Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 May 1888 — INGALLS ROUGHLY HANDLFD. [ARTICLE]

INGALLS ROUGHLY HANDLFD.

OUR VOORHEES TIKES HIM TO TASK. The Jayhawker’s Cowardly Attack on Dead S'ldiers Receives Due Attention. In the Senate, on motion .o refer the vrwaideni’s messsge was taken iTp, and Mr. Voorhees proceeded u address tie Senate tnereon. lie said that an extensive discussion in tlie senate and house left no doubt as to the attitude of the republican party on the question, and it had at last been forced to throw away masks and falsefaees and to admit that taxation was not to stop at the revenue line of the government, but was to be turned Icose, without limit an,d without shame, on the labor of the people for the sole purpose of enriching a favored few—a syndieate of devouring, insatiate monopolists. The republican party leaders, driven by madness to suicide and hari-kari, were going before the American people, opposing every reduction of taxes except those paid by iobacco and alcoholic spirits He did not intend that that issue should be dodged in the coming political campaign, at least in Indiana. The position of the republican party might be described thus: (1) Taxation not to be limited by the expenses {of the government, with a view to the protection of manufacturing monopolists. (2) All the protection given and all its profits to inur to the further enrichment of capitalists, but not a dollar of it to the laboring men and women. (3) That if any reduction of taxes was to take place, it must be on alcoholic liqm r and tobacco and not on the prime necessaries of life,

Passipg to the chai ges that the democrats in congress had been hostile to the Union soldiers in the matter of pensions, he contrasted the records of both parties in that matter, and claimed that the republicans had made a mean and parsimonious record toward the soldiers, and that rank and bitter injustice had been done them by provisions of law under republican sway, while the democrats in congress and the executive offices had been liberal in the extremest sense.

JRef erring to the at ack made in the senate upon the memory of McClellan and Hancock he said the presiding officer of the sena e, holding the highest official position now held by a republican, had descended to the floor and attacked the memory of American heroes, who were sleeping where flowers and tears were annually commin gled on memorial day, resting from their glorious lives in the quiet bivouac of the dead. The pious task of making response had been appropriately performed by one whose own conspicuous daring in arms had given him the generous right of chivalry to speak in their praise. It was true that not even the eloquent tongne of Blackburn could reach McClellan or Hancock with assurances of their country's devotion and love.

Can honor’s voice provoke the silent dust, ■Or flattery soothe the dull, cold ear of death? No, but the voice of the senator from Kentucky, on that occasion, had bean an honor to American manhood and to American soldiery. There were suggestions, however, inspired by the wanton and astounding assault of the senator from Kansas which would speedily pass from the public mind. That senator, a recognized leader of his party, had stood in his place in the senate an«t denounced two great Union generals as trailers to their country, allies of the Confede acy, and no word of dissent or rebuke had been uttered by a single associate in either house. Democrats had waited, and some hadwondeiod, but the silent acquiesence in the horrible charges remained unbroken.

Mr. Voorhees proceeded to draw a vivid picture of events during the war, beginning with the scenes in Washington on the night of the first battle of Bull ltu»>, when the wearied gallop of the courier co’d be heard as he capre over the long bridge and reached the war department with dispatches of disaster from the front. In th?t Lour of u’ tional extremity McClellan had been called by despairing official authorit to perform a taskfgreater far than was ever performed by Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar or Napoleon m the same length of time. Then he recalled (after the seeond disastrous battle of Manassas) McClellan riding out to meet the retreating tro rs and being greeted with cheers more thrilling »nd pathetic than those which greeted Napoleon on his return from Elba. Then come the battle of Antietam, a victory unparalleled in war, considering all the conditions The immedi de peril being gone and a sense of security bein? felt, McClellan had been again stricken by partisan malice and had closed his lofty military career forever. An eagle towering in hi pride es pla ,e, Was by a mousing owl hawked at a nd killed. And to this day clamorous kites and crows and other ignoble scavenger birds sought to tear and mutilate McClellan’s august fame.— Yes, McClellan, he said, was a democrat and was removed from command on the 7th of November, 1862. He could with uplifted hand have sworn that he had saved the republic, as did Cicero In the forum at Rome.

