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JOURNAL AND MESSENGER
■ JOURNAL & MESSENGER.
I ’ MACON, GA., TUESDAY, OCT. 20.
■ ~~~ TsO\. JOHN QUIffCY ADAMS.
H noulli Carolina’* Welcome to Massachusetts.
■ j[ Monster Mass Meeting—Mr. Adams Ad
m dresses the White and Colored People—
ff A Masterly Speech—Pall Particulars—A
■ Warm Reception to the Distinguished
■ Visitor.
I From the Charleston Courier, 17th.
I in response to anjinvitation extended him
I by the Central Club of the Democratic
I party of Charleston, Hon. John Quincy
I Adams, of Massachusetts, arrived in the
I [ city yesterday afternoon by the South Car-
I olina Railroad. He was met at the depot
| by Mr. James M. Eason, the acting Presi-
I ! dent of the Central Committee of this city,
s and by him introduced to the Committee
of Reception, who were in attendance.
In welcoming Mr. Adams to the city,
I Hon. Henry Buist said :
Mr. Adams:— On behalf of the Com
[ mittee of gentlemen by whom lam sur
rounded, I am deputied to tender you a wel
come to our city. We were glad to learn
that you had visited our State, and are
| gratified that you have accepted the invi-
I ration extended to you, and that we shall
[ have the pleasure of presenting you to our
' fellow-citizens. They will be gratified to
hear you, not only as a distinguished son of
the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, but
because in the height of a political contest,
in the result of which they have such
deep interest, you have consented to give
them the benefit of your wise and patri
; otic counsel. And they will listen with
earnestness to what you may say, for they
desire above all things the restoration of
peace, harmony and prosperity through
out the length and breadth of our common
country.
After the mutual felicitations had been
exchanged, the distinguished visitor was
placed in an open carriage and, followed
by the committee, escorted to the Charles
ton Hotel, where a dinner had been pre
pared, and all the necessary steps taken
to provide for his comfort. In the evening
one of the largest assemblages of people
that had ever met in the city, gathered in
front of the Charleston Hotel, where had
teen erected a stand decorated in a most
tasteful style, with the American colors,
mid brilliantly illuminated. Immediate
ly m front of the stand was erected a iet
of gaslights, surmounted with globes,
bearing the word “Adams,” and the en
ratw?^ be B kage was such as
i£ ei i CoUSl^ lerable credit on the com
mittee charged with its erection.
At iia.f-past seven o’clock Mr. Adams
In the stand in com-
the Committee of Reception,
nrob nLa P i? ea ? n P e was the Bi £bal of a
we notfpo ? burst °f applause. On the stage,
iron tin ml un Joag others, the following
season 1n 1 w H X n ’ Alfred Hu ger, Jas. M.
C R Mil §* Carew , Jas. B. Campbell,
ons R ‘n 9 ’ Buist > Col * T * Y Sim:
munton W *T^ llklnson ’ Col ‘ C * H - Si-
AWiZw’te 8 - Y - Tapper, W.
and the members of thfe ?' 8 * Duryea >
motion beiuo- | ueiste and to Preside, which,
Campbell Tame f o?l mo ? sl y adopted. Mr..
cA:cnsofrl!l l iird and
“Pou me to preside* and~J°h haVe called
rendering ■th? L an V? bear my part
t/ieo/d iuetr‘onn]ito^°l |sltable welcome of
Jiua to a distinct? j tat . e of South Caro-
CommonwSuifS M d Clt zen of tbe <>l<l
• The gentleman ffMass.achusettß
- has "' llom I am here to
best purpose,, for no other than the
of our common y ? ur welfare and that
lion for the preserva-
States of America 4 wh ?r , ty >!? the United
together nriM enca| wblc h hia ancestors
hundred years°ago established nearly one
so often conferred 4 thaV Wb L ch you have
fbe singular t>h viioi hat ?°i U bave B iv en me
ibis time and II? 6 *? bein S Present at
Angular ’n U( * u P°. n this occasion. I say
I> r S and Sownf’V 8 f. are tbat the £
uity to nm .r have the opportu
those who thG Hghts of hospitalUy to
But it is t P ros P erous beyond measure.
1 make to not a vain appeal that
Isay that 261^ 3 of Charleston when
it become n betber humble or prosperous,
never to fnr? e f?i? nd ancient history,
And if von Sf n th ° 9e ri S hts of hospitality.
