Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 November 1884 — BLAINE TALKS. [ARTICLE]

BLAINE TALKS.

In Response to a Serenade, He Makes a Speech to Hi« Neighbors. He Regards the War’s Work Overthrown by the Election of a Democratic President Claiming that the Sontb, Which Has an Illegitimate Strength, Will Ron the Government. [Augusta (He.) special] A large number of devoted personal and political friends of Mr. Blaine serenaded him this evening as an expression of personal good-will and admiration of his conduct in the national campaign. They marched through the streets under the marehalship of Col. Frank Nye. When they reached Mr. Blaine’s house their compliments and friendly regnrds were expressed in a speech by Herbert M. Heath, Esq., of the Kennebec bar. Mr. Blaine responded as follows, his speech being continually interrupted by applause: “Friends and Neighbors: The national contest Is over, and by the narrowest of margins we have lost. I thank you for vour call, which If not one of joyous congratulations. Is one, I am sure, of confidence and of sanguine hope for tbe future. I thank yon for the public opportnntty you give me to express my sense of obligation, not only to yon but to all the Republicans of Maine. They responded to my nomination with genuine enthusiasm, and ratified it by a superb vote. I count it as one of the honors and qualifications of my public career that the party in Maine, after struggling hard for the last six years, and twice within that period losing the Slate, has come back in this campaign to the old-fashiened 20,000 plurality. No other expression of popular confidence and esteem could equal that of the people among whom I have lived for thirty years, and to whom I am attached by all ties that ennoble hum&n nature and give joy and dignity to life. After Maine—indeed, along with Maine—my first thought is always of Pennsylvania. How can I fittingly express my thanks for that unparalleled majority of more than 80,000 votes—a popular Indorsement which has deeply touched mv heart, and which has, if possible, increased my affection for the grand old commonwealth, an affection which I inherited from my ancestry, and which 1 shall transmit to my children. But Ido not limit my thanks to the State of my residence and the State of my birth. I owe much to the true and zealous friends In New England .who worked so nobly for the Republican party and its candidates, and to the eminent scholars and divines who, stepping aside from their ordinary avocations, made my cause their cause, and to loyalU and principle added the special compliment of standing as my personal representatives In the national struggle. But the achievements for the Republican cause in the East are even surpassed by the splendid victories in the West. In that magnificent cordon of States that stretches from the foot-hills of the Alleghanies to the Golden Gate of the Pacific, beginning with Ohio and ending with California, the Republican banner was borne so loftily that but a single State failed to join In the wide acclaim of ti iumph. Nor should Ido justice to my own feelings if I failed to thank the Republicans of the Empire State, who encountered so many discouragements and obstacles; who fought foes from within and foes from without, and who waged so strong a battle that a change of one vote In every two thousand would have given us the victory in the nation. Indeed, a change of little more than five thousand votes would have transferred New York, Indiana, New Jersey and Connecticut to the Republican standard, and would have made the North as solid as the South. My thanks would still be incomplete if I should fQ.il to recognize with special gratitude that great body of workingmen, both native and foreign-born, who gave me their earnest support, breaking from old personal and party ties, and finding in the principles which I represented in the canvass the safeguard and protection of their own fireside interests. The result of the election, my friends, will be regarded in the future, I think, as extraordinary. The Northern States, leaving out the cities of New York and Brooklyn from the count, sustained the Republican cause by a majority of more than 400,000—almost half a million, indeed—of the SDpular vote. The cities of New York and rooklyn threw their great strength and influence with the solid South, and were the decisive element which gave to that section the control of the National Government Speaking now not as a defeated candidate, but simply as a loyal and devoted American, 1 think the transfer of the political power of the Government to the South Is a great national misfortune. It is a misfortune because it introduces an element which can not insure harmony and prosperity to the people, because It introduces into a republic the rule of a minority. The first instinct of an American is equality—equality of right, equality of privilege, equality of political power —that equality which says to every citizen, “Your vote is just as good, just as potential as the vote of any other citizen.” That can not be said to-day in the United States. The course of affairs in the South has crushed out the political power of more than 6,000,000 American citizens, and has transferred it by violence to others. Forty-two Presidential electors are assigned to tne South on account of the colored population, and yet the colored population, with more than 1,100,000 legal votes, have been unable to choose a single elector. Even In those States where they have a majority of more than a hundred thousand they are deprived of free suffrage, and their rights as citizens are scornfully trodden under foot. The eleven States that comprised the rebel Confederacy had by the census of 1880, 7,500,000 white population, and 5,300,000 colored population. The colored population, almost to a man, desire to support the Republican party, but by a system of cruel intimidation, and by violence, and murder—whenever violence and murder are thought necessary —they are absolutely deprived of all political power. If the outrage stopped there, it would be bad enough; but it does not stop there, for not only is the negro population disfranchised, but the power which rightfully and constitutionally belongs to them is transferred to the white population, enabling the white population of the South to exert an electoral influence far beyond that exerted by the same number of white people in the North. To illustrate just how it works to the destruction of all fair elections, let me present to you five States in the late Confederacy and five loyal States of the North, possessing in each section the same number of electoral votes. In the South, the States of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina have In the aggregate 48 electoral votes. They have 2,800.000 people, and over 8,000,000 colored people. In the North, the States of Wisconsin, Minnesota, lowa, Kansas, and California have likewise, in the aggregate, 48 electoral votes, and they have a white population of 5,600,000, or just double the five Southern States which I have named. These Northern States have practically no colored'population. It is therefore evident that the white men in those Southern States by usurping and absorbing the rights of the colored men are exerting jnst double the political power of the white men in the Northern States. I submit, my friends, that

