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WfteMjt p««j M&
fthASTkj GEORGIA, SEPTEMBER 7
RECONSTRUCTION.
SPEECH OP
HON. AMOS T. AKKKMAN.
Attorney-General of tlie United Statea,
Delivered in BeprMeatatiTee Han. Atlanta, Sept. 1.1*70.
On the Issues of the Day.
TUc Doctrine of “State Rights,” as pro-
mnlgntcd by the “ Democracy,” An
tagonistic to the Government.
The Relations between the State and Fed'
oral Government.
The Rights of Hen paramount to the
Rights of States.
Reported ftr Uic Atlaata Sew Em by. John w. TVlleou
end H. ft Comou.
Mr. Chairman, and Fellow CHizeiu : An ob
server in tho Southern States sees somo re
markable things. He finds about him every
evidence of material prosperity. He finds
general health prevailing in this port of the
world Providence has sent ns sunshine and
showers, and the earth is priding her abund
ant increase. All branches of labor are well
rewarded, capital is increasing, all the other
things which men usually consider desirable,
seem to be found within our limits. Thera is
liberty of friendship; then is liberty of scien
tific investigation; there is liberty of political
investigation; there is liberty, if that be a
precious thing, to oppose one's government,
(and it is a liberty of which many of onr fel
low-citizens avail themselvesl: there is liberty
9f speech
ite Conven-
: all thi
-all this
apparent prosperity, notwithstanding all this
ennse of satisfaction by man with his lot and
of thankfulness to Providence, we hear from
all parts of onr Southern country the voice of
murmuring and of complain! Many of onr
fellow citizens, otherwise worthy, seem per
sistently bent on making themselves unhappy,
and endsevor to impress all their neighbors
with the same degree of nntmpphicss. They
complain that something is going on that is
wrong. They are asked what the wrong is. Is
it in material things? No. Has Providence
been ungracious to yon ? No. Are you not
permitted to go through your respective call
ings from day to day, and to sleep sweetly
night after night when you have earned that
nocturnal sleep by healthy labor, or by propor
attention to yonr dauy pursuits?. Yes.
What is there that disturbs you?—
Some (a few yean ago it may have been
many now, I am informed, and I sincerely
trust it is true, that there are few), may givo
as the ground of thoir uneasiness that they
ore fearful of violent visitation by lawless
men during the dark honrs of night, but these
are not tho ones who murmur. Thuuo who
murmur seem to beta tbo enjoyment of almost
all worldly blessings, dost yonr eye over the
world and compare yonr own State of Geor
gia with other parts of this globe, and tell me
where yon find one million of people inhibit
ing contiguous territory who are at this me-
'incut in the epjoyment of more sources of
comfort and of happiness ? The wastes of war
ore repaired in a great measure, so tar as they
are reparable hero on earth. The cities
are growing up, our agriculture is
assuming its ancient prosperity. The
,’jreat mass of oar people are well
led and well clothed, and considering the
mildness of onr climate they are well housed.
There is bat little pauperism, bat little of
distressing poverty, aud
WHY IS THIS LAMENTATION ?
We are told that the government is not
serving its people right. We are told that
tho general government has been oppressive;
that the State government hpa been op
pressive; that corruption prevails at Washing
ton; that corruption prevails at Atlanta, and
there ore people who have worked them
selves into a passion on aoconnt of these
evils, whether they be real oi imaginary. To
me these oomplaiiita are not new. As tar
lock ss my memory goes there has always
boon an administration at Washington and
a Stats administration at some point in
Georgia, and there hot always boen com
plaint by a portion of the citizens that
there was oppression and corruption at
Washington, at MiUedgeville, or wherever the
Capitol of the State might be. I am disposed
to believe that there is a chronic complaint by
certain classes of oar citizens certain
other classes of onr citizens. Indeed, I have
may be the coso elsewhere, the
greater part of the votes that will be cost in
the Southern States this autumn, will express
the sentiments of the voters on the subject of
reconstruction, which includes the lateConsti-
d amendments, and all kindred matters.
it in wo mV ports of the country is estab
lished, and laid np among fundamental rights,
is here in controversy. Among ns, there is
little discussion of free trade or protection, of
heavy, or light taxation, of needy or deferred
payment of the pablic debt, of a huge or
email public expenditure, of neutrality or
intervention, of the repeal or maintenance of
the navigation laws, of the enlargement of car
territory or adherence to present limits. The
opinions of onr citizens on these matters will
not control their votes. Upon the reoord, so
tar as the record is made up Ire the Democrats,
the controversy is about State Rights. In fact,
the controversy is in part about State Rights,
(so-called,) and in part about human rights—
the asserted right of a State to overrate the
national authority, to discriminate in politioal
rank between the races that compose its own
people; the right of a man otherwise qualified
to pursue any lawful business, to contract, to
testify, to sue, to vote, to hold office, to be
educated, without regard to nee, color or pre
vious condition of servitude; and to do these
things under the protection of law, notwith
standing tho adverse humors of those bodies
politic called States There is, too, an element
the contest which onght to be obsolete, bnt
unhappily is not Many a vote will be given
for Democratic caudnlaiea from resentment
against the power that prevailed in thewnr
and crowned its suet- . ! v car.-iag the eman
cipation of slaves. Though this feeling is
weaker than it was two years ago, it has not
yet disappeared from onr Southern country.
In s great measure, then, the controversy is
between the spirit of the late Confederacy and
the spirit of the Union.
The Republicans take the side of the Union.
Some of ns adhered to the Confederacy, but
when it fell we gave it up wholly. We thought
that honor required us, when we surrendered,
to Bartender all that had been involved in the
contest When we submitted to the national
authority, after the temporary alienation, wo
carried back to that authority onr allegiance,
onr attachments and oar patriotic devotion.
We resolved that even if onr submission to it
had bean from neoesaity, we would henceforth
be faithful to It from ehoice. We thought
that so tremendous a war should settle some
thing ; and conceiving that it had established
onion and liberty, wo took union and liberty
with all their comeqnenees. Hence we have
no hankerings after a separate government,
alter apolity with slavery for a corner stone,
the domination of master over slave, of
the white rabe over the colored'race.
given it up os a hopeless task'ever to bring
- those who are oat of offloe to be satisfied with
the demeanor of those who are in. (Applause
and laughter.) There wasoomplaint at an
early period. In the days of Washington
there were charges of oppression and corrup
tion against the government over which ns
presided, and daring the administrations of
all his successors those charges have been re-
iieated, and no doubt, in many coses,* honestly
ltelieved. The same complaint has been made
of all State administrations with which I have
any acquaintance. Is there anything peculiar
in onr circumstances? In Older to present
those distinctly it is nccessaiy that I should
recur briefly to
OUR RECENT POUTICAI. HISTORY.
At the close of the late war, two momentous
questions were in the minds of the Southern
people. First, What should be our relations
to the Government of the United States; Sec
ond, What should be the political relations bo-
tween those ot our own people who had always
been free and those who had just become free.
Before these questions could be answered.
right of settling thaw relations belonged.
This preliminary question was soon practically
answered. The Government of the United
States assumed the task of reconstruction ;
and reconstruction, in effect, involves onr
litical relations to the United States and
political relations between the different classes
of onr own people. A few found toe authori
ty for this assumption by the General Govern
ment in its right ns a conqueror. Many found
that authority ta its doty to guaranty Rcpnb-
lican Governments to the States. At first, bat
few persons of any consideration denied .this
authority to the General Government Oar
State Rights politicians raised no objection
when President Johnson directed the call of
State Conventions and prescribed the qualifi
cations of members and constituents, enfran
chising those whom ho chose to.enfranchise,
and disfranchising those whom he chose to
disfranchise.
