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@|- CLASS OF 1886; PH.D. THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
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S| UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA
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THE NORTH CAROLINA COLLECTION
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Condition of the South,
Mr. WADDELL. Mr. Speaker, I approach
the task which my duty as a member of the
Committee on Alleged Outrages in the South-
ern States imposes upon me with .unfeigned
reluctance. ‘lhe country is wearied with the
subject, the people are sick of the hollow
hypocrisy of this Ku Klux crusade; but,
although as an individual I do not claim and
cannot expect the same degree of attention
which has been and will be accorded to my
more distinguished colleagues on the commit-
tee, it is still my. misfortune to be the only
original member of that committee who is a
native resident and Representative of a State
affected by this report and the legislation on
which it is based, and therefore only I speak.
I shall do go very plainly, because I feel very
deeply ; but I am not weak enough to suppose
that anything I may say will affect in the least |
degree the action of the House; I know that
if | should speak with the tongues of men and
of angels, and in the spirit of heavenly charity,
and should produce proofs as strong as Holy
Writ to show the disastrous effects of the estab-
_ lished policy of the Government toward my
unfortunate countrymen, my words would still
be but as sounding brass anda tinkling cymbal.
Tam painfully sensible of the fact that south-
ern Representatives are powerless here, except
to the extent of their votes, and I know full
well how futile it is for one of us to protest
against the grievous wrongs under which our
people have suffered and are suffering. If we
bear wituess to them we are discredited ; if we
denounce them we are accused of disloyalty ;
silence concerning them is misconstrued into
acquiescence; approval and justification of
them open the only path to preferment. I
must not remain silent; I cannot approye then.
but in spite of the penalty I will bear witmess
and I will denounce.
Congress passed a bill at the lage session
entitled ‘‘ An act to enforce the provisions of
{
|
the fourteenth amendment, and for other pur-
poses.’’ The other and real purpose, as every
intelligent man in the country well knew, was
to make political capital for the Republican
party so as to carry the next presidential elec-
tion. It ebmbined the two usual characteristics
of all legislation aimed at the South, namely,
bad motive and bald unconstitutionality. I
know that in these piping times of central-
ism the unconstitutionality of a measure is no
argument against it; that the higher law of
narty necessity controls; that States have
uo rights, reserved or, otherwise, against the
encroachments of the ‘‘ central power,’’ as
the court journal exultingly terms it, and [
only allude to that as an interesting feature of
the bill. The great object in passing it was
not to give the President power to crush out a
new rebcllion, which ‘‘threatened the life of
the nation,’’ but to rouse the passions and ex-
cite the fears of the northern people with the
pretense that such a conspiracy agaiast the
Government really existed, and thus to unite
them for the coming campaign. I have until
recently sometimes feared that that object has
been accomplished, because the perfect in-
difference, the utter insensibility exhibited
throughout the country in regard to acts of
absolute despotism committed by officers civil
and military, State and national, were diflicult
to account for except upon that hypothesis.
Since the passage of the act occurrences which
a few years ago would have convulsed the
country have happened without producing ai
the time aripple upon the surface of public
opinion, and all the odium which rightfully
attached to them has been skillfully transferred
to blameless shoulders by those who are face:
tiously termed public servants.
Now, cir, [do not intend to occupy the atti
tude which some gentlemen seem to think i»
the appropriate one fur a southern Represent -
oP 8 eRe
‘
I am not here as the defender of «
ative.
constituency of criminals. I have no excuses
or apologies to make for them, or for myself.
Whatever my deficiencies of intellect or expe-
rience may be, I stand here unmuzzled, as
your peer, and speak for a constituency in
every respect equal to the proudest represented
here, and only distinguished from it by sub’
lime fortitude under crushing and relentless
calamity and persecution. I intend not to
palliate the falsely alleged offenses of my coun-
trymen, not to regret that they do not enjoy
the peculiar civilization of other parts of the
country, with which they are continually and
offensively taunted; not to plead for clemency
to them, but to denounce the tyranny, the op-
pression, the wrong, and robbery which have
been practiced upon them for six years, and
which, becoming familiar as they have to the
American people, threaten to destroy the last
vestige of constitutional liberty throughout
this land. And in the performance of.this
duty I shall not mince my words.
Let it be understood, too, at the outset that
I speak not as a partisan, but as a represent-
ative of thousands of free-born American citi-
zens. I repudiate utterly, in this connection,
any interest whatever in any political party.
The southern people have ceased to be enthu-
siasts on that subject. It may be very proper
for gentlemen representing northern and west-
ern constituencies to become excited in regard
to questions of finance, the tariff, civil service
reform, and the like; but all these things are
at this time matters of but little moment to’
the people of the States purposely, falsely, and
insultingly called ‘‘insurrectionary.”’
We care nothing about your syndicates, or
high tariffs, or foreign relations, or Tammany
thefts, or custom-house frauds, or other such
questions, so long as you continue, as you have
done, to persecute and slander us, to rob us of
our right of local self-government, and to legis-
late in every way against our interests.
It seems that a certain class of persons (and
unfortunately a ruling class) will never relent
or cease to gratify their cowardly malice toward
the ruined people of the South. They are,
fortunately for the character of the American
people, not the class whose courage on the
battle-field shed honor upon the American
name. The hard-fighting soldiers and sailors
of the North, with rare exceptions, have no
sympathy with this mean, malignant spirit,
and there has not been a day since 1865 when
the people of the South would not willingly
have committed to their hands the settlement
of all questions affecting the public welfare.
Even under all their afflictions, which the elo-
quent Senator from Missouri—himself once an
exile—has pronounced to be without a paral-
lel in modern times, they have promptly and
faithfully complied with every condition which
has been required of them. They religiously
abided by the terms of surrender demanded
by one whom they then regarded as a mag-
nanimous conqueror; notwithstanding their
loss of more than three billions of property,
their enforced repudiation of debts due to their
own people, and their utter impoverishment,
they were compelled to pay heavy taxes
without representation, one of which taxes,
amounting to $65,000,000 was imposed in vio-
lation of the Constitution ; they complied with
President Johnson’s requirements, and after
starting their State governments again, they
were compelled to undo all their work and sub-
mit to the new requirements of Congress;
they were reconstructed over and over again,
and were robbed with regularity by the horde
of rapacious rascals who were turned loose
on them; they were humiliated and degraded
in countless ways, but they offered no resist-
ance, and only kept up a struggle for bread.
