Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-10-06
WHY HE is a REPUBLICAN.


public man Of the South, has written for an
Eastern journal paper setting forth the
causes that made him, an ex-rebel, a Re-
publican. Mr.. Chalmers was sent to Con-
gress in 1877 as a Democrat. He had
been trained to believe that in that party
only was there protection for the rights of
the citizen under the Constitution; that
the Republican party represented unthrift,
extravaganza and enmity to the white race
in its regard for the rights of the freed
man. He had been taught that the Re-
publican party had for its chief aim the
humiliation Of the people of the South,
and entertained for them only bitterness
and hatred.
When he took his seat in Congress his
eyes were opened, and he began to realize
that he had entertained prejudices unwar-
rantedly. His district on the Mississippi
river was then sadly in need of increased
mail facilities. He found the Republicans
all willing and anxious to grant them,
while the Democrats were opposed for par
simonious reasons.
When the scourge of the yellow fever
assailed the South, the Republican officials
and legislators extended aid and were So
licitous to render relief, while the Demo-
Gratis in Congress hesitated and bickered
over constitutional scruples.
The Mississippi needed the fostering
care of the Federal Government as free
highway, and extensive worksto prevent it
from leaving its channel and flooding the
country. But the Forty-ffth and Forty
sixth Congresses, both Democratic, refused
to take any steps to reclaim the river. The
first stroke in aid of that great free high
way of the nation was delivered by the
Forty-seventh, Republican Congress, I'M
der the advice of Republican President,
set forth in a special message.
The tariff advocated by Republicans he
found was enriching, not impoverishing
the South, and that the leading Southern
cities under it gained wonderful degrees of
prosperity, and manufacturing industries
sprang up as if by magic. He discovered
that there had been reason for jealousy at
the North over the allowance of represen-
tation in the South on the basis of five slaves
counted as three whites. He found that
while the Abolitionists had preached the
doctrine of higher law than the Consti
tuition on the question of slavery, when
the act of emancipation was accomplished,
the situation changed so much as to place
the Democrats as the advocates of higher
law-ism, the law of civilization, the main
tenance of the supremacy of the white
race, and so on, despite the constitutional
amendments enfranchising the negro.
He has discovered that the Republicans
now stand as the defenders of the Consti-
tuition and the Democrats as its assailants,
who had so long boosted of their cham
pionship of that sublime instrument.
For that reason, if for no other, he con-
Guided that ex-Confederates like himself
ought to stand with the Republican party
for the supremacy of the Constitution and
the laws. He had deplored the adoption
of the Fifteenth Amendment; he believes
/ it to have been a mistake at the time and
under the circumstances. But when he
found that the Democracy, restored to
power through revolutions tolerated by
the Republican party, began to persecute
its opponents and to struggle for place and
its retention by means and practices ruin
Gus and unlawful, he lost all sympathy for
his one-tirne political brethren.
For he was bound under his pledge made
when he laid down his arms, and by his
oath as an official, to support the Constitu-
ton and obey the laws. For these reasons
Mr. Chalmers to-day sides with the Re-
publican party and does battle against the
uuwisdom and the unwarranted and I'M
lawful obstruction policy of the Democracy.
He has discovered, in short, that his early
conceptions of the Republican party were
erroneous; that it is the progressive
ciyilizing and upbuilding party, while the
Democracy is the party of obstruction, OBJ
lection and inaction, and IS to-day also the
party that is in open opposition to the
maintenance of the Constitution and
obedience to the laws.