Such politicians contentedly sat in the con
vention thus called and obediently voted to
conform to the directions Which the President
from time to time transmitted. Such ]»li-
ticians accepted office in the State Govern
ments formed by those Conventions, and Rood
ready to take seats in Congress, by virtse of
elections under those governments, and all
without the least disturbance to their tender
consciences from State
The raleartHdi -tart- bbSMiifeti -under that
reconstruction,,was that no man should suffer
political disabilities for participation in the
rebellion,' and (fast fbe emancipated
should have no political rights.
This reconstruction tailed. A grave Con
stitutional question agitated the country; not
a question between the National Government
and tbo States, bnt between different depart
ments of the National, Government, One
party contended that the President bad as
sumed unlawful powers in tho matter of re
construction; that when the government is
charged with a duty ta its nature requiring a‘
law, that law must be enacted by the Legisla
ture and not by the Executive in tho form of a
proclamation. This party prevailed, and pro
vided by law in 18117, for the reconstrnetion of
the Southern States.
The roles of this latter reconstruction were
that certain classes of political offenders should
lie disqualified for office until relieved, and that'
the emancipated class should have the some
civil and political rights as other citizens.
-•state rights. "
When these rules weisannonnced, the genius
of State Rights awoke from its slumber. As
sumptions of unauthorized power by a Presi
dent bad passed uncensured. But assump
tions of power by Congress, precisely the same
in principle, and folly warranted by the
Constitution, were received with a cry
that alarmed the land. There was danger now
to the rights of the States. Aa soon as some
gentlemen were ta danger of losing a prsecrip-
tivo right to office and the colored man
IUU OUV7CM1UUIBL VI lOUl, UCUili 1U I
political forum, and flowed fluently from 1
mouth of the'oenatcvaltae of 1SC7, who v
I likely to „l:aro in the government of his coun
try, 'the light of ilie Statergiea 1 iiwtasusin
1 the eves of our Dcinociatjtttaflspjtiwyta The
cant—to be respectful, I will constrain myself
j to say, the reasoning—of tho nnllificr o[-~1833,
of the Southern Rights man of 1850, and of
the Secessionist of 1861, was again heard in the
- -- -■» - - n,,,
was
soon transformed into the Democrat oi 1868.
This interest in State -Rights, thus re
tired l,y two notablo circumstances—
the depression of the old politician
and '■■■• vliwatiou of the. "colored man—is
■Ml (refused by our DemocreHe friends, and
they assert that the doctrine of State Rights is
the prihw'dsjtai at their -creed. They $nd
fault in Congressional reconstrnetion, became
it has denied office to tho old politicians when
unrelieved; because it has established the
political equality of the colored men, and be
cause, os they say, it has encroached on the
rights of the States.
the nsrcnniCAS! rARir
Confronts than, and is .bound to meet them
in the coming campaign upon all the issues
which are really, involved. I say really in
volved, for we are under no obligations to con
sider questions which exist only in Democratic
■•stats sights
Somo of os were tumble to command any
admiration for the doctrine of State Rights,
when we saw it reduced to practice in a State
Rights Government, so-called. We were prom
ised wealth, and we found poverty. We were
promised liberty, and we experienced tyranny.
At this day we have a reminiscent horror of
Confederate conscription, of impressment, of
enormous taxation, of discrimination in tavor
of the most prosperous classes of society, of
a depreciated cutrency, swarms of useless mili
tary dandies lounging nbout onr towns and
cities, and upbraiding the people lor not en
gaging more heartily in a cause, from the
lordships of which they were themselves un
fairly exempted, of military guards ta every
railroad car, of the necessity of parere when
ever a man left bis neighborhood, of arbitrary
and causeless arrests.
These memories do not endear to ns the
State Rights doctrine. We cannot embrace it
in tho Confederate sense, and we cannot see
that it is much modified or improved in the
Democratic sense, ta which it re-appeare
amongst ns. (Applause.) What is it ta the
Democratic sense? I have a definite con
ception of it no lor ms Democracy
is identical with the doctrines upon which
the late Confederacy was founded, for those
doctrines were intelligible and. distinct It
was one of those doctrines that the American
nationality is represented by the government
that is seated at the capital of a State, and
not by the government that is seated in Ibc
capiiol of the nation. It was one of those
doctrines that whenever the people of any
State choose to be dissatisfied with the
general government, or their sister States, they
rare a right to dissolve the connection and
throw, at their own will and pleasure, a whole
oontinont into confusion; it was a dootriuo of
some,though injustice I should say not all,
that any State has a right, whenever it
chooses, to enjoy all the blessings, and at the
same time reject all the burdens of the gov
ernment to which it professes to belong. Some
ofonr democratic friends tell ns that they have
abandoned some of these doctrines. They
tell us they have abandoned secession, tor the
war has crashed secession Bnt they tell you
that they still adhere to every particle of the
doctrine of State Rights except the doctrine of
secession. They keep the tree, root, stem,
branch and all; and say that this terrible war
has merely lopped off one of the fruits that
I pew on that tree. The difference between
i hem and ns is this: We do not quarrel so
much with the fruit as we do with the tree that
bore the fruit We do not quarrel ao much
with one consequence ns we did with the gen
eral cause from which oil these pernicious
consequences flow. But utaUradr exact
I have watched carefully to M if .our Dem
ocratic friends have any definite ideas of State
Rights which they are willing explicitly to tell
totimpSbple, andnp. :i vbnh ii.
to go distinctly before the people, and have
watched ta vain. There is a vague talk about
State Rights, the some sort of talk that we
have heard over forty years, but it is hard to
find oat what they mean by it Recently
there assembled ta this Hall a num
ber of gentlemen who were styled i
democratic stats contention or Georgia.
Those gentlemen submitted to the remarkable
constraint of silence. (Laughter.) They.laid
before the people what they called a platform.
That platform is before me. I have bestowed
upon it a careful study, and will venture, not
npon a criticism of it, but to ask some
questions os to its iheaning, and suggest to
yon ss a profitable exercise, one that is calcu
lated to quicken the mental faculties, a simi
lar investigation, and if yon succeed in find
ing out definitely and practically what it
means, you will have accomplished au intel
lectual teat that ought to give you prompt ad
mission to any college in the land. (Laugh
ter) AU 'those who ore able to perform that
foot wfll stand the test of any competitive ex
amination- far political skill which may
be imposed anywhere on earth.
•'Resolved, That the Democratic party of
the State of Georgia stand npon the principles
of the Democratic party of the Union.” What
are they? There is a parallel to this in what
is said to be a Hindoo legend. According to
the cosmogony of the priests of the oriental
country the earth came into being in some mys
terious way ages upon ages ago, and the world
rests upon the book of an elephant, and the
elephant upon the back of a tortoise; but what
does the tortoise stand npon? Aha, there it
tails, there is the end of the chain, and it ends
ta nothing. Tbe Democratic party of Georgia
stands on the bock of the Democratic party of
the Union, and that, like the tortoise, studs
on nothing. (Applause and laughter.) Let
ua go on. “Bringing intosperial promineace
ms applicable to the present extraordinary con
dition of the country, tbe unchangeable doc
trine that this is a union of the States, and
the indestructibility of the States and of their
rights and of their equality with each other, is
an indispensable part ofour political system."
“And the indestructibQity of tbe States is au
indispensable part of onr political system.'
