Year: 1867


The New York Tribune, commenting
on prospective candidates for the Presi-
dency, says;


But we hold Individual preferences
and aspirations in complete subserVien-
cv to considerations Of principle and
right. Show US that our bitter est foe
on earth is fit for President, and will, if
nominated, be more likely to insure the
triumph Of Republican principles and
measures than our noblest and best
friend. and we win heartily support
that enemy's nomination. Whether
Mr.. Chase or some other man shall be
nominated for President is, in our view
q quite subordinate question. But If
the principle Of equal lights before the
lSW is to be struck down, the Republi-
car party viii be saved from the crime,
the burning shame, Of that immeasuF-
able perfidy.


Apart from portion Of these United
States, we know no fraction Of Chris
tendon, no civilized land, wherein a
native born citizen is denied or derpriv-
ed Of any political or civil right be-
cause OF his color. 1t is idle to cite
HavtI and Liberia against us their
exclusions of whites from citizenship
are confessions of weakness and apple-
hension on the part of the feeble, fguoF-
ant communities jnsb rescued from ala-
very and surrounded on all sides by
We
composed Of a dOmIueerinR race which
long kept their ancestors in bondage, and
is constantly arguing that their emancl-
patton was a mistake and a calamity.
For the twenty-eight millions of whites
in this Republic to affect fear Of ''ne-
gro supremacy from four millions of
Just emRncipated blacks, with next to
no education, no property, no social
position, and not enough land in the Rg-
pregaUe to afford each Of them a decent
grave, is a hypocrisy so base, to cloak
ViIlainy so destestably faithless and
cruel that language fails to express the
loathing with which we regard it.


We want peace in this country gen
uine, thorough, lasting peace. For this we
have labOred long and sacrificed much
for this we are ready to labor longer
and sacrifice far more. We want this
peace at the earliest moment compatil
BILE with national fidelity and natiOnas
safety. We utterly abhor all scheme
of fvengence on the discounted secession
lists, whether that vengeance be dis
guised as execution, coniscatiOn, or
otherwise. But four millions Of loyal
Americans cannot be put under the feet
of those who fought to divide the UuiOn
in order to tighen the shackles Of those
four millions, unless by that Democrat
ie party which sympathized through
out with the rebellion in its essential
ideas and impulses, though not in the
specific means whereby 1t sought to
achieve them. If ever n Southern State
reappears in Congress with a COnstitu-
ton which gives her whites supreme
power over her blacks, it viii be a
Democratic majority which secures and
votes her such admission. And if our
next President shall favor such admis-
sion, he viii be chosen by the Demo
cratic, not the Republican party. His
name, his vocation his past history $50
that IL DrOVe him honest and DatriOticl
are immaterial, or at best, of secondary
consequence but there will be no Re-
publican chosen President who favOrs
the sham Democratic doctrine that
black men, because they are black,
shall, in the lately rebel States, have
such rights only as the whites of those
States may see fit to accord them.