Year: 1874

III


RADICAL VIEWS OF JUDICIAL


NOMINATIONS - SICKLES AND


CANBY,Sx 'EGACY OF RECON-


sTRUC1ION-JUD RUSSELL.


Our text this morning is to be found
in the fraudulect pretence that the
Radical party regard the Judicial
ermine as too pure and holy thing to
be worn by the nominee OF a political
party, and that it was because the
negro Brewington, negro who is out
spoken in his views in regard to social
equality with the whites, was actuated
by this high and noble impulse, filing
his soul with aspirations for the purl-
ty of the ermine, that he introduced
a resolution into the Radical judicial
convention at Magnolia, declaring that
the Radical sense of propr1ety was TOO
great to permit it to make nomlna-
ton for Judge, and that it was for this
reason also, that the convention adopt
ed the resolution.


1t is indeed true that the Radical
stomach has been too weak to
make judicial nominations. in this
and other districts; but what has
has given them this sick stomach? is
it because they are too nice to flsh III
dirty waters, or because they think 1t
will not pay? 1t SO happens that the
Radical stomach becomes thus nice
and dainty only in districts where they
know their party strength is not able
to carry them through without help'
It happens further too that Ill each
district in which they have a clear
majority they have gone regularly to
work and have formally nominated a
candidate for Judge. If it was wrong
for the Radical party to nominate
Judge Russell, was it right for the
Radical party to nominate Mr. Sey-
mour in the third district, and that
too. after more than a hundred ballots
and was it right for the Radical party
to nominate Mr.. Hilliard i'll the sec
ond district, the only two districts III
which that party has clear majority:
How fraudulent then the pretence that
Judge Russell and his friends set up
about his not being party candidate!
Had not the Legislature last winter
arranged this district SO rs to make
the majority clear Conservative ma
jority, instead of a clear Radical one'
as it had been heretofore. we may rest
assured that we would have heard
nothing as to Radical sensltiveness
about the epurity of the judicial ermlne.
The difference between clear Con
servative majority and clear Radical
one is what's turning the stomach OF
the Radical party just now.


And when, it may be asked, did tins
wonderful change come over Judge
Russells dream in regard to the i'm
propriety OF being candidate OF a
party There was a time when nc
such scruple disturbed his slnmbers,
or at least controlled his action, and
that not longer ago than the last judi
cial campaign. Then Mr.. Russell was
the candidate of a party-a party that
it was known could and would contro
the elections, and control them by the
aid of Federal bayonets. And it was
as such candidate formally nominated
and voted for at an election ordered
by Federal army officer in Charles
ton and controlled by Federal bayo
nets, that Mr.. Russell obtained thu
seat he now holds upon the Superio
Court bench Of North Carolina! Ant
this is the man, fellow citizens
that pretends his soul is to'
sensitive and his honor too high strung
and his stomach too dainty, to PERM
his party to make him their candidate
lest thereby the ermine be soiled. /
man who never wore an inch of ermin
that was not blackened witt. fedora
gun-powder and besmeared with al
the political nastiness of the Radica
party.


A low estimate must that man pu
upon the intelligence of the peopl
who expects to fool them by any sucl
pretext AS this. The man who for 81;
years has held, and who to-day holds
his Office by virtue of partizan nomina
tion, ratified at an election held whe1
bayonets and bullets ruled the land
and when citizens of North Carolin;
voted or not, just as a Sickles or
Candy, might choose to declare in
military order, has little right now t.
put up a dainty mouth and expect peo
pie to believe him when he says h
thinks Judges ought not to be nomina
ted by political parties.


One of the most terrible wrong!
done us in the days of reconstruction
by the negroes, under the direction O.
the handful of carpet baggers, who
then controlled our destinIes, was
the deadly assault made upon the
purity of our time honored judiciary
when Jaybird Jones and Tourgee and
Russell and Greasy Sam Watts were
put in places once filed by Manly, by
Caldwell, by Badger and by Ruffin


One of the very greatest sources OF
satisfaction in contemplatingthe defeat
of Judge Russell is that it will re-
move an ever aggravating reminder of
the internal outrages and expressions
heaped upon us in the days when Miles
and Sickles and Candy ruled over US,
and when bayonets and bullets usurped
the place of the ballot box.


The Civil Rights bill is Summers
legacy of hate to the South. Judge
Russell is the sole remaining legacy to
this district of those horrible days of
reconstruction, when arms prevailed
and laws were silent. Without the
military order of General Canbv he
would not to-day occupy a seat on the
bench.


And this is the man that asks us to
f-'' linn back on the bench Will We
slo it, people of the Fourth District. or
0r-I Ill