That language is not original with the Demo
crats of Georgia; they quote the distinguished
Chief Justice of the United States, and as far
as grammatical propriety would allow, have
adopted language which ho has lately
used in a judical decision. But they have
left ont something. The Chief Justice’s ut
terances contained two propositions. The ut
terance of tho Democracy of
duces ono of them and omits the other. Says
Chief Justice Chase: “This is an indestrueti-
blo union of indestructible States.” We hear
from the Democracy or Georgia that the States
are indestructible, but. they don't tell us that
the Union is indestructible. That omission
was not ■iiMAiM'MBta^|kltjjli« Aha
tendency and bearing of these gentlemen so
for as they dare to cxprcstl it Tho indestruc
tibility of the States is prominently presented,
snd the indestructibility of the Union is care
fully omitted when they quote the learnod
Chief Justice’s language. Bat there is'some
thing more. The indestructibility of the
States is one of those doctrines which are to be
brought into special prominence, and their
equality with each other is another; and here
I confess that I am perplexed. The States
ore declared to be equal with each other. How
are they equal? Tho equality of the States is
no new phrase. We heard it 20 years ago, and
then it nod an appUehflbn which meant some
thing. Then it meant that a citizen of any
one of the States had, in all the territories of
the United States, the rights of property that
he had in the limits of his own State: That
definition of the phrase is entirely obsolete
now. It does not fit these times. Then tell
me in what other sense the States are equal to
each other?
“the equality or the states!’’
The word "State” is sometimes used ta a
geographical sense. I can hardly suppose that
our Democratic friends, when they toed this
phrase, were talking geography, and meant to
assert that Delaware is geographically equal to
Missouri. How, then, areStptesequal? Per
haps some will say they are'politically equal;
And what do you mean by that ? - Look at the
ports that States play in onr complex form of
government: In one place they are politically
equal ta representation ta the United States
Senate. They ore not equal in represent
ation in the House of Representatives;
they are not eqnal in voting for President We
have no controversy with the Democrats in re
gard to equal representation in the Senate, bnt
I will remind them that there is one politician
in the United States who. for about eighteen
yean, on every fit occasion, has been com
plaining of that equality. There is one gentle
man, and an eloquent and distinguished one,
too, who has not missed on opportunity of con
trasting tbe equal representation of little
Rhode Island with the eqnal representation of
great New York; and that politician is Horatio
Seymour, who, two yean ago, was the candi
date of these very Democratic gentlemen, for
ths Presidency of the United States. [Applause
and laughter.) I know of no man wno im
pugns the doctrine of the equality of States in
the place where they are made constitutionally
equal, except Horatio Seymour, and if our
Democratic friends choose to make war upon
him I will observe tbe strictest neutrality in
tbe contest [Applause and laughter. ]
Equality is a favorite word with our Dem-
ic friends, but when they come
apply it, (hey and we differ.
They insist on equality of States, and we in
sist on the political equality of the men who
make the States. (Applause.) States ore col
lections of men in oertain prescribed limits.
Wo say that oil men stand eqnal before the
law when they have not forfeited that equality
by their own misconduct Oar Democratic
friends say men are not equal, but a number
of men put together ta one territory are equal
to a very different uambor of men put to
gether ta another territory. The individuals
are unequal, but when they ora grouped to
gether in these corporations, no matter how
unequal iu number they may be, then the cor
porations become equal! Now we do not re
gard that corporation,colled the State, as near
ly so valuablo as the elements of which it is
composed. We value the States. We agree
with Judge Chase and the Democratic party,
that they ore indestructible. We agree that,
under oar political system. States cannot be
wiped out We know that the structure of
the General Government requires that there
should be States. At tbe same time we ore
not ao very careful of the rights of these cor
porations made np of individuals as we are of
the
BIGOTS OF THS INDIVIDUALS
that make them np. The State ta
its highest sense is you, and I,
and onr neighbors; it is all of us, all
of those people who have the right of citizen
ship here within onr territory, and those peo
ple ore more valuable than the corporation
which they constitute. We would preserve the
States; we wonld preserve the rights of the
States, because those rights ore the means of
enforcing the rights of men. States do not
exist for their own convenience; States exist
for the advantage of the people who inhabit
them, and in any conflict between the imagin
ed interest of the corporation and the real in
terest of the people who compose it, we ore
on the side of tbe people.
Equality and liberty! Some gentlemen la
ment that there is a wont of liberty. We have
heard the cry of liberty in this country
year after year, and never so loudly as
ta 1860 and 1861, and what was
tbe kind of liberty they then wonted? What
is the kind of liberty that I am very apprehen
sive some of our fellow-citizens in their hearts
desire now ? Why, they want the liberty of
denying liberty to other men. [Applause.]
Some of the citizens of this State have seen a
cheering omen of an improved state of affairs
in the proceedings of this Democratic Conven
tion. Their resolutions, it is said, were some
what less fierce than they had been; and of
talk they had almost none. I am unable to
participate in this satisfaction. In that Con
vention I leam that great constraint was used'
to silence the unruly member. I see in this
not an increase of patriotism, notion increase
of wisdom, not on abandonment of post
errors, not a pledge of future reforma
tion, but an increoae of conning, and
a practical confession of the necessity of con
cealing the abandonee of the heart out of
which the mouth speaks.
SPEECH DANGEROUS.
When men know that nothing can
be said except what ought not to be
said, they are very wise in imposing
silence; bnt when they imposed that silence
they implied that speech would be unwise;
(applause) they implied that speech wonld be
dangerous; they implied that they have some
thing in their hearts which tho world onght
not to know, and, therefore, it is unsafe to
let it out [Applause and laughter). And, now,
ray Democratic friends, if you have in your
hearts any hatred to the United States Gov
ernment, have the manhood to let it ont
[Applause]. If you have in yonr hearts any
hatred to the Northern section of the country,
have the manhood to let it ont If yon have
ta yonr hearts a disposition to tyrannize over
the class lately emancipated in your
section, have the manhood to
let it ont [Applause.] If y on have it in yonr
hearts to disown the authority of the recent
■nmrlmamta to tho Constitution of the United
States, have the manhood to let it out [Ap
plause and laughter.] Whatever there is in
you of political wish, be it good, be it bad, be
it indifferent, have the manhood to let it ont
If it is good, you onght to let it out, and be
proud of it If ife is indifferent yon ought to
let it oat without much concern. If it is bad,
you ought to let it out and then be ashamed
of it and repent of it [Great applause and
laughter.]
Bnt there teas not perfect silence. Accord
ing to the newspapers of the day, the gentle
man who presided over the convention
thought proper to make a few remarks. These
remarks were very deliberate; they show pre
meditation; they show circumspection; they
give important admonition to his convention
that they shoold hold their tongues. But, at
the same time, he could not hold his own,
[laughter] and be let ont some things which
have a meaning and deserve a commentary.
“We have waited many weary months with
the expectation that a day might dawn when
Georgia would have some hope of a future
destiny brighter than has been foreshadowed
by the measures of the post You can bear
witness, gentlemen, coming, as yon do, from
various ports of the State of Georgia, with
what patience oar people have pursued the
ordinary avocations of life in the midst of
wrongs that havo been unheard of ta the his
tory of any nation. They have borne it all
patiently; they have observed good order;
they have obeyed the law; they have
preserved peace ta the various counties. You
can bear witness to these things in the midst
of wrongs that have been practiced npon
them, and attempted usurpations that wonld
bring tbe blnsh of shame to any honorable
cheek.”
UNHEARD OT WRONGS.
We ought to pause npon that! “Wrongs
that are unheard of ta the history of any peo
ple.” What are the wrongs that the members
of that Convention have suffered? They have
had losses, lasses of friends and relatives near
and dear, and losses of property. Those
were losses by war. Did Ihsy not voluntarily
go into that war? Did they not voluntarily
attempt to dismember this Union, and has it
not been the history of man from
the beginning of tho world till now, that
no' nation is ever dismembered without a war?
Did they not, ta tact, challenge the people of
the other part of the country to a war, and to
a war about State rights ana the right to hold
men ta slavery ? And when that gage was
taken up, and the war was waged, and they
failed, they ought not to complain if they have
hod to pay a port of the forfeiture. [Applause.]
