Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 September 1885 — SECTIONALISM REBUKED. [ARTICLE]

SECTIONALISM REBUKED.

Gov. Hoadly’s Scathing Answer to John Sherman and Candidate Foraker. These Two Bloody-Shirt Shooters Demolished and Bednced to Pulp. We print below the main portion of a speech recently delivered by Gov. Hoadly, at Painesville, Ohio. It is said that John Sherman is wincing under the terrible lashing administered by Gov. Hoadly on this occasion. We can scarcely doubt it, after reading this speech: Fellow Citizens: Senator John Sherman has done me the honor to reply to that part of my speech made at Hamilton, which treated of national an airs. Ido not hesitate to say that I am flattered by this attention of Senator Sherman, who undoubtedly stands head and shoulders above every other Kepublican in Ohio, and •whose long experience in public affairs gives far .more weight to his words than they w ould have coming from a novice in statesmanship. lam but a tyro in public affairs, yet I have not the least hesitation in taking up this glove, for if ever there was a man and an argument plainly . and clearly and mischievously in the wrong, it is onr senior Senator and his recent speech. Let ns see first if we cannot find a standard by which to judge the present case. The difference between a statesman and a demagogue is that the former addresses himself either to the . advocacy of some wise and patriotic measure for the benefit of the people, or appeals to their feelings, seeking to create opinion and to enlist their efforts in a humane, noble and patriotic cause, but when the part played is an appeal to the baser and meaner passions of tne people, of hate and enmity—when the ashes of an old dispute arc raked anew.and the dying embers blown into a blaze (and this without any definite proposition of change, but simply and solely for the pui pose of aiding in a partisan political canvassj, even though the orator may have been three or our times elected Senator, may have rendered great public services on other occasions and in otner fields, he is on this occasion and in this field playing the part of the demagogue. Knowing that his re-election to the Senate and possibly his candidacy for the PresiuSdcy depends upon the vote of Ohio this fall, and knowing that the people of Ohio were, during the war, as they are now, loyal and patriotic sons of America; that they were opposed to the Southern Confederacy, and are satisfied with the results of the war. Senator Sherman seeks to revive and enlist feeiings which the war engendered, the spirit of animosity to the South, to renew the battle fever, and to remind the parents and relatives of the men who died on the field or in hospitals, or in Southern prisons of their sufferings and griefs in order that he may reap the reward in emoluments and salary. To what good end I To wnat good end! He confesses it—none I He says; "I confess there are difficulties in the way of a proper remedy. This may be brought about first by an appeal to ttie South to correct an injustice and wrong which will, as long as it lasts, tend to make our politios sectional, and inspires the t ame resistance to the Democratic party encountered at' the beginning of the war. Then wny not make “an effort?” Why not go South and persuade your countrymen there, the majority of whom have become voters sitpoe the war, that it is their duty to right ihe supposed wrong ot which you complain? Mr. Sherman, your party has been in power twenty-five years —a quarter of a century. Why have you yourselves not righted the wrong of which you complain long ago? More than ten years have elapsed since the majority of the Southern States threw off the shackles which your party tried to hx upon them, and became Democratic. Nine years have elapsed since your de facto President, R. K. Hayes, contrived the scheme of sending a commission to Louisiana to settle the disputed question who was elected Governor of that State, the result of which was submission to Governor Nichols, who received fewer votes thi.n Tilden and Hendricks, while his antagonist, Packard, had more votes than Hayes. Nine years have elapsed since the last Southern State became free from the tyranny and mißgovernment of Moses, ot Warmoth, of Packard, of Bnllock, of Brownlow, of Pease of Texas, Powell Clayton, et id omne genus. During these nine years your party has had the

