Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 October 1885 — SOUTHERN ELECTION FRAUDS [ARTICLE]

SOUTHERN ELECTION FRAUDS

Senator John Sherman Furnishes Another Supply of Republican Doctrine. Heßesponds to Gov. Hoadly, and Shows How the Colored Vote Is Suppressed by Intimidation and Murder. Hon. John Sherman makes a rejoinder .to the recent reply of Judge Hoadly in a speech, a portion of which we herewith print. We call attention to the dignified courteous, and statesmanlike tone of Mr. Sherman's remarks, with the suggestion that its facts and conclusions can neither be answered nor set aside by cries of “bloody shirt.” t I wish to call your attention to a controversy that has been conducted at long range between Gov. Hoadly and myself, and to answer a speech he made recently at Painesville. In my speech at Mt. Gilead I said the war was over and the animosities of the war should be buried; that I would not hold the rebels resnonsible for what they did in the war, but that we could not surrender what was won by our soldiers in the war. Among the results of the war I claimed were the liberty and equal civil and political rights of all citizens, including the right to vote without discrimination as to race, color, or condition. I charged that the Demo«cratic party of the South had, by fraud and violence, deprived the six million colored citizens of the South of their civil and political rights, and had prevented those entitled by the Constitution and laws to vote, from exercising that right wherever their vote, if cast, would allect the result of the election. I said that by this organized crime the election of Cleveland was made possible, and that this condition of affairs would never be acquiesced in until every citizen could cast his legal vote and have it counted. Gov. Hoadly, at Hamilton, undertook to answer my speech, but he neither denied the charge 1 made nor made any defense of his new political associates, but said I was waving the bloody shirt, that I was preaching the doctrine of hate and alienation, and that Judge Foraker and I refused to accept the results of the war. Now to wave the bloody shirt, is considered by such new Democrats as Governor Hoadly as a mortal offense. The precise definition of what is waving the bloody shirt is not yet settled upon, but any eulogy of the achievements of the Union army, any statement of the blessing won by the civil war, and, especially, any reference to our friends over the line as rebels, is getting to be offensive to a good Democrat, especially if he is a new convert. While I have life I trust I. will have the courage to denounce the rebellion and extol the Union cause, and, therefore, to this charge of waving the bloody shirt I make no efense. but will continue to wave it as long as it is bloody, but with charity enough to forgive all the rebels did in the war, excepting only those who conspired to bring on the war. As to the other charges, I replied at Lebanon that Gov. Hoadly had evaded the issue; that I was not complaining of the results of the war, but insisting upon their observance: that the constitutional amendments, the chief results of the war, granted to the freedmen certain rights, chief of which was the right to vote; that the parole of the Confederate soldiers given to Gen. Grant required of them, as an obligation of duty and honor, to obey these conditions of peace; and that the Democratic party of the South, by crimes unnumbered, bad deprived these freedmen of the right to vote and of all political power; that the events of which I complained occurred since the war, and were a part and parcel of the Organized party policy of the Democratic party, and never had been and never would be condoned until redressed. I said I would keep this issue before Governor Hoadly as a candidate for Governor of Ohio until he either disputed or defended this enormity, and especially so as he had been with me in political faith and action in the constitutional guarantees of liberty and equality to the freedmen. And now I have before me his answer, such as it is. He says that I “seek to revive and enlist feelings 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 in the field, or in hospitals, or in Southern prisons, of their sufferings, in order that he may reap the reward in emolument and salary.” I deny it. He is the first who in this debate has referred to these cruel incidents of the war. What I claim is that many of these men who were rebels, with their party associates, deprive millions of citizens of the United States, more justly entitled to the consideration of a free people than they are, of the dearest rights of human nature Does Gov. Hoadly deny this? He does not, but states a fact which adds enormously to the offense. He says that, though the liepublican party has been in power for many years, it was unable, under the limitations of the Constitution, to prevent the atrocities I have charged. ■ Gen. Grant attempted this, and exercised to the utmost the powers he possessed over the army and navy to protect tihe freedmen of the South; but it was manifest that the force of the army at'his command was insufficient, and public sentiment would not allow the employment of military force in such numbers as was necessary to protect the freedmen of the South. Does it lessen the crime.that it remains unpunished? What the Republican party did was within the line of duty and the law. It