Year: 1877

An Address to the Republicans OF
Ohio.


COLUMBUS, o., August 23.-The
Anti-Hayes Republican Executive
Committee haveJust issued he fol-
lowing address:


To the Repubiicaas Of Ohio:


After mature deliberation, we
have decided thatlit is our duty to
ask you to unite with us in the con-
demnation of a policy which we
believe will, if sustained by the peO-
pie of the North, render the late
Constitutional amendments value
less, disfranchise 100000 Southern
voters, and finally endanger the lib
critics of the whole people, both
North and South. The most valued
of the principles for which the Re
publican party has contended is set
forth in that atclausesf thee Constitution
which declares that no State shah
deny to any citizen the equal pro-
lection of the laws. By this and
other provisions of the Constitution,
the North guaranteed to the citizen
liberty, equality and suffrage, and
obligated itself to protect him in the
peaceful enjoyment and exercise of
these rights.


For sixteen years the Republican
party of Ohio has uphelE this doc
trine; for this our people went to
battle, to prison and to death for it
millions of money were expended,
and thousands of lives sacrificed.
We are now called upon to abandon
it by sustaining and endorsing an
Administration which has deserted
it.


We do not propose at this time to
refer in detail to the fallaciOus argu-
ments and ingenious subterfuges by
which the friends of the President
seek to defend his conduct and de-
ceive the people as to the disastrous
consequences which must eventually
follow as it's necessary result. We
point YOU to the fact that a Presi-
dent, the chosen representative of
party whose life and inspiration in
every hour of its existence have been
political Justice and freedom for all
American citizens, has proved recre-
ant to every consideration of graft
tude, humanity, honor and official
obligation as well as political prin-
ciple, and has given the support of
his great office to deprive American
citizens of their sacred rights and
deliver them crushed and humilia-
ted into the mercileSS hands of per-
sonal and political enemies to the
fact that the will of the majority OF
the voters in at least two States OF
this Union has been disregarded, the
rightful appeal of their Governments
for protection against insurrectiOn
and domestic violence denied, and
that with the knowledge and con-
sent Of the Federal Administration
the legally constituted authorities
were thrust aside by the mob, and
the officers of those States seized and
held by it's leaders to the fact that
the Administrator has practically
consented that the later-Constitu-
tional Amendments may be disre-
garded in the South to the fact that
the freedom of speech and express
sion of political opinion is no longer
permitted to the fact that the Re
publicans of sixteen States of this
Union, weary of struggle in which
they have had neither sympathy nor
support of the Administration, are
compelled to abandon their party
organizations and relinquish all the
political rights and privileges dear
to freemen in the effort to preserve
what may remain to them of life
and property; to the fact that the
Administrator has, to all intentS
and purposes, adopted the Demo-
cratic doctrine that there can be no
permanent partition of power nor
any peaceable joint exercise Of power
among such discordant bodies of
men as are found in the South to
the fact that it is doing its utmost to
fulfill the prediction made in 1872
by a Democratic Committee in the
House of Representative that ''NO
Government can long exist half
black and half white; those whom
God has separated let no man join
together. In time public opinion
will Vibrate back to the old cOndi-
ton as it existed prior to the dis
turbing influences of the war, and
when this occurs it will be the pO-
litical death of the negro on this
Continent"


The Endorsement Of such a policy
by the Republican party OF ONO Is
a total abandonment of vital princi-
ple-is suicide.


1t is manifestly the imperative
duty of every true man to oppose
and, if possible, avert such a result.


How then may we check, how
manifest our disapproval of this dan
gerous and deadly policy? There
Il apparently but one course left,
that of Withholding our votes from
all who stand upon the platform
which indorses it.


We do not desire to divide or in
any degree impair the old Organiza-
ton by putting a new ticket in the
field; it is the party in which we