Agd although this process has been going on
for more than six years, to the disgrace of the
country, and, (as another Republican Senator
said,) to the disgrace of the civilization of the
age, there seems to be no disposition in our
rulers to change it, unless for the worse. A
leading Republican newspaper (the New York
Tribune) recently said that ‘‘the condition of
the southern States after six years ,of recon-
struction can only be described as pitiful.’’
Now, if this be true, and no one will doubt
it, where rests the responsibility for it? Who
did the reconstruction that produced it? Did
we after the war establish governments for
our own degradation and oppression, and organ-
ize the system of robbery of our own people
which has resulted in the general bankruptcy
of those States? Did we organize the secret
societies called the ‘‘League,’’ the ‘‘ Heroes
of America,’’ and the ‘‘Red Strings,’’ which
began the system of intimidating voters by
threats and scourgings, and sought revenge by
barn-burnings and murder? Did we commit
the crime of attempting to set the pyramid of
government on its apex instead of its base,
which my friend from Indiana [Mr. Voor-
HEES] has so forcibly depicted? Did we put
on the bench and in other high places rene-
gade secessionists, whose highest ambition in
life seems to be to hunt down the very men
whom they led into resistance to the Federal
power? No, we did not; and yet all these
things and worse have happened to us. _.
The Republican party is responsible for all
the troubles which have befallen the southern
States since the war. They all resulted from
the bad governments established and sustained
by that party. Frauds and villainies previously
unknown in the history of those States were
perpetrated by that party to such an extent as
to render disorder and crime inevitable; and
then, when the crimes and disorders naturally
followed, the virtuous and patriotic officehold-
5
ers raised the cry of ‘‘ Ku Klux,”’ §‘ rebellion,”
and ‘‘disloyalty.”’
Let me read you the language of an intelli-
gent Republican on that subject. I quote from
a letter of H. H. Helper to Secretary Bout-
well, dated March 23, 1871. After detailing
numerous acts of infamy committed by officers |
in North Carolina, and after making an earn-
est appeal for reform in the Republican party,
Mr. Helper says:
“One of the greatet evils affecting society in
‘North Carolina may justly be set down to the in-
competent and worthless State and Federal officials
now in power. They are for the most part pestifer-
ous ulcers feeding upon the body-politic. They
should be cut down immediately, and left to wither
and rot on the wayside of Republicanism, or else
Republicanism will be throttled to death by these
villainous rascals. It is through these gentry that
the political sty in North Carolina has become so
very filthy. It needs to be cleansed by introducing
better men into both State and Federal position.
So far as Federal places are concerned you have
power to act. Shall we-have better men, through
whom the State may be redeemed, orshall we dilly-
dally along, and thus permit the Republican party,
of which I am an uncompromising member for
Republican principle only, to go down to irrevoc-
able defeat in 1872 with a majority of twenty thou-
sand? —
““One word more. Reconstruction for North Car-
olina, as carried out by Congress and the villainous
and incompetent State and Federal officials within
her borders, has proved a total failure. When the
historian comes to write the history of these evil
times, truth will impel him to declare that the Ku
Klux business of to-day grew out of things com-
plained of in these statements.
“The only way to effectually rid the country of
these wicked midnight assassins is to first remove
the cause which brought them into existence, and
then apply rigid means for their swift extirpation.”’
This Ku Klux business has been a God-
send to that party. It has enabled them to
make the ery ‘‘ Stop thief’’ successful; it has
been skillfully used to divert attention from
their own crimes to the crimes of others nat-
urally following them; it has been grossly
magnified and misrepresented, bad as it was,
and has been used entirely for party purposes.
Now, sir, I do not hesitate to say that while I
have always’in public and private denounced
Ku Kluxism, yet when I consider the infam-
ously corrupt and tyrannical governments
which produced it, the wonder to meis that it
has not been much worse. I believe that if
the same provocations had existed in the north-
ern States, and particularly in New England,
which existed in the South, the crime and dis-
order would have been infinitely greater, and
to sustain the assertion genore the language
of a northern newspaper, which, in comment:
ing upon this report, says:
“The North has been called phlegmatic. But
half the wrong endured here that is endured South
would plant a gallows at every cross roads.”
Even without any such provocation more
crimes have been committed in northern than
in southern States during the past four years,
in which, according to this majority report,
these Ku Klux or vigilance committees have
been operating. It does not afford me the
same pleasure to expose them which other
gentlemen seem to take in portraying the
alleged ignorance and barbarism of my south-
ern countrymen, and I certainly do not intend
to follow their example by abusing and malign-
ing the whole northern people on account of
their criminal records; but justice demands
that those who live in glass houses should be
taught not to/throw stones. .
