Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 September 1885 — JOHN SHERMAN’S HEPLY. [ARTICLE]

JOHN SHERMAN’S HEPLY.

The Old Wheel-Horse Makes Answer to G-ov. Hoadly’s Hamilton Speech. Violation of Oar Colored Citizens’ Bights in the Soath Plainly > Shown Up. The Ohio Governor as the Alleged Friend of the Colored Man.

A dispatch from Lebanon, 0., says that Senator Sherman spoke before a large assemblage in answer to Governor Hoadly’s speech, made at Hamilton. Mr. Sbcrman said that he always desired, in the discussion of public questions, to get directly at the issues in which, for the time being, the public took the deepest interest, and, as Governor Hoadly had undertaken in his recent speech at Hamilton to reply to some remarks made bv him at Mt. Gilead, he would call attention to some parts of Governor Hoadly's speech as the best means possible of ascertaining the position of the Democratic party in this canvass. I wish to answer Gov. Hoadly With all the respect due to his high office and his personal character and ability. I do not think he fairly maintains his reputation in his recent speech at Hamilton, but I can forgive him to some extent by reason Of his present political associations. I think he owed it to his past record, and, I believe, his‘conscientious conviction, to answer arguments rather than to evade or avoid the position of hi’s adversaries by cant phrases about the bloody shirt and the like. 1 will do what I can to see* that he shall understand distinctly the issue we present to him, and 1 hope he will meet it. In his speech he has not fairly stated my position. Upon the important issues growing out of the condition of affairs in the South, he has evaded and avoided, with the skill of a lawyer, in a way practically to admit all I claim, and this is the less excusible in him, for during the greater portion of the long struggle in respect to slavery he was a Republjcan, and agreed with me on the issues of the war. He claims to be the iriend of the colored people, but does not do them the justice to truly state the injustice done them according to his own well-considered opinions in the past. In my speech at Mount Gilead I stated that the war was over, and that 1 was willing to forgive and forget all that the rebels did in the war, and only demanded what was fairly won by the Union soldiers as the results of the war. . He agreed with me in support ng all the constitutional amendments, and all I ask, or have ever asked, is that they shall be fairly observed and enforced. Six million people were emancipated and enfranchised by the war, and the amendments made with his hearty approval, and as a result of this they were entitled to vote and were granted representation in Congress and in the Electoral College. They have been practically denied many of the nectssary incidents of liberty, among the most precious of which is the right to free discussion, and they are now disfranchised, and thus, openly and boldly, deprived of all the safeguards by which alone their liberties can be preserved. He does not deny this. If he did, then the proof is so clear upon the records that the argument between us would soon be ended. At first they were excluded from the franchise by acts ot violence, amounting in thousands of cases to murder, in the States where they were largely in the majority, but where, from their leebleness and want of discipline and organization, they were powerless to resist. By such means the Democratic party obtained absolute power, and then, though the violence became less, the disfranchisement of the colored people became absolute and complete by fraud so gross and universal that in scarcely a district in the South was there any x>reten-e of a fa t election. In some cases election districts were organized so that the negro could not vote. In others they were openly cheated and defrauded by the use of tissue ballots, and by every device which the ingenuity of crime could invent. These facts yrere over and over again admitted and justified on the ground that the white people of the South would not submit to what they chose to call “negro rule.” The result is a complete and effective disfranchisement of the colored people in every district where their votes would probably change the result. Can Governor Hoadly deny this in the face of the accumulated testimony known to him perfectly well? He does not attempt to deny it, and yet he pretends to be the friend of the colored man.

