The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-09-26

1 set against his colleague General War
 ner, who had only the short term of two years to serve, now half gone. Spencer's S | personal intimacy with President Grant
 would permit him to control the execu-
 tive federal patronage in this state, s6fs-
 ly and absolutely If Warner could be dis | placed at the rapidly approaching cleo tion by a democrat. If Spencer could
 weaken Smith, who was certain to be a l candidate for reelection, and thus elect | democrat governor in 1870 and a demo- | cratic legislature, Warner would disap-
 pear, leaving Senator Spencer the mas
 ter of the republican party in the state
 and the sole, arbitrary and irresponsible | dispenser of the then rich federal patron
 age. There were postmasters with public
 funds, United States internal revenue as
 sessors and deputy assessors, internal
 revenue collectors and deputy collectors. , custom house officers, high and low. All
 these handled large sums of public money 1 Spencer would need them all in 1872, for his own purposes. If he could defeat
 Governor Smith the next year, 1S70 and
 elect democratic legislature. he could
 remove General Warner out of his way. | He could use the federal officers and the
 money they held to put the democrats out of competition in 1872 and carry the ! electoral college for Grants reelection.
 All these things Spencer actually did. The result of the midsummer conference between Senator Spencer and the carpet
 bagger office holders in the state was a
 cunningly devised precipitation of active war against the governor and the scala wags. The senator opened the fight by
 a published letter. signed alone by him self. General Warner was left aloof The letter said He (Smith) is candidate
 for renomination from the party which
 he has betrayed and finding himself foiled n at fn ir1lx nd by stealth and indrection, the people of
 Madison county and other localities, he turns, like the viper, and bites himself. The senator charged the governor with
 clandestine purpose of paving his way into the democratic party" Continuing
 his nvective. he said: This selfish stand
 point is we'll appreciated by the repub- lican party, and the very vitals' to which he refers are in fact the rapacious pock- cts of himself and very small coterie of admiring toadies."
 The governor promptly replied in kind. His published lines denounced Spencer, United States Senator J. D. Sibley, state senator from Madison. and J. J. Hinds, state senator from Morgan three lead ing carpetbaggers as aliens and desperate adventurers capable of committing any crime their ingenuity could invent If thrift promised well. Of Sibley the gov ernor wrote: My candid opinion Is that Sibley does not want the law executed, because that would put down crime, and crime is his lifes blood. He would like very much to have a ku klux outrage ev- cry week, to assist him in keeping up strife between the whites and blacks. that he might be more certain of the votes of the latter He would like to have q few men killed every week to furnish the semblance of truth to Spencer's libels upon the people of the state generally" Incidentally, the governors impeachment of the bell wetheS" of the carpetbagger circle led him to refer to a recent inci-
 dent, where two of their faction advised some riotous negroes at Tuskegee to re- sist the sheriff.
 The wonderful success of Senator Spen- cer's deep laid project. to free himself from republican colleague, in order to command all the rich federal patronage due to Alabama, and thus to secure his
 own reelection, is without a counterpart
 in the political dash of politicians in this
 state To effect his end, he made no at-
 tempt to bring democrats into alliance
 with him. He restricted his labor to the separation of carpetbaggers from scala
 wags. He well knew the result would be
 the defeat of Smith in 1sD That was enough to dispose of Warner, his republi-
 can colleague and competition for use of
 patronage. He would have all the pub lie money in Alabama needed for the de- feat of the democrats in 1872, and to in
 sure his own reelection then He would
 be sure to receive the effective help of
 President Grant at all hazards.
 The white men of Alabama challenged
 the intelligent world to witness that they
 had never refused to the negro any right
 which the negro aspired to. No contro-
 versy had ever initiated within the state over the political and social rights of the
 negro. Aliens and enemies had forced
 themselves here and had debated here
 the rights of the negro. but their phan-
 tasies had made no Judgement.
 If the right to political and social equal
 ity. race with race, can only prevail with
 ''the right to ones self. to one's own faculties, physical and intellectual, ones
 own brain. eyes. hands. feet-in word.
 to his own soul and body. an incontesti-
 ble right. one of whose enjoyment no one
 could complain and which no one could
 take away" then the negro had nothing
 to complain of in Alabama. He was se- cure in all he could use.
 JOHN wITHERsPOoN DUBosE.