.Recently, when my friend from Delaware
[Mr. Biees] was entertaining the House by
reading the number and character of the
crimes committed in Massachusetts during a
period of three or four years, the gentleman
from the latter State [Mr. Hoar] tried to have
it appear that the native population of his
State were a race of innocent lambs, (which
if their war record had been the subject of dis-
cussion would have been cheerfully acceded
to by everybody,) and that the foreign popu-
lation there were the criminals, (which if mak-
ing up the quota of Massachusetts during the
war had been the offense would have been
equally true;) but it is well known that the
infusion of foreign blood is all that saves that
race from rapid extinction; and I think that
sort of interference on their part is the worst
crime for which the foreign population is
chargeable. They have a high appreciation
of education there,” however, for [ find ina
report of the inspectors of public institutions
of Boston that they imprison boys between
seven and sixteen years of age for not going
to school, sentencing them to terms of from
three to twenty-four months, and during six
months of the year they are worked ona farm,
never entering a school-room or receiving any
school education during that time. In other
words, if a boy does not go to school they jail
him and keep him out of sehool half the year
by way of punishment. But, with all their
unique appliances for cultivating the mind
and heart, the serpent has managed somehow
to enter that Eden; for I find in the same
report a statement which ought to close the
mouth of the gentleman from Massachusetts
forever from sneering at the barbarisms of
other communities than his own:
** Indecent Exposureof Women and Girls.—With the
exception of the House of Reformation for Juvenile
Ms
Offenders, and in the boys’ department, which is
furnished with one spacious tub in which the frolic-
someness of boyhood can disport itself with a quite
limited freedom, all the prisons are provided with
the ordinary bath-tub, from three to seven in num-
ber, and placed side by side, at distances of from
twelve to twenty-four inches apart; these are all in
open rooms, without any screen or protection what-
ever, and in these publicly-exposed tubs the prison-
ers, men, women, and girls, in their respective de-
partments, in groups of from three to seven, are
required to perform their ablutions. Old offenders,
young offenders, girls of nine and ten years of age,
alike must disrobe themselves, and in full observa-
tion of their fellows and officers, in a state of utter
nudity, enter thebath, perform its duty; and partake
its refreshment. We are far from advocating any
sentimental delicacy, but we do submit that there is
scarcely any prisoner, however callous in the paths
of crime, from however low and degraded a sphere
of social life he may have come, that at this required
exposure at the bath-tub will not feel his rudi-
mental nature at least somewhat shocked. But not
all the prisoners are hardened, not all from the lower
walks of life, not all are without much of the refining
culture of our New England society. All life has
here its. representatives; young girls and maidens
are here, tender, plastic, sensitive, full of the mod-
esty of nature, and it may beculture also; some with
no other charge of crime than not habitually attend-
ang the public school, and the single question is, is
it proper, prudent, reformatory, necessary for any
purpose that these should be compelled, promiscu-
ously in public nudity, to the bath, when an outlay
of from five to ten dollars would afford them a pro-
tecting shelter without in any way diminishing the
oversight or control of their keepers? It seems to
us very clear and admitting but a single answer.
We therefore ask that the evil may be at once reme-
died and no longer characterize any Suffolk prison.
* Brutality to Girls—Whipping Boys with Wagon-
Whipns.—On the 13th of July, the day previous to
the visit of the inspectors, one of the girls in the
female department of this house had been severely
punished, and it became our painful duty to invest-
igate the circumstances. The girl was seventeen
years of age, and coming eighteen the ensuing May,
in stature a woman grown; it is said she had been
avery troublesome girl. On this occasion she was
charged with open and direct disobedience of orders
and insolence of language; she frankly admitted this
offense, and for it was*punished by the superintend-
ent in person witha rattan about half an inch in
diameter and twenty inches long, upon tke shoul-
ders and back of the neck—the number of blows no
onecan report. The superintendent says, ‘I struck
her with all my might;’ ‘she would not yield, I
sent for a larger stick, and then she held out her
hand.’ After this beating and this subniission she
was committed to the cell and the food of the soli-
tary, where we found her on the 8lst day of July.
Upon each shoulder the flesh was discolored, blue-
a ne
— —as
black in spots full as large as the palm of the hand,
and there were perfectly evident traces of blows
upon her back and shoulders. She seems to us a
resolute girl, of more than ordinary strength of pur-
pose and character; there were unmistakable evi-.
dences also that her feelings were quick to respond
to appeals of tenderness and good-will as no doubt
they are in quick passion.
““On the 5th of August we again visited the insti-
tution; she was suffering the solitary, it being the
seventh day of her incarceration ; her shoulders
were still strongly discolored; the same indications
of character were manifest; it appeared she had
been visited by the matron daily with food, and
by the physician, who seems by the rules not to be
allowed to ‘hold communication with any inmates
except in pursuance of his medical duty.’ She
stated she had not been spoken to by any officer of
the establishment about her misconduct, her peni-
tence, her resolves or purposes, or about anything
connected with her imprisonment, and to this ex~
tent her staterfénts were not denied. We repeated
these statements to the superintendent, who replted
by this question to the girl, ‘Have you ever sent for
me?’ to which she answered, ‘No, sir,’?and to which
he rejoined, ‘Well, then.’ She was finally released
from the cell on the evening of the 5th day of Au-
gust, the same day of our second visit. Speaking
of the corporeal punishment, the superintendent
remarked, ‘It Was the severest flogging I ever had
to do.’ Inthe course of this investigation we were
informed by this officer that in the boys’ depart-
ment the punishments are sometimes inflicted with
an ordinary Wagon-whip by the superintendent in
person,” -
All this was going on while those haman-
itarians were engaged in buying substitutes to,
go down and fight the cruel slave-drivers of the
South. It must have been in one of these
humane institutions that those boys were edu-
cated who some time ago stoned a schuol-
mistress to death. | Is it to save their ebildren
from this kind.of high civilization that the
GREAT CRIME Of New England is so common?
lor it is unquestionably true that more human
beings are destroyed before they come into
existence there in the course of five years than
have ever been so destroyed in the southern
States since the foundation of the Government.
The Ku Klux in North Carolina wait until their
victims reach manhood, and until they commit -
crime and escape from punishment, before they
take them in hand; but the New England ku
Klux destroy the innocent unborn. We all re-
member the horrible exposé made by the bureau
of statistics of that State two years ago, in
regard to the cruel and inhuman overworking ©
of poor little children in the factories. lt
was announced in that report that children
under fifteen, and some under ten years of
age were worked ‘eleven hours a day in. fac-
tories all over the State;’’ and one oversecy
. :
testified that he had seen them go to sleep
while standing at their work, and was com-
pelled ‘‘to sprinkle water in their faces to
arouse them after having spoken to them uptil
hoarse.’’? According to the census, there are
in North Carolina 214,142 male citizens over
twenty-one years of age, and in Massachusetts
there are 312,770, and yet, notwithstanding the
superior culture and refinement of the latter
State, and notwithstanding more than one
third of the people of the former are of that
class recently held as slaves, the statistics
show that for every crime committed in North
Carolina there are more than three committed
in Massachusetts.
