Jasper Republican, Volume 1, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 October 1874 — A Stirring Address by Ex-Vice-President Colfax. [ARTICLE]

A Stirring Address by Ex-Vice-President Colfax.

Sooth Bkhd, Ind., Oct. 7. A large sad ewtimsjßptie Republic** meeting was held in this city to-night. The Hon. Schuyler Colfax presided, and openedfthe meeting with a stirring ad; dress qf about twenty-fire minutes' length, to which the audience listened witk rapt -attention, ajad heartily applauded him at the close. He said: Again, as more than once in the recent past, the continued ascendency of the Re, publican organisation becomes Sr matter of national importance. In the dark hours of the rebellion its overthrow would have been hailed, not only with exultant joy, bat With inspiring hope also, by every rebel in council or in camp. When the reinauguration of Abraham Lincoln and another Republican Congress so materially aided the heroism of th*eoidiere of the Union in ending the jv«, and thedisloyal Btate Governments recognized by the overthrown Confederacy had tumbled into ruins, nothing "but' Republican supremacy prevented their reconstruction oh *a basis that would have virtually festered slavery, by infamous enactments that all colored laborers who did not hire out for a year should be sold as vagrants for a term of time at the court-house door of their county. Foiled in this vile attempt by the unyielding opposition of the victorious Republican party, >iolenee was next resorted to ha many localities where they h*< 1 power, and especially when they thought the signs of the times foreshadowed Republican defeat. The wholesale and defiant expulsion of the colored members of the Georgia Legislature, and putting in their seats the rebels they had defeated at the polls, was an illustration of one class of these outrages; aq<i the bloody masBacre of 1866 at New Orleans was directly traceable to the hope of Republican overthrow, based on the defection of Andrew Johnson and his supporters. Not content with this, the iufamous Ku-Klux Kian, by murders, whippings, torture and menace, established their reign of terror over the colored race, absolutely compelling many white citizens also to make apublic renunciation of their political faith to avert threatened death, and exiling others from their homes by denunciatory messages and personal intgntdation by these masked and malignant outlaws. Although these outrages, so disgraceful to a civilized nation, and especially so to one claiming to be as free as ours, were ridiculed as false by many yho knew better, they con-" ' tinned to dishonor large portions of the Southern States until national legislation, enacted by Republican votes in Congress, brought these unrepentant and vindictive rebels to justice, and sent many of them to the prisons they so richly deserved. And the Congressional investigation proved that even the half of their crimes had not been previously known. Now, when hope of Republican defeat revives in their breasts, tije work of massacre and outrage recommences, staining our national escutcheon and dishonoring our American name and fame. The White Man’s League, inspired by treason, whose cornerstone is hatred of the constitutional amendments, and whose organization is military and threatening, takes np the work of terrorizing the South which the exposed and convicted Ku-Klux were compelled temporarily to abandon. And hence I repeat, in conclusion as] at the commencedwit, that the continued ascendency of ther organization is a matter of far more importance to the nation than to the party itself. Its overthrow would be hailed with exultation by every one who there under supervision that the candid of all parties would have pronounced impartial; or whether the remarkable agreement entered into there does not concede, by the public pledge of those calling themselves the Conservative People’s party that “ they will • cause all violence and intimidation, if any exist, to cease throughout the State,” that they have the power, by their organization, to command or to restrain such “ violence and intimidation.” My purpose is above anything of a partisan character. It is to show that our endangered national character should be considered by all our people; and that to allow the humblest of our citizens to be oppressed or outraged on account of his political principles dishonors us all and shames us before the world.

I abstain from any analysis of the principles of the White League, except to say that their arguments could be used against poor or unlearned men because of their poverty or ignorance as forcibly as against men of color because of their color; and to add that their organization is as unconstitutional in its spirit as one that would propose to refuse New England or Indiana any representation in the Benate, or to assume the payment by the nation of the rebel debt. .The Fourteenth Am ndment to our National Constitution declares all of our people citizens of the United States as well as of their respective States, and eguarantees to . them equal protection under the law, irrespective of race or color.' And that solemn constitutional pledge of the Republic must be maintained against all enemies, if we do not wish our land to become a byword and a reproach among the nations of the earth. Of course all crime and violence cannot be extirpated before the millennium. But the era of political assassination, outrage and intimidation must cease, if we would not be irretrievably disgraced. Every citizen, no matter how poor or friendless, must be protected in the South in the exercise of his free speech and free ballot, exactly as those who fought to destroy the nation are protected in their liberty and property, their politics and persons, at the North. This era of violence on account of political opinions must cease. Twenty years ago, In Kansas, white men were threatened, outraged, murdered, because they preferred liberty to slavery. A few years later the whole South became the arena of similar violence, and you cannot have forgotten how a poor white man, who dared to defend liberty and the Union, was barreled up at Friar’s Point, Miss., and the barrel rolled into the river, that he might die the most horrid of deaths to punish him for his principles. And I need not repeat the sad stories of recent political assassinations, which, in spite of all attempts to palliate them, stand out before the world in all their wicked and inexcusable enormity. It is not my purpose to discuss the Louisiana question in any of its aspects as to whether the Kellogg administration was a de jure government, as it certainly was de facto, or whether it might not have been wiser for Congress to have ordered a new election ever wore a Ku-Klux mask, or had enjoyed the murdering of Radicals, or who had participated ill the burning of negro schoolhouses. The deeds of violence which have shocked the civilized world, and would dishonor even barbarism itself, would be multiplied ten-fold in their joy at the defeat of the power under whose restraint, exposure and punishment they' have so long and unwillingly chafed. For they have realized that whenever the arm of the State was in any way so shortened it either could not or would not defend and protect those whose votes established the three great amendments to the Constitution and have insisted that the arm of the nation should be extended to defend even the humblest or poorest of our people in the rights guaranteed by these amendments as potentially as if they were the richest or proudest of the land. It is certainly fitting that one as entirely outside, in thought or in desire, of all public life as I am should speak thus plainly. For it concerns the citizen even more than the politician. If the most friendless of all our citizens should be molested abroad because of his principles the nation would insist, through its navy and army, on adequate redress and punishment. And, on our own soil, the same citizen is entitled to the same protection. If the nation claims the right to come to your house or mine, South or Northland to compel us to enter its army, and bleed and die *for its protection, we have the light to claim the protection of the nation in all our rights of citizenship, if needed; for allegiance and protection are one and inseparable, now and forever. And the South understands right well that the party which established in the Constitution equal protection for all intends to go to the foulest extent of constitutional power in the maintenance of these rights against all enemies, open or masked, at home as well as abroad. Often during the war and during reconstruction, when sophistical appeals were made to you to vote some other ticket, I told you there was one ballot that every rebel, and the whole world besides, understood without any. explanation; that whenyou voted the Republican ticket ail mankind understood that you meant tire rebellion had to be destroyed, and. all rebel plans had to be overthrown. Again I sav to you, with equal emphasis and sincerity, if you wish unrepentant rebels to understand that the three constitutional amendments, the result of the war, must be main-

yjyjr ■ tainedand obeyed, vote the Republican ticket. If youwish them to understand that political ruffianism and assassination must cease in the South, vote the Republican ticket If you would command these political murderers to poorest -to be protected equally with the moat influential, remember that “a Republican ballot at the North may stop a White League bullet at the South.” Your solid, triumplfadl Republican voting heretofore spoke for ttaeUmon, ter liberty and for a victorious and beneficial peace more commandingly man all your oratqrs. And exactly similar Republican voting *Ol speak Jost as effectively and authoritatively for peace fc> for law and order, for perand assassination niter. And mis is your personal responsibility to-day.