could not furnish an effective remedy without an open renewal of the war, from which men of all parties shrank. But is the Crime committed in the name of the Democratic party the less because it was without remedy? That party was composed in the South of white men who had been rebel soldiers, or who sympathized with them, though in a minority of the legal voters in several of the Southern States, and was so strong that, aided by secret armed organizations called Ku-klux Kians and the like, they were able by terror and violence to overawe the majority of the voters, largely composed of freedmen. Appeals were made to Congress for the enforcement of the constitutional amendments. In the month of March, Is7l, General Grant, President of the United States, sent a message to Congress calling its attention to the condition of affairs in the Southern States, which, he said, rendered life and property insecure, and the carrying of the mails and the collection of the revenue dangerous. He also stated that the power to conect these evils was beyond the control of the State authorities, and that the power of the Executive of the United States, acting within the limits of existing laws, was insufficient. Thereupon Congress passed an act to enforce the provisions of the fourteenth amendment, and also appointed a joint select committee of the two houses to examine into the affairs of the late insurrectionary States. This examination is contained in thirteen volumes, and the report of the committee by Mr. Poland was made in February, 1872, upon the testimony of great multitudes of witnesses, inejndingmany of the highest officers of the army and persons in civil life. The evidence was conclusive that in the States south of Virginia anarchy prevailed, that secret armed bands committed murder and every crime known in the decalogue with a view to deprive the freedmen of civil and political rights. The courts were powerless when juries would not convict upon the clearest testimony. Every effort was made to enforce the law, but failed through the organized resistance of the Democratic party. This continued until 1875, when what is called the Mississippi plan was put into successful execution by the Democratic party in that State, with the avowed purpose of disfranchising the mass of the Republicans of that State. At th t time Gen. Ames, a man of unblemished character and honor, was Governor of the Stvte by the vote of the majority of the people. A military organization was effected in the name of the Democratic party, by which the members of that party were armed and organized, and at the day fixed for the general election they, by force and violence, in many cases accompanied by murder, seized upon the power of the State and subverted the government. This mat: er was again examined into by a committee of the Senate, and the report made by Senator Boutwell shows unmistakably that the object of their seizure was to prevent the freedmen from exercising the elective franchise, and from that day to this there has been scarcely a pretense that they can vote in that State, or, it they vote, that their vote will be counted. In the Presidential election of 1876 the Mississippi plan was adopted in all the cotton States, and the evidence taken before the returning officers of those States, after that election was over, shows that the same plan of intimidation was practiced with even more bloody results than in Mississippi, with a view to prevent the colored people from voting, but fortunately the laws of those States provided for canvassing the vote and rejecting the vote of counties or parishes where the election had been controlled by fraud and violence. In the States ot Louisiana, South Carolina, and Florida the returns ot these officers, accompanied by the testimony taken in open session, showed conclusively that but for the frauds and crimes committed these States would have been largely Republican, and that by excluding the counties and parishes where fraud or violence prevailed, 1 resident Hayes received their electoral votes.. There is not a shadow of doubt that if the election had been fair in all the cotton States they would, wifhthe possible exception ot Georgia, have voted the Republican ticket . J&ormat Hoadly, with a strange perversity

for one who has been • Republican, see* no harm or wrong in tne open deprivation of the colored voters of their franchise, and repeats again the oft-refuted story that President Hayes was declared elected by means of a fraud, whqp the only fraud or wrong committed in these States was by the Democratic party upon weak and unoffending freedmen, whom they deprived of their votes. From the day of that election there has been in all the Sontfi a practical deprivation of the colored people pf their right to vote, but instead ot violence the fraud ot tissue ballets, and a false count and return, is the common and easier mode. Gov. Hoadly insists that because the Republican party could find no remedy for pne wrongs committed upon the freedmen no wrong was committed. This does not follow. It. may be that the Republican party failed to grapple with the second rebellion of the South with the energy demanded by the gravity of the offense, but at that time the resort to extreme measures was not in harmony with public sentiment or the strong desire of the Republican party to avoid actual conflict. But, if ft erred in this respect, does it