There is hardly a State of the North in
which there have not been bloodshed and riots.
I have been told by a citizen of a great north-
ern city, within the past fortnight, that it was
‘dangerous to walk upon the streets of that
city after sunset; and he is corroborated by
the newspapers. In one judicial circuit of the
State of Indiana, according to the statement
of the judge therein presiding, there have been
actually more men murdered by mobs in the
past four years than have been killed by Ku
Klux in the whole State of North Carolina
from their organization to this day. And yet
no soldiers have been sent there.
In his charge to the grand jury touching the
murder of the Park family in Clark county,
. Indiana, and the hanging of the three negroes
charged with the commission of the murder,
Judge Dunham said:
‘Within the last four years, in this judicial cir-
cuit, there have been thirteen men murdered before
these three. Five were hung upon the beech trees
below Seymour—I speak words plainly; I do not
mince them—one of whom was an orphan boy, just
arrived at the age of maturity, left without mother,
worse than fatherless. I think he was less than
twenty-one. He was one of the victims of that mur-
der. Two more were hung in the court-house yard
at Brownstown; four in the jail-yard in the very
heart of New Albany, one of whom the whole com-
_ munity now believe innocent—I mean the youngest
victim of the murder; two south of Orleans, between
there and Seymour. I believe if you count them
you will find they number thirteen. Thirteen men
jung by the neck in this State; more men than
ele =e ALY © been judicially hanged in this State, in my
i‘ opinion, since Indiana has been a State.”
The men who hanged those three negroes
were said to have been disguised, and were,
therefore, Ku Klux I suppose; but was there
anything in the social and political condition
of that State which could by possibility ex-
tenuate such crimes? The editor of the New
York Tribune seemed to think there was;
for in his paper of December 13 last, in com-
menting upon this case, he says:
“When lynching becomes fashionable it is fair to
4
assume that the laws are not honestly executed and
the courts are not pure. It is because judges were
believed to be corrupt and timid, prosecutors un-
faithful, or jurorsin complicity with the criminals,
that Indiana mobs took the privilege of punishment
into their own hands, and whenever and wherever
justice is similarly prostituted we shall have murder
usurping the functions of the law.”
I emphasize the last two lines because they
contain the whole philosophy of Ku Kluxism.
The people of North Carolina experienced for
years that same prostitution of justice, and
are now suffering from it. Lawless men in
organized bands did usurp the functions of the
law, because justice was prostituted under the
influenceof other wicked and dangerous organ-
izations to which they opposed themselves. If
there had been no secret societies such as the
‘Red Strings,’’ ‘‘ Heroes of America,’’ and
‘‘Union Leagues,’? whose members commit- ~~
ted murders and rapes, burned barns, and
intimidated voters by threats and scourgings,
and then escaped punishment, there never
would have been any Ku Klux. The one
begot the other and always will do it in any
country. It is all wrong, to be sure, but it
is intensely human.
I purpose confining my remarks to events
which have occurred in my own State, because
the condition of the other southern States has
been and will be fully discussed by other mem-
bers of the committee whose duties, as such,
have brought them more particularly under
their notice. :
I shall not go back to the year 1672, as this
majority report does on page 278, and discuss
the general wickedness of the Government of
Sir John Yeamans.in Carolina, because 1 do
not see its immediate bearing on the question
before the Housé. There was no evidence
before the committee going to show that Sir
John Yeamans was a Ku Klux in 1672, and
that therefore the habeas corpus ought to be
suspended in 1872, although it would be quite
as logical and reasonable to do so as to sus-
pend it for offenses committed several years
ago, as the committee proposes.
I shall, in a few words, simply contrast the
condition of North Carolina before the war
with her present state. ‘There was no land on
the globe inhabited by a braver, purer, more
honest and hospitable people than that State
wag. Containing no great citiés and few rail-
roads, her citizens were plain, unpretending
agriculturists. It was on her soil that the first
Declaration of Independence was made, on the
20th of May, 1775, more than a year before Jef-
ferson penned, in almost the same language, his
immortal paper. Her people, while devoted to
the Union, loved her more; for she was their
mother before the Union had any existence.
Rejoicing in peace, they always responded
ene enengeseemearsunnmnnmessnaersnsmnsenemammenseressernsasnamsreeenencemeeneeree asc
promptly to the call of their country in every
war in which it was engaged, and when our late
unhappy revolution was inaugurated, though
they entered it sorrowfully, they fought through
it splendidly; and to-day, beneath the melan-
choly mounds with which that southern land
is billowed, there are more North Carolinians
sleeping, in proportion to the population of |
the State, than there are soldiers from any
other State on either side.
economical government, and a very learned
and spotless judiciary, against whom no sus-
picion was ever breathed. And I will add,
for the benefit of the gentleman who so elab-
orately tabulated their illiteracy, that before
the war they had, besides their colleges, acad-
emies, and high schools, thirty-five hundred
common schools, attended by one hundred and
fifty thousand children, or two thirds of all in
the State, between five and twenty-one years
‘ of age, and owned a school fund larger by
$500,000 than the State of Massachusetts had.
The State debt was comparatively small, taxes
were light, the administration of justice cheap, |
and official corruption unknown.
Such was their happy condition twelve years
ago. Whatis itnow? Let the figures furnished
by a former State treasurer, published in the
minority report of this committee, on page 378,
tell, so far as the financial situation is con-
cerned. They are summed up as follows:
Taxable property of the State of North Carolina in
18604...... Ree, Ler ce culevesteoercnens $292,297 ,602
Taxable property of North Carolina in
g BST Bek cs os STEN AEA ES RRA AC ii AO 130,378,622
Taxation for State purposes in 1860......... 543,643
Taxation for State purposes in 1870.......... 1,160,413
Taxation for county purposes in 1860...... 255,117
Taxation for county purposes in 1870...... 923,624
Average cost of conducting the State
government for three years, (1858, 1859,
BET LOD) peatcrts cece cceneee dnaniteceerttenttas ertshcess 137,977
Average cost for three years, (1868, 1869,
AUTVCS LO TO) eee cecre cnc ents eaten ceeeettce Aipsbirgy ei abe) 576,738
Public debt of North Carolina in 1861...... 9,699,500
Publie debt of North Carolina in 1871...... 34,887,465
From these figures it appears that the State
debt has been increased nearly fourfold since
the war, (for the war debt is excluded,) as
also have been the yearly expenses of the State
and the county taxes each; while, although the
taxable property has decreased one half, the
taxation for State purposes has doubled. These
figures are more eloquent than any speech can
be, and contain an epitome of the history of
Radical reconstruction. In them can be found,
too, one of the causes of Ku Kluxism, but by
no means the only one.