I say apart of the forfeiture. They have not had
to pay all the forfeiture and the usual for-
feiture under circumstances of that kind. Tell
mo when before in the history of political rev
olutions, or ofattempted revolutions, the'pre-
vailing party never took a life for treason. The
law of revolutions is well known. Whenever
men undertake a revolution they, by that un
dertaking, agree to stand as heroes
if they are successful, and to stand
rebels and traitors if they
unsuccessful. Washington was the leader of
one revolution. He was successful, and stands
in history os a hero. U he had failed, he
wonld have stood in law as a traitor, and, if
captured, would havo suffered a traitor’s doom.
I do not say that right is always made by
might, but I do say that might mokes low, at
least the law of revolutions. The law of the
United States declared it treason, and made it
penal for a citizen to wage war against the
United States. " According to the theory of the
prevailing party, the very gentleman
who delivered that address was, in
law, on insurgent and a- traitor.
Has he ever been imprisoned as a traitor?
Has he been tried os a traitor? Has
he ever been condemned ns a traitor?
Has he ever been hung as a traitor? No, he
has not, and I am glad that he has not; but I
think, after having escaped that fete which ho
himself invited, it ill becomes him to raise a
lamentation about wrongs and suffering from
the government I venture to say that there
has never been a better dressed, a better fed
and more comfortable set of gentlemen assem
bled in one room ta Georgia than were here in
that Democratio Convention. And what are
the signs of the dreadful wrongs that they have
suffered? They were able to travel here to
the city of Atlanta from their homes; they
were permitted here to organize; they were
permitted to nndertako to control tho politics
at this State ; they were permitted to talk as
freely as they chose, au opportunity of
which they forebore to avail themselves. And
they were at liberty to do all this under the
very shadow of the American flag, and within
a few rods of the Headquarters of a gentleman
who we ore told is a ferocious military satrap.
[Applause.] “Wrongs that are unheard of.”
There have, indeed, been wrongs iu Georgia
within the last few years, which, "until riceut
times, were unheard of. The masked assassin
has visited his innocent victim and slain him
by night Masked crowds have lacerated
the flesh of better men than themselves.
Masked crowds have attempted to. ter
rify tho plain, the humble, the industrious.
But none of the members of Mr. Colquitt’s
Convention have boen sufferers in any such
ways. (Cries of no! no!) No, not they.
There ore people in this State who might com
plain that they have suffered unheard of
wrongs, that is those of them who are here on
earth to complain. Others have gone to carry
their complaints before a higher tribunal,
complaints that will be heard, and complaints
that will be avenged when the earth gives np
hei dead, and the secrets of the night here on
earth shall be revealed. [Sensation and ap
plause.] Bat those sufferers woro not mem
bers of Mr. Colquitt’s Convention; those suf
fers were not represented in this convention
where he oomplains of unheard of wrongs.
What are theso wrongs ? Is it a wrong to have
a government under which prosperity is dif
fused over the land; a government that has
practiced an unheard of forbearance towards
those who revile it? Unheard of wrongs.
I suppose that there is a meaning not ex
pressed here. The “unheard of wrongs,”
which I suppose that gentleman would have
stated had he felt at liberty to make an expla
nation, are these: That a government has
been established in this State by the initiatory
action of the government of the United Spates.
Our Democratic friends have no right to com
plain of that If State rights have ever been
trodden down since the war, they were os sig
nally trodden down by Andrew Johnson, os
they have been by anybody else. Tell me,
where was the authority for tho President to
plant governments in ten or eleven States?
Where do you find it in the Constitution?
Where do yon find it in any law ?
and yet a President did that and after
he had done-it, the State Bights Democracy
of the State of Georgia, through their dele
gates in the National Democratic Convention,
at the city of New York, in July, 1868, voted as
their first choice for President for that very
man who had thus encroached upon State
Bights. My Democratio friends, when yon
talk to me about your regard for State Bights,
and in the same breath eulogize Andrew
Johnson and declare that you are ready to
vote for Andrew Johnson, excuse me if I
have no very great confidence in yonr sin
cerity. [Applause and laughter].
REPRESENTATION OF COLO BED MEN.
But there is another wrong that Mr. Col
quitt probably complains of. Anothor un
heard of wrong. There is a population in
this State to whom political and civil rights
were, until recently, denied. Bights of that
description have lately been granted them.
Mr. Colquitt considers it a grievance that
men who once had some kind of representa
tion through an interested master, but who
have lost that, shall now have a representation
by their own selection. What are these men
doing for the State? According to estimates
given to me by men who are intelligent in such
matters, there were 250,000 bales of cotton (lor
I will confine my illustration to that single ar
ticle,) made in the State of Georgia in the year
1860.
According to the lowest estimate, at least
three-quarters of that must be set down os the
products of the labor of the colored man.
ihe value of the whole, according to the
average price of last year, was $20,000,000.
Here are men who contribute to the prosper
ity of the State in one year, the amount of
$15,000,000, and those men, it is said, ought
to have no voico in the management of the
public affairs of this country. There, are men
who say that they wish that all these people
were out of the country. I wish, for the sake
of the experiment, that they were gratified as
to a single county, bnt I hope the county
selected will not be that in which I hapen to
live. What wonld become of yonr lands?
What would their value be? How much would
you make upon them? How many barrels of
com would you crib? How many bales of
cotton would you send to market? Wonld
yon find it agreeable, instead of sitting down
upon yonr piazzo and under your pleasant
shade trees, to go out in the fiefds and
follow the mule and the plow all day,
and then alternate the labor the
next day with the agreeable diversity
ot hoeing? My friends, if you do not like
to lave this population here, dismiss it if you
ran, and do without it I desire that it shall
stay here. I desire that they shall be useful
to themselves, and to us to whom Providence
has given a lighter skin. I desire that their
industry shall feed, as it now does, a largo part
of the commerce and manufactures of the
world. But I desire that these men who are so
universally useful in this country, who, if they
have not this country, have none this side of
the land of Conaan, shall take an interest in
this country, and have a voice in its govern
ment
I do not care to repeat the argument that
has been often made. The rights of mastery
over the person have ceased* the rights of
mastery over the earnings of others have passed
away, and tho right to impose political priva
tions upon other men who have never forfeit
ed political rights by their own behavior,
should have passed away too. Theso men
have had theso rights—tor three years ever
since October, 1867—where they have not
been unfairly interfered with, and who has
been hurt by it? Has not the country, since
those rights were first created, advanced
more than it has advanced in any
three years of its history?
it now to your recollection,
not the actual improvement of the State of
Georgia within the last three years exceeded
the improvement of the State of Georgia for
any three years since Oglethorpe landed at
Yamacsaw Bluff. Judge the tree by its fruit
Are not the fields cultivated, are not the rail
roads running, ore not the buildings going up,
are not the ships sailing, are not all the
branches of human industry flourishing, not
withstanding these enormous wrongs which so
vex the anxious souls of onr Democratic
friends? [Applause aud laughter.] Take
the two years since tho war in
which they substantially swayed Georgia from
the latter part of 1865 to the latter part of
1867. Compare those two years with the sub
sequent three years, and in which have the
greatest strides been made towards prosperity?
In which has the greatest improvement mani
fested itself all over tho face of our country?
If it is a grievance, it is a grievance which
this co an try can well afford to bear, a griev
ance under which it flourishes, a grievance
under which it advances without precedent,
and is not a grievance about which mon may
break their hearts.
But this is not all that is in Mr. Colquitt’s
address. He congratulates his friends upon
their forbearance. “You have not thought
proper to resort to
REVOLUTIONARY MEASURES
that you might bring about a reformation. 1
That is gracious.
Our Democratic friends have condescended
not to inaugurate a new rebellion to redress
these atrocious wrongs! Revolution is serious
business. Oar people tried it once, and ono
would think they had learned a severe lesson
upon that subject, but, notwithstanding revo
lutionary thoughts are in the heart of Mr. Col
quitt it seems that he and his friends have con
sidered revolutionary measures, and they have
condescendingly thought proper not to resort
to them. I thank you, my Democratic friends.
