Rensselaer Union, Volume 11, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 August 1879 — The Yazoo Mob Ordered by the Democratic Party. [ARTICLE]

The Yazoo Mob Ordered by the Democratic Party.

The more the Yazoo County (Miss.) mob is probed the more odious it becomes. It was hideous enough as a mere exhibition of violence on the part of the Democrats of a county famous for its record of bull-dozing. If it shall appear that the mob was actually instigated by leading Democratic politicians of the State, with a view to keep Mississippi “solid,” it will present an infinitely more hideous aspect. A New York Tribune correspondent charges this to be the fact. He says that Congressman Singleton and Major Barksdale, Chairman of the State Democratic Committee, visited Yazoo County and held a consultation with the local Democratic leaders. He says further: “ They represented to those leaders that it would never do to allow an independent j;arty to be formed in Yazoo; that it must be nipped in the bud; and that Yazoo and all Mississippi must be kept "solid.' Not many days passed before the advice eiven bore fruit in the Ynzoo uprising. On his return to Jackson. Chairman Barksdale issued a circular to the ' Democratic Conservative party’ of Mississippi, the concluding paragraph of which reads as follows: "Believed from the menece of organized opposition. majorities are apt to become indifferent in the maintenance of their own organization, and to divide among.themselves. It should be remembered that the reforms which lis.ve been inaugurated can be perfected and carried out only by a rigid adherence to the discipline and observance of the methods by which the victories of 1875, ’76 and ’77 were won!’ ’’ If this statement is true, and there is every reason to believe and none to doubt it, the mob-spirit was inspired by the ollicial representatives of the Democratic party of Mississippi. The Chairman of the Democratic State Committee, supported by a Democratic Congressman, goes to Yazoo County, holds a consultation with the local Democratic leaders, and ordets for the formation of the mob arc deliberately issued. In a few days the mob assembles and - forces Dixon, the Independent candidate for Sheriff, to retire from the canvass. Then follows the circular to the “ Democratic Con-

servative (?) party of in which Major Barksdale, the official head of the Democratic party, uses such language as would bo appropriate in the address of a General to his troops after a successful engagement. He defines the nature of the campaign to be oarried on—defines it so clearly as to leave no doubt that the shot-gun policy is to be continued. He actually says that “the methods by which the victories of 1875, ’76 and ’77 were won” are to be pursued “ rigidly.” Wo all know what those methods were. They were comprised in a single word “bulldozing” mobs, bangings, shootings, terrorism, intimidation upon the ballotboxes. The* Democratic party of Mississippi throws | off its mask. It declares through the Chairman of its State Committee that “ Yazoo and all Mississippi must be kept solid”! And by the side of Major Barksdaie, supporting and countenancing his threat against the freedom of suffrage, stands a Democratic Congressman! Mr. Singleton is it democratic lawmaker, but he coolly advises the local Democratic leaders of Yazoo County to defy all law, to crush out by mob violence freedom of speech and political action in a county of his district! All this is monstrous, infamous! But there as only one Democratic paper in Mississippi possessing honor and moral courage enough to protest against the infamous proceeding. That paper is the Vicksburg Herald. - It has taken a manly course, but it has also paid the penalty. At a “called’ meeting” of the democratic citizens of Yazoo County j* resolution was adopted wherein the I/eraW was denounced as “an enemy to the community.” 'ipia claimed by Northern Democrats that the Okolona States does not represent Southern sentiment. Dr. MfcKown, of Areola, 111,, with whom tbp Tribune lately had some controversy on the subject of the patriotism and political vir-, tne of the Southern wing of the Democratic party, treated with well-si miniated scorn the claim that the Okolona states represents anybody, put the

yozoo mob followed tie teaching ofthe Okolona State* newspaper, and the citizens of Yazoo County in public* meeting assembled havo repudiate* the teaching of tlio Vicksburg Herald. And, as the mob was inspired by the Chairman of the Democratic State Committee, it may be presumed that the repudiation of the tier aid was inspired by the same authority. It may be fairly charged that the Democratic leadership of the country, North as well as South, sympathizes with the acts of the Yazoo Democratic mob. They propose to carry the Presidential election by bulldozing and fraud at the South, and by wholesale bribery and ballot-box stuffing at the North. They have opened tneir preliminary campaign in Ohio on this plan. It is confidently stated that Tilden has engaged to purchase the election of General Ewing. It would seem that a great political party, for the second time in the history of the country, deliberately proposes to buy and force its way to supreme power—to buy and ballot-box-stuff its way at the North, and force and shoot its way at the South! We call the attention of the people of the country to this startling fact. What will free government be worth w'hen its control shall have been secured by such means? We ask the question in all seriousness. How long is the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution likely to stand as a bar against the payment of Rebel pensions, Rebel claims, and the Rebel debt after the Demo-Confed alliance shall have obtained power to reorganize the Supreme Court? Is it likely to be less scrupulous about accomplishing its purposes through the Supreme Court than it is through the agency of mobs at the South?— Chicago Tribune.