I shall now proceed to discuss in a general
way some of the other features of. our situ-
ation.
And first, I wish to say that the effort which
They hada simple,
ee
has been made to identify the Democratic or
Conservative party of my State with the Ku
Klux, and to make the terms convertible, is
grossly unjust, and most discreditable to those
making the charge. I do not know of a single
public man of that party who has not publicly
denounced Ku Kluxism as not only criminal
per se, but when committed by Democrats, as
disastrous in a party point of view. And still
the allegation is persistently made that they are
responsible for all these offenses, and the par-
tisan press still continues to denounce every
man “opposed to the Radical infamies which
have disgraced the State as one of the ‘‘Ku
Klux Democracy.’’
A year ago, when, after defeating a native
Radical who commenced the canvass with
about two thousand majority, I applied for
admission to my seat, a petition, purporting
to be signed by fifteen hundred names, was pre- .
sented in the Senate protesting against the ad-
mission of Governor Vance and myself upon
the ground that we ‘‘ were elected by system-
atic violence and bloodshed, for which we were
individually responsible,’’ when the facts, so
far as | was concerned, were that during a
heated canvass of twelve counties, including
the day of election, there was not throughout
the entire district a single breach of the peace,
nor any complaint that a single human being
had been interfered with in the slightest de-
gree in the exercise of his right of suffrage.
The great mass of the ostengible signers of
the petition were colored men who could not
write, and some of them came to me apd told |
me they never authorized the use of their
names, While others said they had been de-
ceived as to the character of. the petition.
When the matter was exposed in the Senate.
the base libelers who had prepared the peti-
tion added the crime of perjury to the previous
one of forgery by swearing thatthey had signed
the names by authority and under circum:
stances involving a physical impossibility.
This, however, is but a weak illustration of
the uniform rascality which has characterized
he career of the Republican party of that —
State. :
Take one of the latest specimens, which is
furnished by the case of my colleague, [Mr.
Leacu.] According to the affidavits of re-
spectable men of both political parties, it is as
clear a case of malicious prosecution and per-
secution for political reasons as ever disgraced
the judicial annals of any State. He is one
of those true sons of the soil whose services in
exposing and denouncing the crimes of that
party aud in defeating one of its best candi-
dates in a large Republican district, have made
him an object of terror to its aspiring states-
men. It was necessary to get him out of the
way, and it was thought best to charge him
with being a Ku Klux. The attempt was made
by one of the leading Republicans of that part
of the State, a Federal officeholder, and the
result was that the witness introduced to estab-
lish the charge confessed, on cross-examina-
tion, that he was instigated by that officer
under a promise that he would be discharged
from a prosecution for violating ihe revenue
laws, and was told by him that Leacu must be
got rid of and his popularity broken down, for
the Government officer wanted his (Leacu’s)
place in Congress. It was further proved by
Democrats and Republicans alike that my col-
league had, when invited, refused to join a
_ secret political society, had warned his fellow-
_ Citizens against it, had denounced it asillegal,
and had actually broken it up.
And yet so great is their fear of his popular-
ity, and so determined are they to‘hunt him
down, that they have gotup a new indictment
against him in the United States court for ‘in-
timidating voters,’’ and a part of the pro-
pramme is to have his case taken up during
the next summer term, so as to keep him out
of the coming canvass as much as possible. :
They are certainly welcome to all the votes
they make by that proceeding. I have cited
these two instances to show how the politicians
of that party illustrate its ‘‘ great moral ideas.’’
I will now give you a specimen or two of the
judicial officers of that party, upon whom has
devolved the task of purifying the morals of
that community. A witness who sustains a
high character as a lawyer and gentleman,
testified before our committee in regard to
one judge (who still rides a large circuit) as
follows:
**He took a prisoner out of jail at twelve o’clock
at night and offered him amnesty and pardonif he
would swear enough to convict me. Another per-
son, a deputy marshal of the United States, stated
in a public crowd that he was authorized by Judge
Logan to say that any man who would swear enough
to convict me of being the chief of the organization
in Lincoln county should have amnesty and pardon.”
The same witness filed as part of his testi-
mony a copy of a memorial signed by thirty-
two lawyers, including every ‘one of both
parties practicing in that circuit, (except the
solicitor of the court, and two State senators,
who would have been his judgeg in case of
impeachment, and whose official position,
therefore, made it improper for them to take
part in the proceedings of the bar, but who
approved them,) wherein it is alleged that jus-
tice had been impeded, confidence in the efh-
ciency,of the Government and laws had been
impaired, crimes had been multiplied, &c., by
reason of the ‘‘incompetency,’’ as they termed
it, of that judge; and the witness testified that
‘his partisan administration of justice’’ was }
what was referred to by the word incompe-
tency. Healso said that that partiality ‘‘ was so
gross as to be observed byeverybody,’’ and he
cited instances of it to the committee in which
the judge would fine a Democrat $100 for a
trifling offense, and when a Radical who had
cruelly beaten a Democrat with a slung-shot
without any provocation was convicted he
would fine him a penny and costs.
