Rensselaer Union, Volume 5, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 September 1872 — Col. Geo. W. Carter’s Speech. [ARTICLE]

Col. Geo. W. Carter’s Speech.

One Col. Geo. W. Carter, of Louisiana, was posted to speak in Rensselaer on Tuesday uflcrnoon of this week. lie was advertised ajs a Liberal Republican, and the Secretary of the Indiana Confederate central committee wrote that he was one of “our most electrical speakers,” and urged the rallying of a large crowd to hear him. Hut lie didn’t come, and not a very large crowd assembled. The day was not pleasant—rain was threatened —and the Democracy' of Jasper comity do ridt seem to “cat crow” with a very good relish unless the sun shines "brightly an d all the surroundings of nature are in smiling and persuasive mood. However, some may have bee n dis appointed, .and as wejuui-will-rng"”tb™do' what

we can to alleviate the poignancy of their distress, we publish for their benefit a speech delivered by “Col. Geo. W. Carter,of Louisiana” in the Philadelphia convention last June, he representing his State as a delegate at large. On page 29 of the published proceedings of that convention it is reported that "Colonel George W. t’arter then proceeded upon the platform ami spoke, as follows: , “Mr. President and Gmthmen of the Convention: I appreciate your desire to hear something of the Republican candidates from a Confederate, who believed he was right, although a speech from me at this time may not be very appropriate. lam an ex-Confederate soldier who needed reconstruction, and if I am any judge in the matter, 1 believe that 1 have been reconstructed. I came out of tbe war with onlytwo planks in my platform. One was from the Democratic platform, which was, if I could not get what 1 wanted to take what I could get. The other was a philosophical plank, tcThave iio prejudices, and that a whipped man was not entitled to his prejudices, I think I am a type of the men who fought honestly and got whipped squarely on that question. We have come through the war, and have learned lessons which we think will be valuable., I think our people down there are learning. One of the lessons we have learned is this, that the will of the American people is to be respected, "The Hollander was our type of the revolutionist. We have now taken the French type, that when we get whipped, if the country won’t follow us we will follow it. We came out of the war with that purpose, and- you will find it in the South to-day In the Presidential election approaching, Grant and Greeley, the Southern people who were honest in their convictions, and have abandoned their abstractions as far as they entered Into the fight, prefer an honest, practical man, who makes them behave themselves. They prefer a man who does not cry over them as they weep over their distresses, but tells them they must work if they 7 would be happy; that the true remedy for the evils under which they labor is to go to work and adjust themselves to the condition of the country as they find it iuTheir new relations. I believe to-day if the Democrats endorse Mr. Greeley, Ueueral Grant will get more straight Democratic votes than Greeley will in Louisiana.”