Having had in my own experience a slight
tasto’ot attempted revolution, I am desirous to
live out the rest of my brief stay on earth with-
ter.] You have graciously forebome to afflict
us again with a revolution. I thank you first
in the name of that Government which might
perhaps feel bound to try to suppress it It did
succeed in suppressing one, and possibly it
might have similar success another time,
nevertheless tho task was very troublesome,
and it is desirable to avoid a repetition of that
trouble if possible.
I thank yon in the name of those widows
whom your revolution would have sent wail
ing throughout the laud. I thank you in the
name of those living men whose graves wonld
have ridged your battle fields. I thank you in
the name of those men who now havo whole
limbs, who would bo cripples, as the fruit of
your rebellion. I thank yon in the name of
that country which is spared the other mise
ries that my tongue cannot portray in conse
quence of your gracious forbeaiouco. Talk,
if you choose, of tho apparent harmony shown
by the silence in your convention. Publish as
many abusive things as you choose in tho news
papers. Practice yonr scurrility upon Bepubli-
«ui men and Republican women. Exhaust your
chivalry in denunciations of female strangers
who come here to instruct that class of people
to whom you say you are the best friend, but
whom you do not instruct yourselves. [Ap
plause.] Go on with nil the other meannesses
that Democracy, has over devised, but spare us,
I pray you, from another revolution.
But onr Democratic friends go on farther,
aud finally say, that “whatever policy others
may pursue, we pledge ourselves to do all in
our i*)\vcr to secure free and fair elections by
all who are qualified to vote under existing
laws.** So tar, so good. Hare is improve
ment, here is reformation» Do this, and you
will have advanced. Do this, and you will
have become better. Will you do it?
You say you will, and now give
the evidence of your sincer
ity.
WHAT IS A “FAIB AND FREE ELECTION?”
It is an election at which every voter feels at
liberty to cast his vote according to his own
conscientious preference without fear of moles
tation or harm for so doing. It is a free and
fair election when a man selects tho candidate
of his choice and goesnp to the ballot box and
pnts his ballot in without a threat, taunt, or
word of reproach. Ife is not a free and fair
election when men having habits of mastery,
and assuming the air and tone of mastery,
stand by the place of voting, and when the
voter comes np, carrying tho ballot of his
choice, ciy oat “mArk him, mark him; see
how he votes ; see whose land he lives; i next
year.” [Applause.] It is not a free a id fair
election when a man pretending to be tue vo
ter’s friend comes to them privately, and says:
“Yon had better vote the Democratio ticket I
know yon are a Radical and yon want to vote
the Radical ticket, and yon hare a right to
vote the Radical ticket I wonld not take from
you any of your rights, but if you do vote the
.Radical ticket, yon will find that some of the
wild young men whom I cannot restrain, may
come to your houses at night and play the
Kn-Klux upon you.” It is not a free and fair
election when the landed proprietor says or
hints to the dependant man, that if he does
not vote as he wants him to vote, he will be
houseless and homeless next year.
CAPITAL AND LABOR.
My friends, I am touching now a serious
topic. Iam touching the gravest politioal
problem which is now, or which can be for the
next twenty years, placed before the people of
this Southern comrry. When the capitalist
attempts to control the laborer in his political
rights, he is rousing a lion that is sleeping
now; but if roused, a lion that will devour
his rouser. [Applause.] Many of the polit
ical philosophers of this country have given a
great deal of grave discussion to a supposed
conflict between capital and labor, a conflict
which they imagine has entered into American
politics. Until recently that conflict has been
substantially a chimera. The notion was
adopted into this country from the other ado
of the ocean. There is a natural struggle and
conflict between capital and labor, where one
portion of the inhabitants of a country are se
curely rich, and the great moss are hopelessly
poor. There the difference between labor and
capital is definite and distinct Capital is in
oue class of hands, and labor is in another class
of hands. And where government favors the
concentration of capital in a few hands,
labor feels its jealousies and its hatreds.
In the United States, looking at tho white
population alone, the cry of a conflict between
capital and labor has generally been the cry
of a demagogue, for the reason that capital
has seldom been organized against labor, and
labor has seldom, except in the small way of
trades unions, been organized against
capital. Ideas have been transplanted from
Europe when the state of facts, ont of which
those ideas sprung, have not been transplant
ed. That conflict has been averted in this
country by the fact that we have no class who
are perpetually safe as capitalists, and no class
who ore perpetually doomed to be impover
ished laborers. The great body of our people
aro both capitalists and laborers, and they
have something in common with both. Few
capitalists feel sure that they will be perma
nently rich, or if they should be permanently
rich, fewer of them still feel sure that their
children or their grand-children will be. The
laborers of the country have been kept from
any adverse movement against capital, by tho
fact that they themselves were generally in
some degree possessors of capital, and by the
fact that they look forward either to their own
or to their children’s acquisition of wealth.
No man in this country, at least no family in
this country, has been securely rich, and no
family in this country has been hopelessly
poor. Therefore the capitalist remembers
that he has been a laborer, or if he has not,
his father or his grandfather has been, and
that hisjchildren or his grandchildren may be,
and that gives him an interest in the rights of
the laborer. The laborer remembers that his
ancestors may have been rich, and that he or
his children or grandchildren may be so, and
that gives him a respect for the rights
of capital How is the problem affected by
the elevation of colored men to freedom ?
Labor and capital were in the some hands
here in tho Sooth. They have now be
come divorced by emancipation. Will
conflict between labor and capi
tal bo the consequence? It will be, if
capital encroaches npon labor, and capital is
encroaching unreasonably and infamously
npon labor when capital undertakes to control
the vote of the laborer. The laborer’s ballot
is his safeguard.
THE BALLOT THE LABORER’S SAFEGUARD.
The laborer’s ballot is his means of
maintaining his own independence and
bis legal rights. Let the capitalist, if
chooses, war upon the laborers,and he stirs up
an antagonistic force in the laborer. He will
bring to that laborer the sympathy of millions
of laboring voters in other ports of tho land.
And if a political strife between labor and
capital should be brought about by su<*'\ folly
on the part of the capitalist, it requires no
prophet’s vision to see that the conflict will
end in the defeat of capital That con
flict i3 to be avoided. Every wise man
should labor to avoid it Agrarianism is wrong
in principle. Let every man keep that which
is lawfully his own; but, in order to keep it
let him not try to get what is lawfully another
man’s. The laborer’s ballot is his own. Tho
laborer’s ballot is precious to him. It is too
precious a thing to be made the object of an
unlawful encroachment from any force without
a resistance that will ultimately depress the
agrarian force. How can the conflict between
capital and labor be avoided here 4 “
theso Southern States where we have
largo body of laboring voters who have
been and still are without capital? The
solution of the question is easy. Givo them
every opportunity to acquire capital by fair
ateraitigq, see that the law protects them
against imposition, see that their wages are
faithfully paid, enejurage them to husband
their earnings, and to invest them in some
permanent form as capital The moment a
man owns a house lot in town, or an acre in
the country, he becomes a capitalist in in ter
es., and will soon become a capitalist in senti
ment Protect him in that town lot, protect
him in that country acre, or a larger farm,
and, above all, protect him most faithfully and
sedulously in the exercise of that ballot which is
the guaranty and tho safeguard of all his other
possessions. [Applause.] Do that, and then
yon may plausibly claim to be the friend
this people. You now say to them, “come
with us, for we are yonr best friends. We op
posed your freedom aa persistently as we
could, yet we aro your best friends. Wo op
posed yonr accession to civil rights, but
still we are your best friends. We
have all of us, as a party, most zealously
opposed your political enfranchisement. Wo
have done our best to keep yon ont of the Leg
islature, to keep you out of office wherever
there are offices to be bestowed, to keep you
out of any share in the government of the
country to which you belong, but still we are
your best friends.” Well, it is very desi
rable that there should be friendship be
tween all classes of onr population, that
there should bo a reciprocity of kindly offices.