That judge has made most ‘‘loyal’’ efforts
in behalf of the Government against the Ku
Klux in the way I have mentioned, but although
he added to ignorance and partisanship what
a meeting of the bar solemnly resolved was
‘* a willful violation of the plain letter of the
law,’? and although the memorial was pre-
sented to the late Democratic Legislature, they
refrained from impeaching him, because of
their anxious desire to avoid even the appear-
ance of partisanship, and to keep down polit-
ical excitement. Another one cf the Radical
judges resigned after steps had been taken for
his impeachment, another has been publicly
charged with receiving a bribe, others with
habitual drunkenness and the grossest igno-
rance; but life is too short, to say nothing of
my brief hour, for a recital in detail of all
these things. The conduct of these officers,”
and of the United States deputy marshals and
detectives, destroyed all confidence among the
people in the courts, anda few of the more
reckless of them, consequently, sometimes
took the law into their own hands. . They were
nothing more nor less than vigilance commit-
tees, such as have existed in other parts of the
country, and they never embraced any consid-
erable number of the citizens ; but’their exist-
ence has been made the pretext for maligning
the whole population of the State, not only
by a partisan press, but in the official docu- |
ments of the executive department of the
Government.
The President, in his message, while appear-
ing to desire to harmonize public sentiment
and inaugurate long-demanded reforms, in-
dulged in the usual misrepresentation of the
southern people, and foreshadowed the report
of the majority of this committee. By what
authority he undertook to say what the com-
mittee would report Ido not know. The com-
mittee did not confer with him upon the sub-
ject, and they authorized no one to do so, or
to say what their report would be. However
that may be, the facts alleged by him as to the
state of society in the South are not true, but
they were sufficient, perhaps, for.the accom-
plishment of the desired purpose. The Presi-
dent in that message, among other baseless
assertions, says that in every case of arrest in
South Carolina during the time the Aabeas
corpus was suspended, there was ‘‘indubitable
evidence of the guilt of the parties seized,’’ and
yet I know that one gentleman, a descendant
of a judge of the Supreme Court of the United
States, and a grandson of a distinguished Gov-
ernor of North Carolina, was arrested and
confined for thirty-four days and nights in a
dungeon, a part of the time in the same cell |
with a negro felon, before he was informed of
the accusation against him, and when at the
expiration of that time he was informed of the
charge, so promptly and conclusively proved
its falsity that even his military persecutors
were compelled from mere shame to release
him at once. That gentleman has no redress,
and his case is by no means a solitary one.
Perhaps the most pitiful complaint in that
message against our people was one which was
worn out by the carpet-bag thieves and Freed-
men’s Bureau bummers several years ago. If
allude to the whine about social ostracism.
That is a erime which it is impossible to per-
petrate against a gentleman, and therefore it
findsa place in the catalogue of offenses com-
plained of by the Executive against the southern
people. What proper connection that has with
our duties as citizens of the General Govern-
ment, and how it is to be made a subject of ff
legislation by Congress are questions which
stagger me. The Secretary of War, too, found
if necessary to give an excuse for the eampaign
in the South, inasmuch as the Army was
needed elsewhere, and, with a decidedly muli-
tary emphasis worthy of the war minister of a
military Government, he, scorning the assist-
ance of any evidence, proclaims as a fact. that
‘‘a second rebellion exists, the suppression
of which requires the presence of the Army.’’
He says, too:
“Tt is a painful fact that in some portions of the
South freedom of opinion is not tolerated if that
opinion is expressed in opposition to the doctrines
of the late rebellion f”’
As the Secretary in 1861 was afraid the re-
bellion would not succeed,and vexed his soul
with anxiety on that subject, perhaps he ought
to know the ‘‘doctrines’’ on which it was based.
The generally receivéd opinion, I believe, is
that those ‘‘doctrines’’ were the right of a |
State to secede, and the right to hold slaves.
The allegation of the Secretary, therefore, is
that a new rebellion exists, and that the south-
ern people will not tolerate opposition to se-
cession and slavery—an assertion which illus-
trates alike the veracity of the Secretary and
the extent of his confidence in the intelligence
of the people.
Why did not the President and the Secretary
tell you that in a county of the district which
one
murdering white men with impunity ;-that they
have killed twenty-four respectable citizens,
(more than the Ku Klux have ever killed in
the whole State ;) that the citizens had begged
for United States soldiers, and that a squad
was sent there, and, like the army of the king
I represent, a band of negro outlaws, led by |
Lostes, have for years been robbing and |
10
| of France, had ‘‘ marched up the hill and then
marched down again,’’ their only experience
being to hear the crack of Lowrey’s rifle within
two hundred yards of their camp, and to see a
murdered citizen lying on the highway? If
Lowrey’s gang had been Ku-Klux, and the
victims had been negroes or Republicans, does.
anybody believe they would now be roaming
through the eountry producing a reign -of
terror ?
Why did they not tell you thai their soldiers,
not content with running riot over the poor,
degraded, humiliated State of South Carolina,
had, with all the panoply of war, invaded North
Carolina, where the machinery of civil govern-
ment was quietly at work, and had arrested the
chairman of the board of commissioners of
Cleveland *county and three other citizens,
had abducted them by forge out of the State,
and had impris@ned them without form or
color of law in South Carolina,where the habeas
corpus was suspended, and where they could
not even inquire into the cause of their arrest,
or get the least redress for such an outrage ?
Why did they not tell you that some of the —
United States marshals in North Carolina go
about with pistols in their belts and cowhides
in their hands insulting and brow-beating citi-
zens, exacting legal fees from and black-
mailing them, arresting and imprisoning them
upon the merest pretext, and then discharging
them without a trial; that one of them had
shot down with impunity and left:lying on the
roadside an inoffensive citizen, against whom
he had no process, and who had offered him no
resistance, because he would not go to jail at
his bidding, and that this official assassin had
gone scot-free? Whichof the gentlemen so
eager to punish Ku Klux and protect the peo-
ple in the enjoyment of their rights and liber-
ties has anything to say about these and other
similar outrages? What Republican news-
papers of the North have even commented on
them? Who has condemned them?