such a condition of affairs is extraordinary, unjust, and derogatory to the manhood of the North. Even those who are vindictively opposed to negro suffrage will not deny that If Presidential electors are assigned to the South by reason of the negro population, that population ought to be permitted free suffrage in the election. To deny that clear proposition, is to affirm that a Southern white man in the Gnlf States is entitled to double the political r ower dfra'Northern Whiteman in the lake States..- It is; to affirm that a Confederate soldier wiall wield twice the Influence In thenation that a TT&ion soldier cam and that a perpetual add constantly increasing superiority shall be conceded to the Southern white man in government of the[Union. If -that be quietly conceded in this (Ssncfation it Tffill harden into custom, until the badge of inferiority will to -the Northern “white man as odioiisly as noble 1 stamped it upon the STxon chuff: 'Tffls subject pliant in their States and m the nation, the negro will be compelled to work for just such wages as the whites may'decree—/ wages which will amount, as did the supplies oM the slaves, to a bare subsistence, equal In cash ’ perhaps, to 35 cents per day, It averaged over the entire South. The white laborer lnthaNorth,, will soon feel the destructive effects of this* upon his own wages. The Republicans have clearly seen from the earliest days of struction that wages in the South -nkist bi raised to a just recompense of the laborer, oil wages in the North ruinously lowered, and the party have steadily worked for the former result. The reverse influence will now be set In motion, and that affairs produced which, years ago, Mr. Lincoln warned the free laboring men of the North will prove hostile to their independence, and will Inevitably lead to a ruinous reduction of wages. A mere dis-

ference of the color of the skin will not snffioe to maintain an entirely different standard in wages of contiguous and adjacent States! and the voluntary will be compelled to yield to the Involuntary 80 completely have the colored men in the Sonthi been already deprived by the Democratic party of their constitutional and UyM right as citizens of the United States that they regard the advent of that party to national power as the signal of their enslavement, and are affrighted because th y think all legal protection for them is gone Few person lin thoNorth realite how completely the chiefs of the rebellion wield the political power which has triumphed in the late election. It is & portentous fact that the Democratic Senators, who come from the States of the late confederacy, all—and I mean all without a single exoeption—personally participated in tbe re belli n against the National Government. It is a stall more significant fact that in those States no man who was loyal to the Union, no matter how strong a Democrat he w, ay . be to-day. has the slightest chance of political promotion, 'ihe one great avenueto honor in that section is the recor 1 of zealous service in the war against the Government. It is certainly an astounding fact that the section in which friendship for the Union in the day of Its trial and agony is still a political disqualification, should be called now to rule over the Union. All this takes place during the lifetime of the generation that fought the war, and elevates into practical command of the American Government the identical men who organized for Its destruction and plunged ns into thebloodiest contest of modern times. I have spoken of the South as placed by tbe late election in possession of the Government, and I mpun all that my words Imply. The South, furnished nearly three-fonrths of the electoral votes that defeated the Republican party, and they will step to the command of the Democrats as unchallenged and unrestrained as they held the same position for thirty years before the war. Gentlemen, there cannot be polli ical inequality among the citizens of a free republic: there cannot be a minority of white men in thebonth ruling a majority of white men in the North. Pat iotism, self-respect, pride, protection for person, and safety for country, all cry out against it The very thought of it stirs the blood of men who Inherit equality from the pilgrims who first stood on Plymouth Rock, and from liberty-loving patriots who came to the Delaware with William Penn. It becomess the primal question of American manhood. It demands a hearing and a settlement, and that settlement will vindicate the equality of American citizens in all personal and civil rights. It will, at least, establish the equality of white men under the National Government,and will give to the Northern man, who fought to preserve the Union, as large a voice in its government as may be exercised by the Southern man, who fought to destroy the Union. The contest just closed utterly dwarfs the fortunes and fate of the candidates, whether successful or unsuccessful. Purposely—l may say instinctively— l have discussed the issues and consequences of that contest without reference to my own defeat, without the remotest reference to the gentleman who Is elevated to the Presidency. Toward him personally I have no cause for the slightest Illwill, and it is with cordiality I express the wish, that his official career may prove gratifying to himself and beneficial to the country, and that his administration may overoome the embarrassments which the peculiar source of its power imposes upon it from the hour of its birth. At the conclusion of Mr. Blaine’s speech he invited the large crowd into his house, and for nearly an hour an informal reception was held, the hundreds of people passing through the rooms. Greetings wereespecially friendly and cordial.