Among the highest, the most fortunate and most distinguished characters produced. by the war where, he ask&d, could a name be found cleaner, purer, ireer from self-seeking, or more devoted to a sublime sense of duty than that of McClellan? “After life’s fitful fever he sleeps well,” not disturbed by the partisan declamations of judge advocates, provost marshals, or peevish politicians. Mr. Voorhees changed the scene to Gettysburg, where, he said, the las# hope of the Southern confederacy clisappeaaed forever. What invisible spirit of the air, he asked, intent upon evil to the senator from Kansas, could have been in attendance on him when he up and opened his mouth in the senate chamber on the 6th of March. McClellan and Hancock were the heroes of the t>o most consequential battles of the war, Antietam and Gettysburg, the loss of either of which would havbrought European recognition to the Confederacy, and darkness and dismay, if not final dissolution.— They had commanded in the only battles fought north of the Potomac, and each time had met the enemy as an invading force, strong, confident and flushed with recent victories. Antietam and Gettysburg had involved the possession of the capita] and the perpetuity of the government, and to McClellan and Hancock (now stigmatized as allies of the Confederacy) had been committed the measureless and awful trust of defending and preserving them both. If asked hereafter where were the great leaders of the democratic party during the war, (where the democratic candidate of 1864 for the presidency, and the democratic candidate of 1880 for the presidency), the undulated slopes of Antietam and the crested heights of Gettysburg would be pointed to. Ho knew them both and he bowed to their shades. They/were of loftier mould than Greek or Roman history supplied. The “Warrior ranks of Achaia” furnished not thei r peers, not “The Golden locked Achilles, nor the wide ruling King Agamemnon.” And yet, he said, such were the great soldiers who were mocked, scoffed and denounced as belonging to the subservient elements of the Nerth and who were accused of treason by those who were of the breed of Job’s war horse, and who (like him) “snuffed the battle afar off.” Leaving the subject, Mr. Voorhees passed to what he called the

campaign of political animosity, declared against the people of the South, their rights, their security and their *’ood name. The especial anger of republican leaders, he said, was excited becau e the vote of the South in a national contest is solid against their party. Would some one on the other side of *he chamber tell him how the vote of the South could be other than it was? The republican party had once had supremacy from the Potomac to the Rio Grande.— It had elected republican governors, state officers and legislators in every Southern state. It had the purse with which to corrupt, the sword witn which to intimidate and the republican c .ogress and president to enact and enforce all laws necessary for the overthrow of individual and state rights and for the consolidation of hs power. It had seized upon the enfranchised negro and sought to organize and hurl him against the peace and security of political and social order, and for a time and in many instances it had succeeded. The republican party and its allies (allies, not of th ♦ Confederacy, but allies for power and plunder) had

swept upon the helpless South like Hyder Ali upo the Carnatic and had left scarcely a vestige from which to hope and with which to rebuild ex. ept its never failing soil and its staunch and splendi < manhood. It had despoiled the Southern states of their resources and dismantled them of their credit. It had ordered investigations and sent committees and commissions composed ol the bitterest partisans into the South for, the purpose of scraping together and putting in permanent form the perjuries of vagabonds and scoundres with which to defame and blacken the reputation of the Southern people. It would have overturned the state government of South Carolina in 1876, and again sacked the substance and credit of the state had it not been that a giant stood in its way, upheld by the public judgment of the world. The career of the republican party during its ascendancy in the South had been a ca reer of crime. It had reared and lett behind it no monument of patriotism, wisdom or benevolence to tell future ages that its presence had been a blessing and not a eurse. When the future historian came to inquire why and how, and exactly what, the republican party had lost its tremendous hold of the prostrate South, and had slunk away to return no more forever he would be puzzled to find an answer, and would finally write that its administration through a l that region had become so vast and intolerable a scandal, filling the civilized world with its foul odors, that an intelligent and omnipotent public had demanded its downfall and the restoration of home rule and decent government.

And yet it was that party whose leaders now fumed and threatened the Southern people and states because they do not welcome it back into power, with all its unhallowed memories and its predacious instincts and habits. As well might a frontier settlement be expected to welcome with joy a second invasion of tomahawks and scalpingknives. Mr. Voorhees proceeded to speak of the recent great development in the South, and said she was simplyrising to her manifest destiny. He recited the achievements of the democratic party, and asserted that but for the attitude and influence of Horatio Seymour, Thomas A. Hendricks, Allen G. Thurman, William A. Richardson, and their political associates and followers during the war, not only woura. the union never have been restored, but the dearest and most saered rights of American citizenship would have been swept away in the blinding storm of pidicim wrath, which was most frequently mistaken for paLiotic zeal. He concluded by saying that the verdict of the American people in November would be that there Lad been honest, capable government,

and that it should bo c mtinued. At the conclusion of Mr. Voorhees’ speech, which was delivered with great power and effect, and was listened to with intciet-t and attention on both sides of the chamber, he was congratulated upon it by many of his democratic associates. Groceries! Groceries!! Groceries!!! Cheap as the at J. W. Duvall’s new Grocery.