Year: 1876

4 w Z DIluJ tLC 4O4AON4hS 0S OhO \


the many eloquent pleas for the Sout


which Mr.. Lamar has made within th


presentssession, fixing a damning re


cord on the Administration, and es


tablishing lasting claim on his ow


part for the gratitude and admiratio


of the Southern people


He began by saying that it could nc


be truthfully asserted that the prac
tice and peculiar system of measure
adopted BY the present administrator


commanded the appreciation of ma


jority of the people, but that, on th


contrary, the sentiment on which tn


American people regarded the con
duct of National affairs was one Of de
cided dissatisfaction and dependency


accompanied with strong and intens


desire of change. There was dec


and anxious protest against the meth
ods of administration, the tone ant
character of public service, and tn,


principles of legislation that haC


marked the action of the government


for many years past, and yet it wa.


remarkable that this popular feelins


had produced no change in the admin.


istration. Such development of pub


lie sentiment in England would have


produced change in the administra


tive agencies of the Government with.


in twenty hours.


He attributed the absence ofreform


to the principle of a centralized party


organization which garrisoned the


country with hundred thousand of.


fee holders and a hundred thousand


expectants of Office. He quoted from


a speech of Mr.. Sanford in the recent


Republican State Convention of Mas
sachusetts in arraignment of the Ad-


ministration, which speech, he said, if
it had been made by Democrat,
would have been regarded as a gross
partisan exaggeration, and yet that
convention and its members were in
active cooperation with the very Ad-
ministration thus characterized and
held up to public apprehension in sup
port of political party which had en-
dorsed that administration, and had in
return been endorsed by 1t. 1t was
utterly impossible that the reforms de-
sired could be effected by continuing
in power that party whose debasement
of the civil service of the country and
whose corruption of the Administra-
ton were the things to be reformed.
The success of that party would give
impunity to the corrupt practices that
are the subject of such universal con-
demnation.


But it was said that the advent of
the Democratic party to power would
endanger the permeancy of the new
institutions established by the war !;
and there was an apprehension that
what was called the Southern sectional
combination would be brought back,
and therefore people were not pre-
pared, for the mere sake of correcting
the disorders of the Administration,
to put these institutions into the hands
of those who were originally opposed
to their establishment. He apprecia-
ted the value of these grave appre-
tensions. He would speak, however,
in behalf of people who had accepted
sincerely the results of the war, who
felt that they had on them the burden
of recovering the confidence of the
nation, and who also felt assured that
with a better knowledge of their pur-
poses and motives they would receive
that faith and confidence which are
necessary to bind together the various
sections of the Republic in the bonds
of peace-a peace which, in these days
of party discord, he feared was almost
past understanding. He did not be-
lieve that the apprehension growing
out of the united support by the South
ern people of the Democratic party
was well founded, or that it should
stand in the way of the aspirations of
a great people for progress and reform.
The idea that the South, under any
combination of parties and circum-
stances, would ever again obtain con-
troll of this great Republic and WELD
its destinies against the will aud in
stinct of this mighty people was of all
ideas the most visionary and baseless.
The people of the South were pros
trate. They had been defeated in war
and made to feel that the sacrifice and
humiliation and helplessness of de-
feat had been allotted to them as their
share. While the people of the North
had reaped the rich results of victori-
Gus war and had embodied and guar
anteed them in the very life and Con-
stitution of the nation, the institutions
of the South had been shattered and
destroyed, her industries had been
disorganized, every foot of her soil
sterilized by an l-devouring taxation,
her educational interests languishing
and waning, and her population was
so feeble in comparison with that of
the great Union, that, with the South
united (blacks and whites), it would
be impotent to secure a single South
ern man, or to defend single South
ern interest. 1t was, therefore, abb
surd for a great people to apprehend
that the people of the South arrogated
to themselves the ruling of the inter-
ests of the nation. There was no as
which they had that was not
bounded by the horizon of the Union.
If they were united with the Demo-
cratic party, it was not for the pur~
pose of aggrandizement; it was not for
the purpose of reversing the policy of
the Goverdment but it was because
they had observed an instructive and
imperative law of self f-preservation.


He proceeded to argue against the
idea that the accession to power of the
party would suspend the
of the National Govern
ment over the conduct Of affairs in the
South, and that such suspension would
imperil the rights of the cOlOred race.
He quoted from speech made by
Senator, then Governor, Morton of
Indiana, in 1865, against comforting
franchise on the colored race, and in
favor of postponing their political
rights for ten, fifteen, or twenty years,
at which time, he argned, the South
ern States would have been so COM
pletely filled up by immigration from
the North and from Europe that the
negroes would be in a permanent mi
nority If that distinguished states
man away up in Indiana had such
view of the effect of negro citizenship,
what must have been the appalled,
feeling of Southern society on which
that avalanche was to be let loose?
Was it to be wondered at that the peo-
pie of the South at that time endeav-
ored to save themselves from that
shock. He claimed, however, that af-
ter that system had become fastened
upon them they had striven earnestly
and honestly to give it fair and full
development, and they might have
succeeded in some degree but for the
measures which had been adopted in
consequence of the conflict between
Congress and President johnson, the
worst of which measures was the es-