Rensselaer Union, Volume 11, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 August 1879 — Murdered for Not Being a Democrat. [ARTICLE]

Murdered for Not Being a Democrat.

A Vicksburg dispatch of yesterday says: Vicksburg, August 20.— The Yazoo County difficulty, growing out of Dixon running as independent candidate for Bneriff, has culminated in the fatal shooting of Dixon by James H. Barksdahveandklata fctr Chaaeoiy. Cleekr ...Di son rvaj. shot three times. Another telegram says: Vicksburg, Miss., August 20.—H. M. Dixon, late independent candidate for Sheriff of Yazoo County, was shot and died last evening. The affair is shrouded in mystery. We showed yesterday that Major Barksdale, Chairman of the State Democratic Committee of Mississippi, in company with Congressman Singleton, visited Yazoo County just previous to the culmination of the late difficulty, and ordered the suppression of the independent party organized under the leadership of the late Mr. Dixon. The result of that order was the assembling of the mob and the retirement of Dixon from his candidacy for the Shrievalty under threats of death. After this achievement the local paper announced that peace reigned in Yazoo County, it dia reign there precisely as peace once reigned at Warsaw. The peace enjoyed in Yazoo County was the peace of the shot-gun policy. But Dixon was not oontent with that sort of peace. He had been a bull-doggr of the most approved Democratic type for years, and he didn’t like to take his oyvn physic. Ho declared that an agreement entered into under duress was not binding, and that his agreement to retire from the Shrievalty contest was not considered binding by himself or his friends, and added:

"It was never my intention to abide b; it. and I am now free to say that I am still a candidate and will continue to be. and if elected, which I fully expect to be, I will take charge of the office upon filing my bond and oath of office, or teet my rights under the laws of the land.” i. This resolution of Dixon to resume the contest has cost him his life. He talked glibly forty-eight hours ago about “testing his rights under the laws of the land,” and now he is dead! “ Shot to death by a Democrat under orders of the State Democratic Committee of Mississippi” —this should be the verdict of the Coroner’s jury sitting on the remains of Dixon. “Rights under the laws of the land,’’indeed! There is no sffCh thing as “ the laws of the land” in the State of Mississippi! It may be vary disgraceful to the Republic, the Nation, but it is a fact nevertheless, and the people of the North hfu!"best consider how long the barbarism of the mob can be permitted to reign in Mississippi without communicating its poiflpn to every part of the body politic. Tfce l)emo-

cratic leader* of Mississippi ordered the Democrats of Yazoo County to raise a mob and suppress Dixon as a candidate for Sheriff. The mob assembled with shot-guns and said: “ Dixon, retire from the canvass or we'll shoot you!” Dixon at first refused, but his wife and six children needed him, and, as the mob numbered six hundred and only one man in Ya-' zoo County offered to stand by him, he surrendered. Then Major Barksdale issued a circular ‘declaring that the campaign of 1879 should be conducted as those «of 1875, 1876 and 1877 were conducted,-namely: under the shot-gun policy. In a word, Major Barksdale directed the suppression of such independent parties as should be organized in any of the counties by Mississippi mobs! We wish it to be distinctly understood that Major Barksdale, Chairman of the Democratic State Committee, speaking for the Democratic party of Mississippi, decreed the shooting of Dixon simply because he dared to become a candidate for office against the regular Demo-Confederate organization! And wo go further and say that the Democratic leaders of the North arc responsible for the assassination of Dixon! Here is an assassination inspired by the Democratic leaders, not of Yazoo County, but of the StaWof Mississippi. The foul deed is committed in the interest of a “-Solid South”; and the Northern wing of the Democratic party calculates upon holding the South solid by this means —assassination. Abolish terrorism throughout the South and several Southern States arc sure to go Republican. It follows that the Northern wing of the Democratic party consents to murder in order to win a party victory at the polls! How do you like to wear this brand of infamy—how do you like it, respectable democratsP There is a campaign in progress in the State of Ohio. Speakers—Democrats—from all parts of the North will participate in that campaign. What have you got to say, gentlemen, about this fiendish mtirder, instigated by the Democratic Committee of Mississippi! Dare you defend it? Dare you attempt to explain it? You, General Ewing; what do you think of shot-gun campaigning? What do you, once a brave soldier, now acting with that party, think of a Democratic State Committee ordering the assembling of a mob to threaten a candidate for office with death, and finally when he refuses to retire, ordering an assassin to sneak upon his tracks in the dark and shoot him dead! But we care not what Northern Democratic office-seekers and speakers think of the'Mississippi plan. We appeal from them to Democratic citizens, who love their country and hate cowards and assassins, even though Jhey wear the livery of the Democratic party management. They, as we, know that the shot-gun policy must be abolished in Mississippi as well as id Illinois, even though we have to fight for it!— Chicago Tribune, August 21.