It is desirable that the former master should
wish well and do well to his former slave, and
that the former slave should wish well and do
well to his former master. But I think that
somo of our people are a little too exacting.
nrhat, in effect, they say to the colored
population: “You have done very well by
us in times post,yon rejoiced at our advent into
this world. You took care of us iu our in
fancy; you played with us in onr boyhood; as
soon as yon were able you began to work for
us, and you continued to work for us up to the
year I860 with no compensation but your food
and clothes and such little presents as we
might be disposed to give you. Then anoth
er power came in and took you from us and
gave you to yourselves. We owned yon-once
and now yon own yourselves. Bat we have a
jrcat deal yet that you do not possess. We have
and, and horses and males, and cattle and
houses and furniture, a large port of which
was produced by your labor under our super
intendence; and now, as you have done so
much for us, just do a little more and givo us
the right to rule over you iu politics.” [Ap
plause.] Upon the basis of reciprocity
he colored man might say, “as we
have done so much for you, yon might
come to us iu politics,” and then wo will
have no conflict between tho races.” My
frionds, seriously, if there is anything that I
desire in reference to public affairs, it is that
there shall be perfect
HARMONY BETWEEN THE BACKS.
How will the conflict of races come? It will
come, if at all, by one race denying what
another racoon good grounds claims. And
now, if you dosire harmony between the races
I will tell you, my Democratic friends, how you
can have it. The colored meu iu this
country are grappled with hooks
steel to the Republican party, and they
will vote the Republican ticket when
ever they vote according to their will.
Not a new privilege which they have acquired,
but what is directly or indirectly due to the
Republican party—they gratefully own it
Now, my Democratic friends, if you want
perfect harmony with the other race, come ont
and join the Republican party. [Great ap
plause.] There will then be no conflict of
races, for both the races will be going
together. What objection have yon to
joining ns? What hinders youj? Do
yon not like the men that the party puts iu
office? Come into the party and enter into
onr conventions and have other men nomin
ated. Do yon say that the men who lead oar
party are not pare ? Yon believe yourselves to
>e pare, and u you are so, come into our party
and put your pure selves at the head of it.
[Applause.] We will let you go thither if we
are satisfied of your capacity for that place. Do
you say, as sometimes you have said, that our
party u deficient iu able men? Then bring
your able selves into it, and thore will be
>lenty of ability, according to yonr conceit
>0 confederate reminiscences stand in your
way?
- Let the dead part bnry its dead.
Act, act In tbe living present."
Aci for the coming future. Act with that
party that represents the nationality which
was triumphant on the field of battie-
that nationality which is now, and is hence,
forth to be, in spite of all your mumuring,
considered by the great mass of the American
people represented in the United States Gov
ernment Do yonr scruples relate to the pres
ent or to the post? Are they living, vital,
profitable, pertinent to the business of the
present hour, or are they simply resentful
and vindictive? The current of nationality
flows on and will flow on in spite of you.
Those people who dwell between the Atlantic
Ocean and Pacific coast, and between the
Gulf of Mexico and the Northern Lakes, ore
determined to live under one government
The tendencies of this age, tendencies
which are stronger than any political
philosophy, are toward a union of
nationalities, to a political union where there
is an identity of race and language. Italy, in
onr day, has become one. Germany, in our
day, has almost beoome one. The genoral
tendency of modem civilization is one way.
Here in tho Southern States there has been an
exception. Disintegration was attempted here
when integration was going on everywhere
else. And why ? Because here was a peculiar
institution which fostered a peculiar class of
ideas, and a disintegrating theory was a very
convenient fence aronnd that institution. Bat
the institution has fallen, and let its bnlwarks
fall too.
Allow me to make an illostratition. Thore
is a stream and a current We are all npon
that current setting towards nationality. That
current sets towards liberty. You are borne
npon it I am borne upon it The only
difference is this: Yon are pointing your head
up the stream, you are swimming as hard os
you can, and yon are painfully struggling
against the current, bat yoa go down in spite
of yourselves. We look down the stream, we
yield ourselves to the current We look ahead
and when we see rocks or breakers, we avoid
them, and yet in the smooth water. And the
difference is that you and we get to the same
place, only we are faster ana get there first
and get there pleasantly, while yon get there a
little late and painfully. [Applause.] Now
abandon so hopeless a task. Let alone
yonr memorial politics. Let alone your
revengeful politics. Politics should not rest
on memory and sentiment alone. Love the
memory of your friends who fell in the “lost
cause.” Your best affections inspire that love.
If it pleases you to strew flowers on their
graves, do so. If it pleases you to shed an
affectionate tear where their bones are mold-
ering, do so. Bnt let tho cause be buried in
their graves. That is gone. You cannot bring
lifo to them. You cannot bring life to tho
cause for which they fell Other questions
before yon now. Tho wholo duty
life is not in mourning for the dead.
We owe duties to those who aro living now,
and to those who shall live hereafter. Say
what you will, dream as yon may about the
past, these two ideas of nationality aud liberty
are to be the ruling political ideas of the world
in which we are living—in the world in which
onr children are to live. Let us prepare our
selves for the world of 1870, and our children for
the world of 1880, and 1890. Let us not train
them for tho world of 1860, for that world has
passed away. And if you wonld not make
them strange and awkward in life; if yoa would
not subject them to perpetual jarring and fric
tion, do not try to put them in that world
which is past and gone.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT NOT TO BE ABOLISHED.
A word or two upon a matter which I am
told really troubles some worthy persons.
They say that they have given np secession
and slavery, bnt there is one thing which they
cannot give np, and that is a “local govern
ment," which they have been told the Repub
lican party intended to abolish. Let me tell you,
that that is a chimera. No sensible person
wants to absorb all the legislation of tho land
in the National Congress. There has been a
dispeition of late years to strengthen the pow
ers of the General Government, for snch an
increase of power wus needed..
Now subjects of legislation by constitutional
amendments have been given to Congress,
and I con see no harm in an assimilation of
the States. I cannot see why a law on general
subjects that is good for Georgia, should not
be good for Michigan.
But there are divers minor things which ire
property left to tho States, and let me tell ’ou
that there is a automatic brake, if I may tse
the expression, which will stop any jour, oy
towards consolidation. It is a physical ii«t-
Ibility that Congress should do the whole
„ 0 _lation of the country. It can hardly do
now, in the allotted time, all the requisite
general legislation. You cannot much in
crease its powers without increasing its duties
to an impossible extent.
There is a propriety iu having some central
control over States. The fourteenth aud fif
teenth amendments give that controL They
empower tho national government to force a
Stato to do its duty, and there is nothing hurt
ful in this. No State shall abridge the privi
leges or immunities of American citizens, and
if a State wants to do so, the general govern
ment ought to interfere to prevent it No
State shall deny to any person within its
jurisdiction his oqual protection of tho law,
and if any Stato wants to do so, the general
K vemment onght to interposo and prevent it.
e yon unwilling that the State shall bo made
to do right ? Are you unwilling that tho privi
leges and immunities of American citizens
should bo guaranteed, protected. Are you un
willing that all persons within the State should
have the equal protection of the laws? Ah,
bnt some say, tho general government will not
do this properly. That, it seems to me, is
rather a silly reproach in view of the experi
ence that we have had with national legislation
and of State legislation. There have been
errors in each abundantly, for wherever there
is man there is human error. But taking it
all in all, I think we may feel just os
pifft under national legislation as under State
legislation. Where have the grossest enormi
ties been perpetrated or attempted in Ameri
can legislation? Not at Washington, but in
State capitols. States have nullified, States
have seceded, States have repudiated. No
equal enormities appear in tho National legis
lation. I cannot see why men sent from all
parts of this great nation, should be more
likely to do wrong than men sent from only
one part of it It is true that there is
infirmity, and perhaps there is corruption even
at the seat of the National Government Bat
I hope it may not be deemed disrespectful if I
say that gentlemen who congregate in official
capacities at the seat of Stato Governments
are sometimes o little lower than the angels.