fellow that this example of the overthrow of the rights of a whole race should be forgotten and condoned? Shall the solid South, maintained by fraud and violence, be continued a controlling element in our politics? Are. we prepared to have six millions of people deprived of their constitutional rights, as a festering sore in the politic* of the future? Shall we have a population larger than that of Ireland complaining of an injustice far greater than ever was inflicted upon the Irish people? Shall the promoters of this wrong, as a reward of their crime, enjoy increased political power over an equal number ot people in the North? Shall ten thousand rebels and Democratic voters in Mississippi elect a member qf Congress when ft requires 30,000 voters in Ohio to have the same representation? Gov. Hoadly thinks nothing should b_> said about it; that we must not wound the feelings of’the men who committed ’ this grave offense; that to do so is to wave the bloody shirt and to revive the recollections of the war. He asks, as Tweed asked: “What will yon do about it?’ He, professing to be a friend of the colored men, has no remedy to offer, no* advice to give them except to vote with their former masters and the Ku-klux Klan. He thinks, as they are Kindly people, they will do so. If we can believe the testimony of every living witness who has spoken upon the subject, the colored man, if allowed to vote, will, without exception, vote with the Republican party, that has secured him his freedom, and will protect him, to the extent of its power, in his political rights. I trust that I will always have the courage to denounce the wrong that has been done him and do my part toward seeking a remedy. 5 I said at Mt. Gilead that I think an appeal should be made to the honor and good faith of the South to faithfully fulfill their parole of honor, and obey the constitutional amendments, and I, as one, would be willing to make that appeal whenever I thought it would be heard or heeded. Gov. Hoadly asks why I did not go South and try to pesuade my countrymen that it was their dnty to right the wrong. He knows as well as any one that this appeal would have been met in large portions ot the South with the shotgun. Hundreds ot brave men living in the South, with property there and interests there, have been driven from tne stand by armed ruffians, when they sought to exercise the freedom of speech. A gentleman known to Gov. Hoadly, Gen. Willard Warner, while a Senator from the State of Alabama, was prevented from speaking to his constituents by just such violence, and hundreds of Instances are shown in the public records where free discussion was accompanied by murder or wholesale violence. But I do believe that there is now in the South a feeling that the best interests of their people is that every legal voter should be allowed to vote and have his vote counted. I am encouraged in this belief by many leading citizens of the Sleuth, and by the gallant contest now being made by Gen. Mahone and John 8. Wise, In Virginia, who have made, and are now making this appeal. I believe the Republicans in the South heartily sympathize in this movement. They do not in any degree object to a Confederate holding an office of honor, trust, or profit, but only ask that he shall be willing to observe and respect the rights of others.

The Republican policy of protection to industry, free schools, and internal development and improvement, accompanied with an honest vote, and an honest count, would win favor ■with the Southern people, if only it could be presented in open discussion free from the hate and sectional feeling growing out of the civil , war. That has been the feeling in the North, and but for the interest and policy of the Democratic party in maintaining a solid South, it would prevail in Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee; while an honest election at any time, in any State south of these, except Texas, would give a Republican majority. Gov. Hoadly says that if the solid South will still deny to the colored people the right to vote, representation cannot be reduced under the fourteenth amendment, because 1 cannot point out the State law that in terms excludes them from voting. It is tor each house to judge of the election of its members. If the Constitution of the United States, which confers the right to representation's in fact disregarded by a State, or i within a State, each house will judge for itself whether members and Senators are elected according to the Constitution, and the case may arise when this will be its bounden duty. Gov. Hoadly says that the Republican party depends in Tennessee on fraudulent voting. The only evidence of this groundless statement is that the Republicans of Tennessee opposed the passage of a registry law in that State to be administered by the Democratic party. Ido not know the grounds of this opposition, but 1 can easily conceive that they do not care to leave the Democratic party the chance to practice frauds under a registry law as well as under their favorite way of a change ot the returns. A fair registry law, honestly administered, is a restraint upon fraud, but it is no restraint upon a change of ballots or a fraudulent return. Does not Gov. Hoadly know that all the historic frauds at elections from the time of the Plaquemine frauds at the election of 1886 to this time are the exclusive work of the Democratic party?