Democratic Sentinel, Volume 5, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 April 1881 — THE LATEST REPUBLICAN DEVICE. [ARTICLE]

THE LATEST REPUBLICAN DEVICE.

[From the Cincinnati Enquirer.] The attempt of the Republican party to call the treachery of Mahone by some other name, and to give an euphronious label to the bargain by which the Republicans purchased Mahone, is really ludicrous. The endeavor is to coll Mahone’s sale of himself to the Republican Senators “friendship for the black man. ” “ Friendship for the black man ” had as much to do with Mahone’s treason and sale of himselx as it had to do with the bargain which Judas Iscariot mode years ago. The attempt to make respectable the infamy of the part which Republican Senators took in this bargain by calling it by some other name will be, or should be, absolutely unavailing. The plain truth is that the Republican Senators purchased Mahone by as corrupt a transaction as ever disgraced the halls of any legislative body, and they have kept the public business bound hand and foot for six weeks in the endeavor to yay Mahone the promised price for his dishonor. Neither on the part of Mahone nor on the part of the Republican Senators has this disreputable transact! n of unprecedented infamy in the history of the national Legislature any redeeming feature. Every impartial, intelligent man in the country knows to-day that the public business will not proceed, because the Republican Senators insist upon paying Mahone. They are afraid that if they do not pay him they may lose him. They have been endeavoring, during these weeks, to force the Democratic half of the Senate to assist them in compensating Mahone for his treachery. The Republican position is that Democratic Senators are guilty of treasonable and revolutionary conduct if they will not contribute to the payment of Mahone for his infamous services to the Republican Senators. The desire to “ render service to the black man,” the desire to break up “ Bourbonism, ” the desire to “ diminish sectionalism,” the desire to “encourage independence,” and all other alleged desires on the part of Mahone or the Republicans, save the ignoble ones we have indicated, have no more to do with the treachery of the renegade Virginian and his purchase by thirty- s«ven Republican Sonators than they had to do with the treason of Benedict Arnold a century ago. Harper's Weekly may well say, in view of this situation, as it has said : ‘ * There is certainly some turning of the tables when Republicans in the Senate who have most warmly denounced the rebel Brigadiers and insisted upon strict financial honesty are found supporting a repudiating rebel Brigadier as a friend and brother.” And the same journal of Civilization says of Mahone : “ For his repudiating or ‘ readjusting ’ policy nothing can be said except that any attempted reorganization of the Republican party in Virginia upon a platfotm of national dishonesty would certainly fail, as it ought to fail.” And the same Republican journal says of Mahone’s vote: “If it has been deliberately bought with patronage it is a mutual disgrace to Mr. Mahone and to his buyers.” Of course Mahone’s vote was deliberately “bought with patronage," and every intelligent man in the country knows this, including the editor of Harper's Weekly. There is nothing else than this in the entire transaction ; and the Republicans in the country, outside of the Senate, who are forced into the position of sustaining the Republican Senators in this business, are driven into the indorsement of this infamy. The national Republican party is compelled to applaud this corrupt bargain with Mahone, which even Harper's Weekly calls a disgrace to the Republican Senators. The Republican organ from which we have quoted further says that “ if the Republicans promised to give Mahone’s friend Riddleberger a warm place as the price of his vote, it was a shameful bargain.” Tlio whole country knows that the Republicans did promise Riddleberger a * ‘ warm place ” as the price of Mahone’s vote, and it is useless to attempt to hide this mutual shame beneath patriotic phrases or names that are sweeter in the mouth than the correct ones.

The national Bepublican party is also compelled to praise Mahone. "its platform is Mahone. The announcement has gone forth that it intends to inaugurate a “new era” of things—in partnership with Mahone. Praise Mahone for what ? For his services during the Rebellion, for which he says he has not repented? For his notorious efforts as a Repudiator ? For his treason to his constituents and his sale to the Republicans? Upon which part of Mahone. as a platform, do the Republicans propose to go before the country asking for the approval of the voters ? This is all there is of Mahone. Which side of him will the national Republican party put before the public to captivate suffrages ? It is reported that the Republican party will endeavor to steal the State of Virginia from the Democracy with the aid of the purchased Virginia Senator. How ? It must be, if at all, upon the Mahone platform of repudiation. In other words, the national Republican party proposes to enlarge its borders and strengthen its stakes by planting itself upon the platform of repudiation, and by corrupt alliance and partnership with the one man in the United States who happens at this moment to be the most notorious of repudiators ! Iu this event the national Republican party will have sold itself to Mahone—the buyers will have been bought. Upon one of these disgraceful phases of this disgraceful situation must the Republican party appeal to the country for support. What kind of a “new era” is this to inaugurate? How will the candid and unbiased voters of the country, if there are such, regard such an appeal ? A Prophet Without Honor. If the Republicans expect to triumph in Virginia through the bargain with Mahone, they ought to find some other assurance of it than his promise. He thus confronted the public as a prophet last October: Committee Rooms, Readjusted Oita’N.,l Richmond, V*., Oct. 28, JBBO. ( Let me assure you, as 1 do confidently, that an electoral ticket headed by Cameron and Riddleberger, and pledged to Hancock, will carry the State by a plurality of 25,000 ; that it will beat either the Funder or Grip-Sack tickets by this vote—not less. Rely on this. Woluk Mahone. This positive declaration was made only ten days before the election, when the political situation in Virginia was clearly defined, and was well understood by the country. When the votes were counted the popular Democratic ticket for Hancock had 96,912, the Republican ticket 84,020, and the Readjusfer Mahone ticket 31,674. Thus Mahone got

only 6,000 votes more than the plurality which lie had audaciously claimed over the other two tickets separately. He stigmatized the Republicans as tho grip-sack party, another alias for carpetbagger. But when he found that barely one-seventh part of the aggregate poll of Virginia supported his scheme he at once entered into negotiations for making the bargain which now stands exposed.