Will remfnrf 1 Pu rmit me t 0 g° hack, I
Q inetv-fiv 1 U nearly a century ago,
gentljmon v r nce ’ a disfcin gu iß hed
h °bored nam« “ Massachusetts, whose
evening h ai ? e ’ 1D part > our guest of this
CoQ 9ult b iinon S sh ame t 0 Bouth Carolina to
Uie colorfS? lu preservation of liberty in
came &i theU ,? f Great Britain. He
to the wa ??* ult Wlth our best men as
be broulrhf aDd , th ? m eans by which might
Wash^nn 1 } t i hat great rebellion which
ful und^n 11 ? d ’ and wtli °h was success-
Os tl,e el l e? A a dam, lon W of el<X l UeQce
with ahi Adams. He was received
i° be hi at that had already began
too? I B f“ m f ° r /l le P e ° l,le of «
Ze Q 8 thftt tHW/ nends and fellow-citi
falsifiedvLM St ? ry A BB never y et been
i 1 ter people of Boston
STT PPLBIMI3S3 IT T.
MACON, GEORGIA. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1868.
The people of South Carolina sent succor
lien to the people of Massachusetts, and
more especially to Boston. They kided
and encouraged them in that great rebel
lion of which I have just spoken, which
w ft s successful in establishing constitu
tional liberty for a time upon the Ameri
can continent.
But that my fellow-citizens, was not the
last instance of the hospitality tendered
by Charleston to the distinguished men of
the old Commonwealth of Massachusetts,
i can remember, and many who hear me
recollect that twenty years ago upon that
balcony now crowded with the intelli
gence and beauty of Charleston, the
greatest living orator of that day, who
bad been continuously in rivalry and an
tagonism to the sentiments of South Caro
lina, was received amid the plaudits of our
people. I was present and witnessed the
scene. He and the distiuguished and fa
vored son of South Carolina, who then re
ceived him in the name of the citizens of
Charleston, have gone to their account,
but their memory still lives amongst us.
I ask you then, after the lapse of two de
cades since the reception of Daniel Web
ster by Mr. Elmore upon that balcony,
that you will receive with a unanimous
welcome the descendant of that American
patriot who aided in bringing into ex
istence the American Union which has
been subverted by transient dwellers
under the decision of power.
It is true that we are the depressed and
prostrated, extending hospitality to a
stranger, but it is equally true, that
amidst humiliation and depression, the
destruction of our liberties, the overturn
ing of our constitution which we carried
into the Union, under the auspices of the
elder Adams, and now in the time of the
fourth generation of that honored name,
has been subverted. But that calamity,
my fellow-citizens, cannot detract from
your historic character.
I am sure this gentleman comes here
for.the purpose of speaking what he be
lieves, and if you will allow me to say,
what I believe to be true, lam here to
endorse what he has already said, and in
advance of what I believe he will say
again.
For the last three years it is known to
you that I have believed the policy of
<3outh Carolina, of the South, that the le>s
she be heard in the politics of the country
of Southern men and Southern ideas, the
better it would be for us, the more certain
would be the safety and deliverance of the
South. I have never hesitated so to ex
press myself, and I am here to repeat it
to-night, and upon all suitable occasions.
These opinions having been known, and
perfectly well understood, the people of
South Carolina, in what then appeared to
be their extremity of need, saw fit to con
fer uoon me the highest position known
to them or which was in their power to
confer. They sought my counsels, and it
will never be knoWn whether it would
have been better for those of couutry if the
-counsels had been acted upon. This will
be hidden forever from our view. But 1
have this to say for myself. Being in
debted for my nativity to the ancient
commonwealth qf Massachusetts, now
great, prosperous and powerful, I would
rather have it written upou my tomb
stone, not very far distant, tbat I was the
last Senator of old, free South Carolina,
than to be crowned with the highest dis
tinction and greatest power and wealth of
Massachusetts.
Having such feelings as these, inspired
and stimulated by such sentiments, I tell
you that though the gentlemen has been
opposed to us, he is now true to that whicli
is the best interests of South Carolina. If
you will listen to him, and I am sure you
will, for it has never been recorded in the
history of this old and almost prostrated
metropolis, whose powers have been trans
ferred to strangers; whose venerable judici
ary has been displaced and substituted by
men of whom the best we can say is that
they have no character, that her citizens
have never refused to listen to the voice of
the stranger.
I am sure with all this that you will
give an attentive hearing, which will
prove useful to yourselves, to our country
and to future generations, to this gentle
man from Massachusetts who has come
here to learn the truth; and more than
that, for it requires more courage to speak
that which he believes to be true.
At the conclusion of Mr. Campbell’s re
marks, Mr. Adams was led to the platform
by the Hon. Alfred Huger and Mr. James
M. Eason, and upon his appearance there
a shout that made the welkin ring,
and testified abundantly the warm wel
come with which our distinguished visitor
was greeted. Upon the cessation of the
storm of cheers, Mr. Eason introduced the
speaker, who said:
Fellow-Citizens of South Carolina:—!