[Applause.] I am not awaro that Milledge-
ville was always an immaculate spot Per
haps some faults have crept into this thriving
city of Atlanta, aud while I concede that
Washington is not wholly free from them, I
cannot say that any other capital enjoys an ex
emption from them. Tho theory of our Dem
ocratic friends seems to be that the Stato is
never likely to do wrong, and that the national
government is never likely to do right They
have a great deal of charity for the fractions
and no charity at all for the interger..
The advancing hour admonishes me to
hasten to a conclusion. I have not spoken of
one subject which, perhaps, I ought not to
omit [A voice, “election.”] I Iiavo
not referred to the
PRIVATION OF OFFICE,
imposed by the constitutional amendment*
Article 14. Some of our fellow-citizens hold
that to bo a great grievance. The men who
had been political leaders before the war and
led tho country into the war, are the class that
aro reached by this prohibition. The penalty
suffered by them, according to the letter of the
law, and tho usages of nations would have been
a forfeiture of life. According to their own pre
dictions they would have lost their lives in the
event of failure in their undertaking, But the
penalty is merely exclusion from office. They
are left in life, and in liberty, with ‘such prop
erty as they are so fortunate as to have.
They are left with the right of suffrage.
But they are-not allowed to hold pablic sta
tions themselves. And even this small priva
tion will cease as soon as they show attach
ment to their Government
But is it important to the world that these
men should be in office? What have they
done for this people that the people should be
swayed in their politics by the desire of pam
pering them in office? Their merits are to
ha?» lJMl a people most seriously astray. Their
merits are to have plunged this country into
difficulties from which they could not extricate
it; to have brought upon us four years of war
with all its horrors; to have caused war to be
followed by several years of political distrac
tion with all its inconveniences. For these
merits we arw to adapt all our politics
to the great purpose of keeping them in office.
You State Bights gentlemen, retire. You
have had yonr day. Yon have bad a Govern
ment of your own manufacture, and we re
member what sort of a Government it was.
Yon ran one ship ashore, and we don’t care
trust you with the pilotage of another.
[Applause.] A defeated, and disappointed,
and impoverished people, a land full of wid
ows and orphans, and cripples, aud prema
ture graves. These are the trophies of your
statesmanship.
There was scarcely but one man acting in
the higher field of politics daring the four years
of your ascendancy in the Southern States,
who showed any growth iu political capacity.
There was one man whose intellect grew dar
ing that period. Ho was a man who had
been bred in the strictest school of State
Bights, and who was so simple as to suppose
that when you-made a State Bights govern
ment you intended to administer it on
t tate Rights principles. And that man had
tue manhood to try and hold you to your own
p -ofessod creed, and in that effort his intellect
grew and his reputation grew. He failed and
tho cause failed. That man is one who was
for eight years the Governor of Georgia, and
he has had the sense to quit your party. [Ap
plause.] Tho rest of you did not hold your
own. You ought to retire from Bheer shame,
city in public affairs in this country
Incapability of the State administra
tion ! Incapability of the national adminis
tration ! Where was the capacity in
yonr concern? Democratic statesmanship.
Where was your statesmanship? ‘Where
was your diplomacy ? How many foreign powers
did you induce to recognize your government?
Whore was your financial skill? We have the
trophies of that in the Confederate money that
is locked up iu some of our trunks. [Ap
plause and laughter.] And that is a true
measure of tho value of your statesmanship.
A Confederate note is a fair measure of the
value of Democracy. [Applause.] A green
back is a fair measure of tho present value of
Republicanism; and gold and silver arc the
fair measures of the value of the Republican
ism which is soon to be. [Applause.] There
a great grievance with our Democratic
friends when they go before the people in the
back woods. They make a great complaint
of bloated bondholders who do not pay taxes
while tho poor people of the land have taxes
to pay. It is true the poor and the rich have
taxes to pay, and plenty of them. And why ?
To pay a debt that was created in suppressing
a Stato Bights’ insurrection. [Applause.]
You State Bights’ gentlemen created the ex
pense, and then you blame us for trying to
defray the expense. “But non-taxable bonds
were issued.” So they were, and people
took theso bonds upon the faith of the
government that that taxes should not be im
posed upon them. And they paid to the gov
ernment value enhanced by that circumstance,
and it seems to me that the government ought
to keep its faith ; that when the government
promises to pay and to demand no tax, the
government ought to pay and to demand no
tax. But we are told that it was
wrong in the government to make snch
bargain, and we aro told this by men on
whose lips tho Southern Confederacy is the
constant theme of praise. A few days ago a
friend was looking through an old pocket
book, and he took out a document and made
me a present of it I will read it “ $100, 6
per cent By authority of tho 14 section of
the act of Congress, approved tho 17th day of
February, 1861, it is hereby certified that
there is duo from the Confederate States of
America, aud payable two years after the
ratification of a treaty of peace with the
United States nnto John , or assigns,
One Hundred Dollars with interest at the rate
of 6 per cent per annum from the 14th day of
March, 1865, inclusive, etc," and on the top
of this paper in big letters, are the words,
“non taxable certificate//" Now the ad
mirers of the Confedracy say that
is an atrocious grievance for any
other Government to issue non-taxable obli
gations. My Democratio friends, why did you
not go to Richmond in 1864, and preach
against non-taxable papers there? The bur
den of supporting tho Government is indis
pensable. The share which falls upon us in
this country is heavy compared with what we
once paid.* Bnt remember that the trium
phant party in the great conflict shares with us
the payment of that debt which we occasioned.
Ought we to grudge our share? If we
really and in good faith take an interest as
voters and citizens in the Government, we
ought to be jealous’for that Government’s
honor. Wo onght to be jealous for that Gov
ernment’s faith. We onght to be jealous for
that Government’s rank among the nations.
We ought to be willing to bear our share of the
common burdens. There ought, of course, to
be os speedy are duction of the debt as is possi
ble without too onerous taxation, and that re
duction is going on.
DECREASE OF PUBLIC DEBT.
Since the 4th of March, 1869, the debt has
been decreased by over one hundred millions
of dollars—a fact which answers a world of
Democratic logic. The burden may be heavy
upon us now, but it will be lighter hereafter.
Taxation is already reduced, and an the
country grows and its means are enlarged tax
ation will decrease, and the burdens will fall
more lightly upon individuals. Bear it for a
while. Do not try, in an unilateral spirit, to
hrow the debt upon onr grandchildren.
Let us, if possible, pay it off in our own .day
and generation, or at least let us bring it down
to a managing size.
There should be economy, there should be
retrenchment. This reform has been going on
ever since the 4th day of March, 1869. I
know that if thoBe who now administer the
Government are sustained by the people in
doing what they desire, these reforms will
continue, and tho public debt will continue to
bo reduced also. . _ _ .
Extravagance in State affairs, Iam told, is
another complaint of my Democratic friends
Having been for sometime post closely engaged
iu another field of observation, it has not
been in my power to scrutinize the finances of
this State carefully. Men tell me that there has
been extravagant legislation on some-points.
They tell me that aid has been given or
promised to railroads unwisely. I do not
know enough about the particulars to have
formed a judgment, and I am not in the
Democratic habit of judging without investi
gation. But if there has been errors of that
kind, my information is that Democratic gen
tlemen are largely concerned in that error. If
there is, ns some say, an extravagant compen
sation to the members of tho General Assem
bly, I wonld remind them of the fact that the
present rate of compensation was fixed ra
1865 by a Legislature composed of nine-
tenths Democrats, who imposed that bur
den upon tho people when the country
was not half as able to bear it as now.
