Herald and tribune. [volume] (Jonesborough, Tenn.) 1869-current, 1894-04-25
BPUBLICANIsM rs THE REMEDY.


principles Of representative Govern
ment. They are patterned after the
most approved methods of discriminate
ing injustice and viciousness. They
rob certain classes of our citizenship of
the vested right of suffrage without the
process of law necessary to disfran-
chisement rendering it impossible for
elections to be free and for the will of
the people to find full expression at
the ballot box.
These laws are q cunning Democratic
device to vent the fury of malignant
hate and maintain the rapacity of party
rule. They are the quintessence of
fraud and oppression. Compared to
them ballot box stufing, repeating and
false registration are decent andahon-
orable. They Guido Tammany in the
audacious methods and practices this
corrupt organization employs to over
ride not only the State and city of New
York, but the whole nation as well.
The abolition of this despotic meas
ure and intolerable abuse means a free
ballot, a fair count and the downfall
Of the Democratic Bastile in Tennessee.
The incoming Legislature will have the
power to purge our statutes of this
atrocious crime, and restore to all
classes alike the liberties and oppor-
tunities of citizenship hallowed by the
genius of American institutions and
the sacred aspirations OF an unfettered
manhood.
Under a Republican system of gov
eminent the only efficient remedy for
public abuses, the only guarantee of a
permanent we'll being, is a free, I'M
hampered ballot. Despotic restriction,
under no guise and pretext whatsoever,
is consistent with Republication. There
is no wrong so intolerable, SO fruitful
of evils of every sort as the denial of
honest elections and defeating by
wrongful methods the popular will.
We have fallen upon fearful times in
deed, the precursor of an immediate
and complete extinction of all public
pride and honor, when the people,
without resistance or protest, will al
low a party to maintain its supremacy
by injecting the most offensive Russian
methods into their statutory law.
Tennessee has been a Gravesend har-
Dor of viciousness for years, in this.
that the Democratic party gained and
has maintained its control of the Gov
eminent by fraud, intimidation and a
restricted ballot. The repeated out
RACES in Memphis, Fayette, Haywood,
and many other counties, where the
colored vote predominates, is not iso-
lated proof of this fact. Democratic
success in this State has been uniform
ly attained by suppression, repression
and oppression, and as the wrecking
and reckless policy Of Clevelandism
has alarmed and disguised every decent
and intelligent Democrat, now 5 the
hour and opportunity to strike for a
free ballot and an honest count, ''for
our affairs and our fireside," for the
vested liberties of an unrestricted citi-
zenship and all the immunities
and privileges that make a residence
in the American Republic 10 desirable
and elevating. .
The Republican party a alone lift
the State out of the Shiny and polluted
depths of the Democratic cesspool. Its
mission has aver been to right the
wrongs and repair the injuries of Demo-
cratic misrule. Since its birth in 80
it has championed the cause of honest
elections, giving to each citizen his
rights in full and making them Of equal
compass and value with each and all
the rest in the grand aggregate of the
body polite" 1t has striven success
fully to elevate and ennoble, and not
to degrade and subvert, American man
hood. The field, upon which it has
won its most brilliant victories and
proudest title to popular confidence, is
not a dismal solitude to those who
aspire to honorable and useful places
in the service Of patriotism and free
dom, but a glorious and luminous high
way to universal enfranchisement.
The present Government of Tennes-
See was called into being by a series of
criminal processes in direct conflict
with the principles we have outlined.
1t was chosen by only a part of the
rightful voters of the State, whilst I'M
der the operations of the inquitous
Dortch law the reminder we're driven
from the polls like so many outlaws
and convicted felons.
A thorough and vigorous application
of Republican principles to Tennessee
politics would remedy the glazing and
grievous evils we are enduring. Other
Democracy ridden States and localities
have recently taken this remedy in
heroic doses, and already hope and a
better fortune smile upon them.
Had we an unrestricted suffrage and
all the forms of opposition massed into
n organization and under one ticket,
next November would see Tennessee
wrested from the clutch of the de-
stroyer.