‘come here to-night to speak to you, some
what appalled, I confess, by the mass of
Jaces, the mass of Carolinians, the mass of
men whom I little thought would like to
come here to listen to my voice, and to
hear what few words I have to say in re
gard to the condition of the country at the
present time.
You must remember that I come here at
no instigation of my own. In your days
prosperity, in your days of life and vitali
ty, I never came here. But the other day
when I was at home in Massachusetts,
very busily engaged with rather a small
affair of politics there, JI received a letter
you as agreeably as the remembrance of
w , lndly Presence aflfects me—from Gen.
VY ade Hampton— asking me tofeome down
Here, to come into your State without any
political purpose, to see with my own eyes,
to hear with my own ears, to observe the
state of public feeling, and when I went
back to tell it to the people of Massachu
setts. And I have come here to-night,
not to tell you anything you do not know,
not to tell you what the feeling is in Mas
sachusetts, but my object in coming to the
State of South Carolina is to find out what
you want, what you need, what you wish,
and how in the best way South Carolina
and Massachusetts can be restored to the
old fraternal relations which once united
them in the old days.
Now, my friends, a man invited to your
place, requested to come, is not placed ex
actly in the place of a man wbo comes of
his own volition, especially if he offers ad
viee, and especially if that advice be good
advice, which we all know is sometimes
the most disagreeable advice which a man
can receive. [Laughter.] Therefore, in
return for what I may say in reference to
your views, so I wish to say to you what
the feeling of the North is, what the feel
ing of the country is, and as far as I know,
what the feeling of the Northern part of
the country is.
In order that you may understand the
position in which lam placed; in order
that there may be no misunderstanding
whatever between the audience and the
speaker, I wish to tell you that in the old
days antecedent to the war I was a free
soiler; in the old days alter that I was a
member of the Republican party ; I was a
supporter of Mr. Lincoln; a supporter of
the war; an advocate, from first to last,
after the war began, for the destruction of
slavery. I had always believed that the
institution of slavery, sooner or later,
would be the destruction of the Union.
Therefore, I come before you frankly and
fairly, with the desire that you should un
derstand how I stand. Such was my po
sition up to the day the war closed. Well,
the day the war closed, the South said
we lay down in good faith our arms, we
abandon what we fought for, we insist no
longer upon the right of secession, we ac
knowledgeslavery is dead, weacknowledge
what you fought for has been achieved,
then, I said, it was time we took you at
your word. You had made up the issues
which had been decided against you, and
you were willing to abide the result; you
had played and lost, and you were willing
to submit to our terms; you wished for
peace, as I believed you had enough of
war, and only desired to be restored to the
Union under the Constitution.
I said if you ask us for this, we will
grant you ten times more than you ask.
That position, as I understand it, was the
position of Mr. Lincoln. It was the posi
tion of many or most of the best men of
the Republican party. That was all they
desired, that was the aspiration of their
hearts, a union of hearts upon that basis.
You know what followed. The first ques
tion that came up in the way of legislative
progress was what was called the thir
teenth amendment, abolishing slavery.
That was submitted to all those formerly
rebellious States, then in a peaceable and
perfectly unrebellious position. It was
submitted to each of those States, and by
each of them formally ratified. If there
was a necessity for it or not, I should say
upon no single act since the ratification of
the Constitution by the State, could I
more solemnly and gladly place my hand
and ask God’s blessing. I believe it was
the best, most wholesome, and most thor
ough medicine which this country could
take.
After that what followed ? Another
amendment came; that which was known
as the fourteenth amendment. What did
that consist of? It consisted of two parts.
One of which was that portion of it which
said, that in so far as you debar any por
tion of your people of representation, in
so far should your representation in Con
gress be decreased. I always thought that
fair and proper. But what was the other
condition upon which they insisted be
fore the first could be of any avail V It
was that the whole people of the South,
the people who had gone through the war,
who had bled in war, should disfranchise
their leaders in the camp and in the Senate;
their leaders in whom they trusted and
believed from first to last. Possibly that
may have been a wise provision. But up
on my heart, as a man of Massachusetts,
standing here in the face of this great
crowd of men, I could not in my heart
condemn one single man who would re
fuse to vote for such an atrocious proposi
tion as that. Why, to expect your meu,
for instance, who had fought in the Army
of the Potomac—or as you call it the Army
of Virginia—all through the war, to
expect you to disfranchise General Lee;
to expect you had fought in the cavalry,
to disfranchise General Wade Hampton,
was a proposition of which any set of
men should be ashamed. I was ashamed
of my owu people at the North, to offer to
a portion of the people of the United
States such a dishonorable proposition.