I state facts. A poor, hard-working farmer
| has toiled a whole year to make bread for his
family; he has gathered his little crop and
housed it; he eats his frugal evening meal,
and with cheerful gratitude goes to his humble
bed; he is roused at midnight by the crackling
flame which glevours the whole fruits of his
year’s labor, his all, while the loyal Union
League incendiary walks away in the light of
the conflagration. Heis arrested, tried, con-
victed; a corrupt judge sets aside the verdict,
or a corrupt Governor pardons him. The law
gives no redress. The farmer, im despairgt the
prospect of starvation before his family, blows.
his own brains out; his outraged neighbors
take the law into their own hands and hang the
incendiary, and immediately the whole coun-
try rings with the ery of ‘‘Ku Klux.’’ But
when armed soldiers, under command of an
11
_
officer, make araid from one State into another,
arrest, drag off, and incarcerate its citizens in,
that other State, where they cannot enjoy even
the poor privilege of having their cause invest-
ivated, no one of these guardians of public lib-
erty lifts his voice in condemnation; and when
I, as the Representative of these outraged
people, introduce a respectful resolution of
inquiry into the crime, it is objected to and
not received by this House.
Hear another case. Another Loyal Leaguer
commits a cold-blooded murder; he is con-
victed and sent to the penitentiary ; he is soon
pardoned out and returns to the scene of his
crime, flaunting his pardon in the face of the
community, and boasting his immunity from
punishment for future crime. Within a week
he commits another crime, and is in jail within
a fortnight of his former release. He boasts
that he will soon again be free, and assigns as
a reason for his faith that the» Governor will
' befriend him and all like him: The friends
of his victims wrongfully, but humanly, determ-
ine that he shall not escape punishment, and
they hang him, whereupon the same cry of
“Ku Klux’”’ and ‘‘rebellion’’ is raised. But
a deputy United States marshal meetsa stranger
on the highway, arrests him without warrant,
and without alleging any offense against him
attempts to take him to prison, and when the
prisoner, without any resistance, tries to rua
away, he shoots him down, leaves his body on
the roadside, and proceeds serenely about his
business. If these things are told on the streets
of your cities the reply is apt to be a yawn, a
shrug of the shoulders, and perhaps an inquiry
as to the price of Seneca sandstone.
Indeed, it would be exactly in accordance
with the policy of this Administration if each
of these loyal villains shall be promoted for
his valuable services. Look at the favors al-
ready bestowed on their predecessors in crime.
The late Governor of North Carolina, after
being impeached and removed from office, and
after being indicted in the courts from which he
was a fugitive, took refuge here in the bosom of
the Administration as editor ofits organ. Kirk,
the cut-throat whom he impofted trom Ten-
nessee to oppress and outrage his fellow-citi-
zens with the bayonet, a man who ought to go
down to everlasting infamy for the murder of
a poor, half-witted boy who knelt pitifully to
him, and begged for his life in vain, this Kirk,
who also fled from justice, came here for his
reward, and got it. Bergen, Kirk’s lieuten-
ant colonel, another fugitive from justice, was
appointed consul to Pernambuco. The former
carpet-bag treasurer of the city in which [ live,
and who was a defaulter in that office, naturally
gravitated to the Treasury of the United States,
and was recently promoted in the Third Audi-
tor’s Office, his defaleation being known to the
Third Auditor, andas I have reason to believe,
to the Secretary of the T’reasury also. Ought
we not to expect that the officer who raided
into North Carolina, and the deputy United
States marshal who shot down the inoffensive
citizen, will also, be promoted ?
I could cite numberless instances of this
kind, and for each one could find as broad a
contrast. But what would it avail? I am
told that the northern people cannot be roused
by a recital of these acts of despotism in the
South; that nothing will bring them to a real:
ization of the true: situation until the armed
heel of the despot rings before their own
doors. If this be true, can a southern man
be expected to weep when the catastrophe
happens? I think not. If the wrongs and
outrages and usurpations practiced on them |
are matters of indifference to their country-
men of the North, then they are. paving the
way which leads to a similar experience,. and
will deserve no sympathy when they réach it.
If the ‘‘nation could not exist half slave and
half free,’’ it is very.certain that it cannot and
ought not to exist with the people of one half
of it domineering and tyrannizing over the
other; imposing upon them more than their
fall share of the burdens of Government, and
denying to them any part of its benefits.
You crowned your reconstruction legislation,
which bankrupted and ruined and degraded
| those States, by this unconstitutional Ku Klax
bill; and what have been its fruits? You
succeeded in convicting a few criminals and
alleged criminals, and in punishing them, but
the amount of perjury and general demoraliza-
tion which it has produced, the terror result-
ing in the expatriation of hundreds of inno-
cent families which it has wrought, the false
and pernicious ideas in regard to the relation
between a certain class of citizens and the
government which it has developed, the antag-.
onisms of race, and the bitterness and hatred
which it has fostered, outweigh a million times
the combined benefits which its most honest
advocates ever dreamed it could effect; and
to-day the majority of this committee come
before Congress and ask that its most offensive
and outrageous features may continue to be
enforced beyond the time limited in the bill!
This, too, in the face of the fact that accord-
ing to the testimony the bulk of the crimes
complained of were committed before the bill
passed Congress a year ago. y
Gentlemen who wish to continue this kind
of legislation must know that they are alien:
ating the southern people more and more
every day. Those people would not be human
beings, much less enlightened American citi-
zens, if the result could be otherwise, and
therefore, notwithstanding the profession of a
desire to pacify them and restore to them good
12
a ED
ooo aS NY
r
governments, the conviction forces itself upon
them that these gentlemen do not want them
to be peaceable and quiet and prosperous, but
would be glad to goad them to desperation or
drivethem intoexile. They heard here within
the past few weeks one of them deny that the
carpet-bag governments of those States ,had
been corrupt, and another express a desire to
see a hundred southern men taken out before
breakfast every morning and shot. They hear
on this floor, in almost every debate which
arises, gratuitous insults heaped upon them in
regard to their illiteracy and barbarism by
those who never having shed a drop of their
own or their enemies’ blood when war raged
in the country, now signalize their patriotism
by throwing dirt in the face of their prostrate
and harmless prisoners.
And when they hear these things reiterated
seven years after the war, and feel the legisla-
tion which is the natural result of such a state
of mind, they ask themselves whether such
eople can be other than their bitter enemies.
von have done damage enough already, God
knows. Stop this kind of legislation. Give
us the rights guarantied to us by the Constitu-
tion, even as amended by your own hands.