I do not say that this pay is extravngant; I do
not say that these gentlemen who assemble
here are not earning for the State all that the
State pays them, but, I do say, if there be nn
extravagance in this particular, the Democrats
aro not guiltless of it [Applause.] Look at
tho record of the yeas and nvys, and I thiuk
vou will find that when it comes to the distri
bution of money, our Democratic friends are
not particularly bashful
Newspapers complain, I understand, that
extravagant payments are made by the Execu
tive of the State, but when the annual lists
come out, many a Democratic editor appears
among the recipients of the public cash.
Democratic gentlemen of my own profession
have not the slightest objection to taking
money when the State has occasion to employ
their professional services. And in some other
matters I am told that our Democratic friends
arc just ns ready os the greediest Radical iu
the land to pat tho public money into their
pockets. I do not blame them for these things
when the money is justly earned. Bnt I do
think it shows a remarkable degree of assu
rance for them to take the public money and
then complain that the public money has
been spout. And my suspicion is that
some of the geutlemen who complain most
loadly have not been themselves favored, and
that their objection is not so much that tho
money has been spent, os that it goes into
somebody else’s pocket besides their own.
The “outs” are always vigilant guardians of
two things;—of the Constitution and of tho
public purse; but if they.come into power the
Constitution often ceases to be the object of
theirsolicitnde, and the public purse is emp
tied in tho old way. A reform party
when it comes into power, is generally re
markable for extravagance, aud I do not think
that our Democratic friends would bo any ex
ception to that rale.
ELECTION.
Some gentleman has called upon mo to
speak about the election. I have been speak
ing about the election. I have been exhorting
you to vote right when the election comes, and
that is the most interesting matter connected
with the election. I suppose, however, that
the inquiry has reference to another question,
to tho question whether there shall or shall
not be au election in the State of Georgia this
year. It is my judgment that there should be au
election. It is my expectation that there will
be an election, and it is my expectation that if
there shall be a fair election the Republican
party will carry the State of Georgia by twenty
thousand majority. [Loud and continued ap
plause.]
As well as I can judge of the political senti
ments of the people of the State a majority of
at least that number is iu favor of liberty and
nationality, a majority of at least twenty thou
sand prefers for the first office of tho land
Ulysses S. Grant, either to Jefferson Davis or
Horatio Seymour. [Great applause.] If the
men who have the right to vote in this State
shall go to the polls and vote as they choose,
without terror, without danger, without
insult, without injury, in my judgment the
result will bo os I have indicated. If onr
Democratic friends keep their pledge; if they
allow a free and fair election, I shall anticipate
that result. There is no danger from anybody
bnt them. Whoever bullied them at the polls
on election day? Who, of the laboring popu
lation of this State ever wont up to
his employer a week before tho election
and said to him, “sir, you must vote my ticket
or I will cease to work for you,” and there
would be just as much reason in his saying
that as iu the employer saying, “vote my
ticket or you shall not live on my laud."
I desire reciprocity, but I do not desire a
reciprocity in meanness. I do not desiro a
reciprocity in oppression. I do not desire a
reciprocity in encroachment upon tho rights of
other men. A fair election! give it to us my
Democratic friends; give it to us because it is
right; give it to us by way of showing your
advance in honesty since 1868. And if you
do not give us a fair election, your party will
commit suicide. [Great applause. ]
BUSINESS AND LOCAL NOTICES.
Great stir in town about E. F. B.
Infants.—Much suffering to theso tender
tittle bods of the human family might bo al
layed by using Mrs. Whitcomb's Syrup. See
advertisement in another column. +
sep G-d&wlw
Try English Female Bitters
E F. 15. cures all females.
8ke advertisement of Dr. Butts’ Dispensary,
headed, “A Book for the Million—-Marriage
Guide”—in another column. . It should bo
ead by alL may 3-dtVwly
What means E. F. B?
E. F. B., the Great Female Regulator.
The Bon-tons all want E. F. B.
Special Notices.
A Tainted Atmosphere.-—Malarious fc-
:ra are most prevalent in tbe fall. Heavy snd un
wholesome exhalations then arise from tbe earth, snd
the grest disparity between tbe temperature of dsy
snd night predisposes the system, enfeebled by the
summer bests, to epidemic disesses. Tlio nccretivo
organs, tbo liver especially, sre apt, si this period of
tbo year, to become inert snd sluggish, snd all tho
bodily powers require renovation. Tho beat, indeed
the only protection against the morbid influences of
the season is s wholesome medicated stimulant. Pre
eminent among the restoratives of this class, and in
deed the foremost among the remedial and preventive
modieines of modern times, stands Hostetler’s Stom
ach Bitters. Its reputation is coextensive with tlio
Western Hemisphere: it has been a standard article
for twenty years; its sales (ss may be ascertained by
the revenue returns) sre far larger than those of any
other proprietory preparation on this continent: and
the testimony in its favor embraces letters of approval
from the moet distinguished member* of all the learned
professions and from well known residents of almost
every city in the Union. These are ita credentials.—
To state what it is doing to prevent and assuage the
sufferings of the human family would require more
spaoe than 04m be given to the subject here. The dys
peptic, the bilious, tho nervous, the weak and emaci
ated, the desponding, the broken down, find in ita ren
ovating and regulating properties a sure and immedi
ate means of relief. It is a pure vegetabia specific, at
safe and potent, and for which the whole materia
medics affords no substitute. sep C-dswlw
Cholrrs.—Tbe following letter is from
Mr. Woodward, of St. ton*, to J. N. Hurl* Ibq..
of New London, Coon. Mr. W. la m EWlUemui of high
ranwobbiUtr. «od dorlas tho pnrmlenre of the chol
era ta St tout., watched the remit of the ippllctlon
of tbe Poin Killer for thle dtaerae, »nd his testimony
ran be relied upon with tho utmortconXdcnm:
Dux Sin: Ton recollect when I raw yon ta .luxury
UM. my ezpreoing to you my moet sanguine expecta
tions that Darts' Pain Killer wonld bare a tremendous
aaln in the West thi, season, and my anticipation,
have bran more than realised, and tho testimony of
w ho have used it haa boon that they would
not be willing to go to bed at night without it ta the
On tho appearance of the cholera ta this city, such
was the confhtanco in the Fain Killer aa a remedy,
tlud many who purchased it remarked to me that they
had no fears or dread of the cholera aa long aa they
had th. Fain KUl«r by them, and hundreds took It
daily aa a prorcntiTe. tor no person can have a de
rangement of the bowels or diarrhoea if they nee this
medicine. Xhls was ihe security and conSdenco ot
hundred, acquainted with it, and whon their Mends
.attacked with tho cholera they wonld admin l,ter
the remedy in large quantities, and in every case when
it haa been taken in any of the Brat stages of thi, dU-
lm, it haa proved ancneasfnl.
I consider it an inhtlUble remedy. I have got hoard
of any individual in any family who used the Pain
Killer when attacked but speedily recovered.
The clerk informed me that he administered it to
^eraon, when cold or ta the cramps, and it gave im
mediate relief, hot still It should he gira quickly, for
when the discharge of ••rice water” has begun, tho
hope of life has fled, should tEi, dieease make its ap
pearance among yon, as in all probability it will, bo
not alarmed; you awl all others there have the reme
dy. and I am confident if the Pain Killer is need, not a
■ingle death by cholera will occur ta yonr city.
Beepectihlly yours,
A. T. tVOODWAED.
ns- The Pain Killer U eold by all dealer, in Family
Medklnra. Hod trine 4 Fox wholesale, above.
I sag 13-deodawlm ' „