But uot only is this unjust to the colored men, but it is unjust to the white men of the North. Thirty-eight members of Congress anil of the Electoral College are based upon the six mllhonof colored people in the South. The effect of the crimes X have mentioned is to confer upon the white people of the South not only the number of votes to which they are entitled for the white population, but also the thirty-eight votes based upon the colored population, and, in this way, in some of the Southern States, every white voter possesses the political power of two white voters in the Northern States. The colored people have, practically, no voice in Congress and no voice in the Electoral College. Mr. Cleveland is now President of the United States instead of James G. Blaine by reason of these crimes. I claim that this should be corrected. An injustice so gross and palpable will, not be submitted to by the colored people of the South, nor by fair-minded white men in the South who hate wrong and injustice, nor by the great body of the Northern people, by whose sacrifices in the Union cause the war was brought to a Successful termination. It will not be submitted to, and Governor Hoadly, trom his former position, ought to be one of the first to demand and insist upon a remedy, and not avoid or belittle it by cant phrases. 1 confess there are difficulties in the way of a proper settlement. This may be brought about first by an a; peal to the .South to correct an injustice and wrong which will, as long as it lasts, tend to make our politics sectional and inspire the same resistance to the Democratic party encountered at the beginning of the war. In every State of the South there are thousands of patriotic men who feel as I do about it, and they would make their voice heard but for an aggressive and intolerant sentiment which will not even allow discussion of the subject or the formatlon of parties in the South based upon this issue. Still, this appeal has been made, And will continue to be made, in several of the States, and especially in Virginia and North Carolina. In South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana, and perhaps in other States, a fair election would at once oorrect this evil; but it will be resist'd, as a matter of course, by the dominant elements that now control the South. In Virginia and North Carolina a distinct presentation of these questions, followed by a fair election, would, as shown by the returns of the recent election, place these two powerful States upon the side of justice and right. We will, as a matter of course, be resisted by most of the lawless elements of the South and by the Democratic party in the North, which is now, as it has always been, absolutely opposed to the rights of any portion of our people where these stand in the way of their success. If the policy of the past is to be pursued, and there is no redress for the colored people of the South tor these offenses, committed under the color of State laws, then, under the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution, we may fairly appeal to all the Northern States to st nd together to reduce the representation based upop the colored vote, and on this question Governor Hoadly ought to be where he was during the war. >s, I again repeat the substance of what I said at Mt. Gilead, that the issues of the war will never end until every man in the country who by the Constitution is entitled to vote in any State shall be able freely to exercise that right, and to have his vote fairly counted, and the sympathy of every just man who has any respect for the obligations of the Constitution or of duty or honor, ought to bo on the side of the Republican party. That this question is exciting the careful consideration of reflecting men in the South is shown in the discussion of many of the Southern papers, and, very clearly, in recent articles in the Century magazine, written by Southern men. Mr. George W. Cable, in the January number of that magazine, says of the negro: - “There is scarcely one public relation of life in the South where he is not arbitrarily and unlawfully compelled to hold toward the white man the attitude of an alien, a menial, and a probable reprobate, by reason of his race and color. One of the maryels of future history will be that it was counted a small matter by a majority of our nation for six millions of people within it, made by its own decree a component part of it, to be subjected to a system of oppression so rank that nothing could make''it seem small except the fact that theyhad already been ground under for a century and a half.. * * * * * * * "Were we whites of the South to remain every way as we are and our six million blacks to give place to any sort of whites exactly their equal man for man, in mind, morals, and weal th, provided only that the v have tasted two years of American freedom, and were this same Sstem of tyrannies attempted upon them, ere would be as bloody an uprising as this continent has ever seen.” ■ * When we reflect that this gross oppression of the colored people is accompanied by inequality of the representation between the whites of the North and the South, it is easy to prophesy that the time is not far distant when both will be corrected In spite of the jeers of politicians.

The unnatural position ot the solid South, made so by crimes and violence, is now exciting the attention at conservative and business men in every Southern State. The contest now going on in Virginia is led by prominent leaders in the rebel army, and the issue distinctly made is for the eqnal political rights of all citizens and a liberal policy for the.protection and development of internal resources. Every Republican and every moderate Democrat wbo regards the Interests of his country more than the interests of his party must deeply sympathize with the men leading in this movement, though nearly all of them were Confederate soldiers. Governor Hoadly does not seem to understand the distinction between a man who openly declares that he regards Jetferson Davis as a patriot, and who favors the! Mississippi policy, and a man who is willing to acknowlege all -the results of the war, and to faithfully obey and support the constitutional amendments. Re can not understand the difference between the leaders of the Knklux Klan and such men as Key and Akerman, who did all they could to put down the Klan; between men who conspired to deprive millions of people of their constitntional rights and those who are in favor of maintaining them. Gov. Hoadly, claiming to.be a friend of the colored people, is in political association with every man who burns school-houses, murders pnoffendlng people, cheats at the ballot-box, and, by various devices, deprives colored people of their rights. He makes ho distinction between Marshal Wright, of youir town, who iriecl to prevent frauds at the ballot-box, and Mullen, the police officer who, without authority of law, arrested more than one hundred voters and kept them confined beyond the reach of habeas corpus, merely to deprive them of the fight to vote. I am willing to maintain political fellowship with every man. North or South, whatever j art he may have taken in the war, provided he will be true and ‘faithful to the constitutional 1 amendments and to : the rights of his fellow men, while Gov. Hoadly is now in political association with every man who has violated these rights. Mr. Sherman then proceeded to discuss the temperance and other questions, giving a careful review of the decisions in the liquor cases, maintaining that the Scott law was not only constitutional, but had been so declared by the Supreme Court after the fullest examination, and its reversal on a collateral point was purely a partisan decision, made to relieve the Legislature from its promises and embarrassments.