Well! you refused, and, in my judg
ment my friends, you could have done no
less. But what followed then ? Thus far
Congress had acted on the theory that this
matter could be closed by a constitutional
method : that if you would not do certain
constitutional things you, as States, could
not be received into the Union, but your
be fixed; that is, your rep
resentatives admitted mto Congress. That
was the theory of the North. The North
a ways held that the action of the people
or tue South was merely a rebellion of a
p ortion of the people of the United States,
and that it partook in no degree of the
character of a civil war. The position of
the South was that it had a right to se
cede, aud not only had a right to secede,
but to band themselves, after secession,
into anew and independent nation, and
that that new and independent nation
was, in all respects, the same or equal to a
nation like England or France. On the
A orthern side the war was said to be mere
ly one for the suppression of insurrection,
and on that theory we had a right to catch
you, and when we took you either keep
you or hang you. The theory of the Soutli
was that it was a war carried on upon the
same principle as if you were waging a
war with France or England. If you
took a mau he was then a prisouer, and
must be discharged after the war was over,
because such a mau was fighting for his
country. Mark how distinct was the
ground up to the rejection of the fonrtceth
amendment. The North had always,
upon its own ground, said it was a war for
the suppression of insurrection, not for
the conquests of a people. But the mo
ment you refused the fourteenth amend
ment what was done? Then came wha
was known as the Reconstruction Acts.
You were going to be reconstructed. You
were no longer good enough for the Union.
You were out of the Union, and needed
reconstruction. They swept away all your
old Constitutions, all youroldlaws; swept
away everything belonging to the old
State, and said you were no longer States
of the Union. You have become conquer
ed territories; you have been conquered
iu war. You are inhabitants conquered;
and, as conquered territories, your inhabi
tants are prisoners of war. Tbat is pre
cisely the logical position in which almost
the whole white people of the South stand
at the present time. They stand here be
fore the people of the United States as
prisoners of war.s. You have no rights.
What business have you to come here and
talk about the Constitution ? It is not
your Constitution. Y r ou rebelled against
it, and not only rebelled, but fought against
it;and became a separate nation. There
fore, you are not only alien enemies, but
prisoners of war. Tbat is the principle of
the Reconstruction Acts. They reduced
the States of the South in their present
condition to alien territories, and the con
dition of the inhabitants to that of prison
ers of war. Therefore, when I came down
here, or rather in my answer to General
Hampton, I came not down for the pur
pose of making a political speech. Now I
do not think any people in yoru position, I
mean people iu the position of General
Hampton, people who stand in his unfor
tunate position, have any sort of right to
meddle in politics. Y r ou are not citizens,
you are prisoners of war; you are alien
enemies; just as much prisoners of war as
the people of England or France would
be if taken in war. How dare you then
meddle with politics? That is not my
theory, but I say it is the theory of Con
gress exactly.
A day or two ago, while I was staying
with General Hampton, he told me a lit
tle anecdote, which entirely covers the
ground. He said he was asked to go down
and speak not many miles away, anJ he
answered in a letter, saying that he was
coming. In reply to the answer came a
letter from his little daughter, who, after
speaking of the Democratic party and he
being a member of it, said : “Dear Gen
eral, I am very glad you are coming down
to speak, as I want to see you, but I do
not like at ail you saying in your letter
that you are a Democrat, because I do not
believe you are a Democrat. You must
be, and always will be a rebel.” [Laugh
ter.] Now, it is very well to laugh, but
that little girl saw what the Congress of
the United States does not seem to see.
The whole pith of the matter lies there.
If Geueral Hampton is a rebel, and I have
been up with him some time, know how
he feels, know his intentions and desires
to the country, then I say he is just about
as much a rebel as I am, and no more.
My friends I came down here more par
ticularly to talk to the people of this
State iu regard to the practical issues
of this campaign. There are two candi
dates for us. There is General Grant on
the one hand and Mr. Seymour on the
other. Now let us look at it. As far as
the South is concerned—l meau by that
the unreconstructed and rebellious part of
the South—how does it stand? What is
their position, and what their interest?
If Mr. Seymour is elected to be President
of the United States, do not think all our
troubles are to be over in a moment. Do
not think that will settle affairs iu the
South at once. lam myself a Democrat.
I shall vote their ticket. I believe if you
are going to be carried away with the idea
that on the election of Seymour alone the
future prosperity of the country is to re
turn, you are very much mistaken. I tell
you that iu all frankness and honesty of
heart, and will tell you my reasons. Even
if this election should go for Seymour, the
people of the North in the Republic m
party will be in such an exceedingly small
minority that it will all hang upon a
thread. It will hang upou the be
havior of every one of us— upon the way
iu which every man behaves himself.
On the other hand,
is elected ? I have been up in the country