had arisen, not of
new faculties and gifts heretofore unknown,
but of a people who for more than two cen
turies and half had proved themselves
equal to the requirements of the Hottest
manhood, who had once been foemen
worthy of the Northmen's steel, and who
were now brethren worthy of American
embrace, affection and pride everywhere.
He rejoiced that the corrupt tree once plant
ed in the South had been torn up By the
roots, and that the good tree, bearing good
fruit, was towering under Southern sky
in perennial bloom and beauty. The de-
clivities of the Southern mountains were
pouring forth their wealth of iron and coal
and the water courses and boundless soil
productions of that country combined to
insure future there more ample in its cou-
tIibutions to human happiness and more re-
splendent in its accumulated wealth than the
most prosperous ages heretofore had known.
The South was simply risigg to her man
ifest destiny. The dawn of the coming and |
perfect day of union. nationality and fra
ternity was breaking from the morning sky
aud streaming into thu dalkened windows. |
"Joy cometh with the morning. and al |
the fiocking birds, With their obvious CAB
BILE, could not retard its beams or lurn back
it's bsnefcent course. TIE South was in
api of tie Union. as much SO IS when
W u rgton led the forces of liberty and |
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