power to rignt any wrong. During the 'two years beginning March 4, 1881, you had the Presidency—first Garfield and then Arthur; you had the Senate and you were a member of the Senate; you had the House, and if there were any injustice to be remedied, why was it not done, why did you not then and there proceed witu the remedy? Confess now; confess, Mr. Sherman; yon know as well as 1 do that there was just as much and just as little wrong then as now; that the solid South voted for Tiiden, voted for Hancock, just as solidly as for Cleveland. Why did not you, between March 4,1881, and March 4,18 s and your allies in'Congress, Keifer, Robeson and the rest —prenare some measure to right this supposed wrong, of which you now so loudlv complain? Why did you not enact it into a law? Mr. Sherman, the ans.wer Is easy. There is no such wrong. There are no sudh lacts. Eight million bales of cotton produced by work.ngmen in the South, both black and white, is a fact which outweighs j our pretense. If Southern labor were disorganized and Southern laborers under tyranny, this magnificent result would not have been achieved. Your whole argument is based on the claim that when the black men of the South ceased to be chattel slaves, they at once became the slaves of the Republican party, and must therefore vote at its dictation until the day of judgment. Yours is a simple syllogism. The colored men of the ScUih belong to tne Republican party, you say, and would vote its ticket, if not prevented by force and fraud. Some of them do not, vote its ticket. Therefore they are prevented by force and fraud. 'To which our answer is that your major premise is pure < assumption, unsustained by proof, and in point of fact utterly untrue. You were long ago warned against this error by one -of the best and truest friends the slaves of America had, and one of the ablest statesmen the country ever produced. Not long before his death Gov. John A. Andrew warned his party that it must not expect the colored men of the fcouth to continue to vote its ticket. I have not his words before me, and cannot quote, but he said in substance iyou surely remember it) that the American negio was a peaceful, loving, doci e and obedient laborer, believing in and tlusting his master, and that when emancipated he would vote side by side with his employer, accepting his judgment to a great extent in political affairs, as during slavery he accepted his master’s direction and government. The truth is that there is no controversy between the colored man of the South and his late master and present employer, except wheie it is excited by external force, for the colored people of the South recognize the wh tes as their best friends, and naturally vote with them. Ca"u you not divine tho secret of the wonderful fact that there W'ere no

insurrections at the South during the years of the war; that while the whites fought our armies, the negroes supported their families, thereby contributing as much as their masters to the duration of the conflict? The slaves loved freedom, and gladly welcomed it-butthey loved their masters,and did not rise in insurrection. And now the races live together, not in suppressed hostility, but in open amity. It is lor this reason, Mr. Sherman, that there ■ are no Republicans in Alabama, none in Georgia, and nqne in South Carolina. You dare not tell me that Wade Hampton is not a friend of the oolored people, when the record of this honorable statesman has been so largely made up of devotion to the best interests of the black people of South Carolina. Do you believe that the colored people of South Carolina do not appreciate the friendship of Hampton and are not his willing supporters? Three years ago you tr ed to make an issue with Copt h and Danville. Now you have not made the foolish claim of pretended outrage in Chatham County, Georgia. 1 acquit you of that, but your candidate for Governor is reduced to the intiful pretense that there are not enough hallo -boxes open to receive the vote- of all the voters of that county, as If the colored man did not know just as well as the white man how to crowd up to the polls and get his vote in < arly. The long roll of pretended outrages lias come to an end. None have been heard of lor years. Hamburg and hliza Pinkston, Danville and Co iah have fizzled and pete ed out, leaving only the want of .enough ballot-boxes in Savannah as the sole remaining grist of the onoe noisy outrage mill.

Mr. Sherman, the history of what has recently transpired in Tennessee gives the lie to your attempt to excite sectional animosity against onr brethren in the South In Tennessee there is a Republican party of white men as well as black, but it Is a party whose life, according to its record, depends on fraudulent voting. The Cincinnati Commercial (ri-zefte, the organ of your party, has felicitated its readers upon the enactment of a registration law last winter for Cincinnati and Cleveland, passed by a Legislature, more than three-fifths of whose members in the State Senate were Democrats, and whose I majority in the House was within three of be- j ing three-filths. In Tennessee the irauds of i your party upon the ballot-l>ox waxed so great that the Democratic party determined, tor the protection of the purity of ihe ballot, to adopt a registration law. There had been a municipal registration law in force, but it was confined to the city of Chattanooga. “In 1884. in a very heated municipal election, that city cast less than 2,8 X) votes; ! within a lew wees a thereafter, when the State j and national elections came off, in which regis- ! tration was not required, that city (lying contiguous to Georgia and Alabama), voting in districts of the same territorial limits as in the municipal election, cast 4,7u0 votes.” This statement I quote from a recent letter from Gov. Wm. B. Bate, of Tennessee. This increased vote was in the interest of the Republican ratty, and led to the following recommendation by Gov. Bate in his annual message of January 12, 1885; “The sentiment which has been growing in our State from the experience in each recurring election, and which now seems to almost universally pervade all political parties, is that there should be more effective laws to prevent illegal voting, t specially in our large cities. “The elective franchise is not only a political right, but one the existence of which should be subject to such legal guards as to insure full effect in preventing the legal ballots from being neutralized by illegal ones. The vrrtue, sanctity, and strength of the ballot privilege is weakened whenever illegality is practiced in its exercise. That such is no untrequent occurrence is evidenced by the returns of many of our elections.

