Year: 1866

later crush them and their principles still Con-
gress preferred that peace and tranquility should
be restored-that there should be no more war
and that the responsibility of the mode in which
those State Governments had been reorganized
should rest with the man who attempted to reor-
ganize them, and who now hurls his Anathemas
at the heads Of those men who, as the represen-


tatves of the people, dared to do no more than


he did by imposing terms and conditions upon


these States prior to their being fully restored to


the right of representation. The enemies Of the


Union party charge upon you and upon me that,


by acting against Mr.. johnson and his policy,


we are in favor of putting the negro upon an
equality with the white man and of granting to
him the same political rights guaranteed under
the law to the white man. This my friends, is
the old dodge resorted to by the Democratic par
ty in its palmiest days, when they denounced the
old Whig party as a band Of Abolitionists, and


when they denounced the Union party of Mary
land aforetime as GO Lincoln's hirelings,n when
they had no other arguments to controvert the
position which we assumed, and when they de-
sired to raise furore Of excitement in the minds
of the vulgar and illiterate to induce them to
vote for their Democratic principles. [Applause


So far as you are concerned / am satisfied that
You are equally opposed to negro suffrage as |
know you are opposed to Rebel suffrage APP
plause. And so far as negro equality is con-
cerned, shall state here what have stated
elsewhere that never saw decent white man
who had any fear of ever being placed upon an
equality with the best negro God in his provi-
dence has made both races as distinct as he has
made white q different color from black. No
matter what civil rights you may confer upon
the negro, it can never place him upon an equal
ity with me. ] am sure it can never place him
upon an eqality with you, and if these Rebels,
who are so fearful of being beaten in the race of
life by those ignorant beings, conceive the mig
ger to be on ON equality with them it is their own
fault, and they have nobody to blame but them
selves. Applause. | have done nothing and
do not expect to do anything to place a negro
upon an equality with any decent white man,
and there is no decent white man, be he rich or
poor, that ever can be placed upon level with
the negro, if be has self-respect and proper es-
innate Of the dignity and character that ought
to belong to every gentleman. So far as the
Civil Rights bill is concerned it confers no right
upon the negro not heretofore granted to him
in this State, with the exception of the right to
testify. The Civil Rights bill has been in opera
ton in this State since its adoption as act of
Congress, and have yet failed to see, in my ex-
perience, where it has made one white man black
or one black man white laughter and applause, ]
or where it has placed the humblest white man
upon any equality with the negro To be sure
it gives the negro the same right to sue or to be
sued, to make and enforce contract, and to tes.
tify in court Of justice, as it does TO the white
man. But you may as well tell me that the ne
gro is placed upon an equality with the white
man because be lives and breatheS aud has his
being iii the same world as myself, as by telling
me that by giving him the same rights Of person
and Of property he is placed upon an equality with
US. Socially no man is my equal, even as a
white man, unless choose to make him So.--
uhn1o Of Ia fod
by mans own peculiar tastes. The Philadel-
phi Convention, Of which Andrew Johnson is the
godfather and every unwashed Rebel of the South
and unclean Copperhead Of the North were spon-
sors, in its seventh resolution has gone as far in
favor of the rights of the emancipated negroes
as the most radical men in Congress.


That resolution states that the emancipated
slaves in all the States Of the Union should re-
ceive, in common with all their inhabitants,
equal protection in person and property. Now,
the Civil Rights bill never pretended to do any
more than to grant equal protection in person
and property, and it does not do for this hybrid
party in Maryland, now, after this resolution has
been ratified by their delegates, to charge upon
the Union party of Maryland that they and they
alone are in favor of equal protection for the
emancipated slaves This resolution was un-
doubtedly cooked up for the purpose of making
the loyal North believe that Mr.. johnson and his
party are in favor of protecting these poor, help
less beings, but whether they were honest in this
resolution or not, is still one Of the principles
of their platform and one from which they dare
not recede, and which is as good political text
book for the Radical party in Maryland, as we
are called now-a-days as the platform Of the
veriest Radical of the North. have no doubt
that when Andrew johnson declared, as he did
in 1865 that he was in favor of granting the
right of suffrage TO the negro of Tennessee, that
he was honest i'll the expression OF that opinion,
and that when he insisted on Gov. Sharkey, of
Mississippi giving this right to the negroes of
that State as condition precedent, that he was at
that time in favor of these peculiar dogmas.--
Mr.. Johnson, therefore, and his party in the
North state to those people that they are in favor
of negro suffrage and guaranteeing the rights OF
the negroes, whilst his party, standing upon the
same platform, denounce me and the Union par
ty of Maryland as negro suffrage men, when we
are upon the record as opposed to negro suffrage
or negro equality, and they are upon the record
as in favor of it. As far as negro sufrageis con-
cerned, the men who charge that am or have
been in favor of negro suffrage charge what they
know to be false On the night when received
the news of my nomination told my constitu-
ents that was opposed to negro suffrage. When
went as your representative to Washington, al
the first opportunity had to vote my own and
the HentlluGUIb VI COuo(lluCuto Ou thut Su's
iect, not only voted against universal negro
suffrage in any manner, shape or form and
appeal to the speech now upon the record OF my
country, made against the passage of the District
ofColumbia BILL as embodying my present views
upon that subject and to show you that these
calumniators and libelers foil far short of their
mark when they charge me with being in favor
of negro suffrage, either in or out OF Congress. -
Again, on the vote for the admission of Colora-
l. r. 1e f1,a Ir,iuci Of hot
State and against the striking out OF the clause
which prevents negroes from voting. And at
every opportunity, in every convention that !
have attended, from the time was nominated
up to the present time in the Executive Conf
mttee, when the breach was made between the
friends of the President and those who believed


in the reconstruction policy of Congress, on each
occasion voted for and supported resolutions
against negro suffrage would not refer to this
question at this time were it not that conceive it
to my duty here, and for the last time, to answer
such charges, and to show the people of my dis
trict that the men who thus deal with me are not
only unfair, but utter what they know to be
base falsehoods. Ny fellow-citizens, the contest


u Maryland is 10 be the most important yet en-
tered into by the people of this State. 1t Is to
decide, not only whether the reins of this Gov.
ernment are to be handed over to traitors but
whether the political power OF this State IS to be
placed in the hands of men who are disfranchised
by your Constitution, and many of whom are
to-day only protected from criminal prosecution
by reason of Presidential pardon which they
have in their pockets Through the treachery
and treason Of Thomas Swami, man whom the
|. Union party had every reason to believe would
stand firmly by their rights, and who, on every
occasion, made blatant protestatons of his ideli-
ty to his oath Of Office, but, through some strange
infatuation which appears TO have taken posses
sion OF bis mind he has done all in his power to
betray the Union party into the hands of its
most bitter and vindictive foes. am not dScour-
aged at the prospect before as Although the
Governor has appointed men as Registers Of vo-
ters who pay no more regard to their constitu-
tional obligations than he did to his constitu-
tional oath when be appointed many of them,
and they are engaged to-day in registering as
qualified voters men who are notoriously dis
franchised by the Constitution, and men who
shamelessly take the oath prescribed BY that in