Rensselaer Union, Volume 11, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 December 1878 — Revival of Seetional Issues. [ARTICLE]

Revival of Seetional Issues.

If a sectional issue arises, or has risen, it cannot be charged to the Republicans that, they have brought it about. They are dot responsible for it Their policy has been for peace. The Republican party has fought for free speech and for free ballot-boxes, and if sectional issues are brought upon the country by the conduct of the Southern people, then it will be met, because of necessity, as a matter of self-defense, and in the defense of the free institutions of the country. Then it will come, if. come it must, not fronj any desire-or movement of Republicans,, but frdtn the lawless action of the Southern people, in preventing a free exercise of the ballot in the .southern States. The recent campaign has been fought by Republicans on great National principles. The financial question—important alike in the North and South—has absorbed the attention of the Republican party. The Southern question did not enter into the campaign in the North; it was ruled out and treated as settled. Financial matters were pressed upon the people, in platforms and in speeches, with ability and spirit; but nowhere in the North was there any attempt to arouse sectional feeling. In every Northern State the financial question stood foremost with the Republicans, and the issue was pressed with unusual vigor. Was this spirit met by the South in a manner calculated to inspire harmony, and so as best to avoid sectional feeling? How was this appeal to the honesty and intelligence of the people upon a public obligation—that was not of a sectional character, but concerned the good faith and highest interests of the whole country—answered by the Southern people ? The Albany Evening Journal answers these questions-thus; “By the campaign of the rifle-clubs and the tissue-ballots in South Carolina. By the campaign of the White League in Louisiana. By breaking up Republican meetings, terrorizing Republican voters, and practically extinguishing the Republican vote. The truth is clear and indisputable. It stands out in the undeniable facts of the canvass, in the undisguised warnings and declarations of the Southern press, on the face of the figures themselves. An honest Republican majority of 80,000 in South Carolina turned into a Democratic majority of 70,000; practically no Republican vote counted at all, and the unanimity of fraud and force on the Democratic side—this itself tells the story. It needs nothing but the plain figures to show the character of the campaign. The South itself raised the Siestiou by undertaking to crush out e Republican party altogether and making a solid section through such agencies. What is the Republican party to do with this question thus forced upon it? What is the North to do? Are they to lie down under such a crusade without offering an objection or making any resistance? Are they to submit to silence while free speech and free elections are blotted out in the South? Are they to look supinely on while a South made solid by such means moves forward to the control of the Government? Neither the Republican party as an organization, nor the North as a section, raised this question; but since it-is forced upon them, we mistake the spirit and the resolution of both, if they do not meet it in a manly way and rise to all its obligations. Wisconsin State Journal.