“Good government can alone be secured through virtuous and wholesome laws, and under our institutions, where the ballot is the basis of government, it should have sufficient legal protection to insure its exercise fairly and justly. It is almost impossible under existing laws as they are now enforced to avoid the abuse of this right. Most States, to insure a free, just, and fair ballot at elections, require all voters to be registered within a certain time as a condition precedent to exercising the ballot privilege. This obtains in most fctates, and, as 1 understand its history in every State where it has been tested, it meets with popular favor because of its efficiency. 1 suggest, therefore, that yon enact such laws as will, without abridging it, throw more efficient guards around the exercise of this right within our cities.” In pursuance of this recommendation a registration bill was Introduced into the i egislature of Tennessee. 1 hold it in my hand. It is a bill of twelve sections, providing that in all voting districts having a population of 1,000 voters, the qualified voters shall be registered before exercising the elective franchise; that, for the purpose of effecting this, the County Courts shall select two registrirs of voters from each voting precinct, “provided that both of said registrars shall not be selected from the same political party.” Perfectly fair, you. see, Mr. Senator, and free from partisan bias. 1 Books' and stationery are required to be furnished By ! public authority to the registrars. The first registration ,1s to be made thirty days before the first election, and a registration is to be made before each.biennial election. Public notice is required to be given by the registrars by notices posted in at least three public' places, or»hy advertisement In some uevy«P&per of general circulation.,, for at least ten ’affys preceding the date for opening the registration. The registration office is to be kept open daily,' except Sundays,, from 9 o'clock a. m. to 4 o’clook p. mi, and from 7 to lu p. m. for five days and nights during the period of registration. The names of the voters are to be carefully registered in books, together with the age and color of the applicant, the district, ward, road, or street, and the number of the house in which he lives, or if not numbered, then a designation of its location, the time of his residence in that voting precinct, and the various places in which he may’tor the la-t twelve months have voted or boarded, and the registrars are required to keep suitable books in which his statements or answers may be entered. They are then to be sworn to by tHe applicant. The registrars are required to prepare an alphabetical list of the voters of each district, have same printed and a copy posted for j uhlic inspection, and they are permitted during the next live days after the closing of the registration to correct any error of a clerical nature, and required to furnish a copy to the judges of the election, and no one is allowed to vote whose name does not appear on the completed registration list. This is the substance of the act. which, after care ul examination, I believe to be one of the fairest and most honest registration laws ever prepared in the United States; certainly, quite as fair as that passed in Ohio with so much eclat last winter. But what happened ween this came before the Legislature of Tennessee? It passed the House and passed two readings in the Senate, but unfortunately the Constitution of Tennessee provides that two-thirds of the members of each honse are necessary to constitute a quorum—the same old mischievous provision of tne former Constitution of Ohio which enabled the Whig party to break up the Legislature in 1812, in order to prevent the passage of the Legrand-Byington apportionment bill, for which sin they were deservedly punished by defeat at the polls that fall. When this registration bill came on for its last reading in the Senate of Tennessee, that body was found, to be withont a quorum. The Kepublican Senators (except two) had secreted themselves In a room in the Maxwell House In Nashville, thus preventing a quorum. The arrest of the Senators was ordered at once, so as to obtain a quorum, but they locked themselves in their room and it was deemed illegal to break open the door, and so they remained locked up in the hotel at Nashville until the Senate was forced to adjourn sine die. By this act of filibustering in tne interest of fraud and false voting, not only was the passage of the registration law defeated, but several other important measures were left unacted upon, including the revenue and appropriation bills, which left the State without the means of paying its obligations. Thereupon Gov. Bate called the Legislature together in extra session, one of the reasons for the call being the necessity of passing laws, as stated In these words of the Governor's proclamat on:

“To preserve the purity of elections and prevent illegal voting in cities, towns, taxing districts, municipal corporations, and civil districts having a voting population of me thousand or more, without in any way impairing the right to the elective franchise, or limiting the just and legal exercise thereof, by the enactment of a Just, impartial, and well-guarded reglstra.lon law, or by other method allowable under the Constitution (Art. 4, section 1), to secure the freedom of elections and the purity of the bal-lot-box." At the opening of the extra session. May 25, 18.45, cov. Sate submitted a message containing the following passage: ■ Registration laws are in successful operation in very many States, in some having particular application to certain municipal corporations therein located, and every wuere they stand approved by the best citizenship, irrespective of parties and class distinctions. In this State such a law is needed, as evidenced by recent general elections in many sections. Not so much to guarantee a free ballot to every bona fide voter, ler that right and its ex. rcise are nowhere and in no respect in jeopardy within the limits of 'i ennessec, but especially to protect the ballot box from spoliation through so-called ‘repeaters’ anefother fraudulent voters. The enactment of a general law, just an i Impartial in its provisions, reaching districts having dense population, where identification of individual voters is uncertain and of difficult determination, will tend to suppress illegal voting, and preserve the elect.ve franchise In its purity. No citizen who esteems the ballot to be the highest and most sacred expression of a freeman’s will, can rightfully question the wisdom and advi ability of such leuislat on. “Registration will not abridge nor make void the franchise of any voter, but be a barrier agaiust illegal ballots. Nor this purpose alone, and in this spirit, 1 respectfully recomm nd that such regia. ration provisions be < nacted that Will ‘secure,’ in the language of the constitution. ‘the freedom of elections and the purity of the ballot-box." A bill similar to that pending at the regular ses.-ion wis then introduced, but when it came up f> r final action in i he Hou-e the Repnblkans almost to a man deserted the House, and left it without a quorum, which it did not afterward secure. The sessions were broken up by this revolutionary misconduct, and the registra.ion bi'l ceftated in that manner. Mr. Sherman, It was not because the Repub-

j licans were hostile on principle to registration that they revolutionized the State of Tennessee by this filibustering, for during the Brownlow regime the Republicans enacted a strict registration law which remained on the statute books and was enforced for a length of time, disfranchising three-fourths of the white voters of the State, while all the colored voters were allowed the ballot. They were then quite willing to see so large a proportion of the people disfranchised ; by a severe system of registration, but will not . no# consent to legislation to prevent a man irom voting m re than once. How dare you, then, Mr. Sherman, in the faee ■ of ihe misconduct of your party—this ftlibos- ! ferine, by which the Legislature of Tennessee has been broken up and prevented from passing a registration law for the protection of honest voters, and against repeating and other frauds—how dare you claim that the white man of the South prevents the colored man from voting, when it is you and your party who are ! the enemies of a free ballot and a fair count? The whole claim ot your party upon this snb- ! ject is an imposition and a frand. It is an im- ! position upon ihe Northern peop'e, whom you try to mase believe that elections at the South are not fair, and it is a frand upon the people of the Soutn, where your party is ready to destroy a State Legislature in order to secure the benefits of corrupt elections. You complain that 1 cannot see a difference between the Klu-Klux-Kian and Key and Akerman, who did all they could to put it down. Have you forgotten that David M. Key pretended to be a Tilden Democrat? Have you forgotten that this was true, even at so late a day as that on wbieh he was confirmed as Postmaster General? Have you forgotten, you certainly knew it then, for he was a member of the Senate with you down to March 4th, 1877—that he did not do anything against the Ku-Klux-Xlan, that he never became a Republican until after he became a member of the de facto President’s Cabinet; that taking this pseudo Democrat into the Cabinet was one of Mr. Hayes’ patents, or would have been, had it been as useful as novel, as it was intended to cajole the white people of the South into his support, and the revival of the Whig party? You were a member of the Senate, and of the Cabinet of Rutherford B. Hayes, with David M. Key. Don't parade Mr. Key any more before the American people as a regenerated Confederate, wnen, what regenerated him, if anything, was not the otter of office, but the actual perception of its profits. I do not doubt but that you could make twenty Cabinets with ex-Confederates like Mosby, Chalmers, Longstreet <fc Co., on these terms, but fortunately tor the people the scepter of power has departed from tho Republican party, and no gentleman will ever here* after bo invited into the Cabinet on the condition of abjuring the political principles which he is advocating in the United States Senate.