Emancipate those people from the political
bondage in which they bave so long been held.
Stop sowing the seeds of hate in their breasts.
Make them feel that you are their countrymen
and not their enemies. Divest them of the
conviction which daily grows among them that
you intend to force their support of the dom-
inant political party or make their land a wil-
derness.
But the committee recommend general am-
nesty—of course to the Senate, for the House
has already passed it. I trust that much of
their report will be adopted. Sir, among the
most impressive and suggestive scenes of mod-
ern times was that which the American people
have been more than once called upon to wit-
ness within the past year, wherein a foreign-
born American citizen, once an insurrectionist
and an exile, standing upon the floor of the
highest legislative assembly of the Republic,
was seen eloquently rebuking, in the purest
idiomatic HKnglish, his native-born colleagues
for their recreancy to the fundamental prin-
ciples of American liberty. It was to me, sir,
a strange and suggestive episode. It furnished
food for profitable meditation. That citizen,
armed with the irresistible weapons of philo-
sophic statesmanship, enlarged culture, and
practical experience, has, in defiance of the
power of party discipline and ‘‘the crack of
the party whip,’’ nobly dared to vindicate the
honor and character of the American people
against the degrading and demoralizing prin-
ciples with which his native-born colleagues
have sought to discredit them. Itwas indeed,
sir,a singular spectacle, and one which ought
‘not to be allowed to pass away without impress-
ing upon the thoughtful American a valuable
lesson.
A student of history and a close observer
of events, he has been impelled by a spirit of
intelligent patriotism, and an imperative sense
of duty, to raise his voice against the danger-
ous tendencies of the recent legislation of
Congress. In common with his German fel-
low-citizens, he loves liberty and hates tyranny
and dishonest government. He has my respect’
and sympathy, and doubtless will continue to
receive, as he richly deserves, the confidence
and support of his admiring fellow-citizens.
‘When pleading for amnesty to his southern
countrymen, whom he had faced amid the
blaze and smoke of battle, but against whom
he cherishes no animosity, he was asked to
point to a single instance in history where con-
ciliation and amnesty to rebels had made them
good and loyal citizens, and in reply he simply
mentioned the name of Count Andrassy in
Austria. Doubtless the illustration was lost,
for the eyes and ears of his interrogator were
most probably innocent of ever having seen or
heard that name; but there is a history behind
it which might furnish a profound lesson to the
would-be statesmen who are refusing amnesty
to the southern people and piling up hostile and
irritating legislation against them. ‘I’'wenty-
three years ago a rebellion broke out in Hun-
gary, which, after lasting eleven months, dur-
ing which three magnificent though bloody
campaigns were fought, was finally. crushed
through the intervention of Russia and. the
treachery of the Hungarian general, Gorgey.
The Archduchess Sophia, mother of the pres-
ent emperor of Austria, a relentless and un-
merciful despot, undertook to ‘‘ make treason
odious,’’ and her executioners drenched Hun-
gary in blood. The prayers and tears of even
the loyal relatives of the victims for ‘mercy
were not heard. Eleven of the most prom-
inent generals and statesmen of Hungary
perished by the hangman’s hands, besides
hundreds of others. Count Andrassy, then
Kossuth’s agent at Constantinople, in common
with many others who did not fall into the
hands of Austria, was sentenced to death and
a price placed on his head. Time wore on,
and the Nemesis of history drew nearer and
nearer, not only to the personal fortunes of
the Archduchess, but to those of her dynasty.
She lived to see the woful day when all her
prayers and tears pleaded in vain for the life
of her favorite son, Maximilian. . The Sol-
ferino campaign cost Austria the splendid
province of Lombardy; with the fearful de-
feat of Sadowa went the last of her Italian
possessions, and then was forced the conces-
sion to Hungary not only of amnesty, resto-
13
ration of confiscated property, and that polit-
ical liberty for which she had fought, but
Austria herself had to descend from her proud .
position of supreme autocracy to the level of
constitutional sovereignty and representative
government in which Hungarians have a potent
voice, while Andrassy, the sentenced rebel,
the exile on whose head a price was fixed, is
the president of the Austrian cabinet and
the trusted friend and counselor of Francis
Joseph. The distinguished ¢Senator might
have strengthened his illustration by citing
the case of the Vendeans, who, after defeat-
ing the proudest armies of Europe with clubs
and fowling-pieces under the lead of young La
Rochejaquelin of glorious memory, and who,
after suffering a butchery at which humanity
turned pale, were made the very bulwark of
France by the wise policy of conciliation which
Napoleon the Great inaugurated toward them
as soon as he grasped the reins of power..
He might have still further-enforced the illus-
tration by calling attention to the effects of
a repressive policy upon the people of. Ire-
land. England put down revolts in Scotland
and Wales, but with their suppression she
ceased all hostile legislation, and the result
has been that the people of those two coun-
tries are to-day, and have long been, the most
loyal and faithful of British subjects. Toward
Ireland, on the contrary, there has been for two
hundred years an established system of refined
eruelty, and the fruits of it have appeared in
the Ku Kluxism of that unhappy country under
the names of ‘‘ White Boys,’’ ‘‘ Rapparees,’’
‘* Ribbon Men,’’ ‘* Mollie McGuires,’’ ‘‘ Peep
O’Day Boys,’’ ‘‘ Rockites,’’ &. The more
considerate treatment of late years has par-
tially allayed the evil, but to-day Ireland is
the weak spot in the British armor, through
which, if at all, she will receive her death-
blow.
What a lesson there is too, in the course of
Charles II, touching the ‘‘act of oblivion,”’
in 1660, and what a striking similarity there
is between the conduct of the two branches
of his Parliament on that subject and that of
the two Houses of Congress in regard to am-
nesty. ‘* This act of oblivion,’’ says the author
of the debates in the House of Lords, ‘‘ the
Commons, after having been quickened by a
message from the king, made short work of,
and sent up to the Lords, where it met with
several obstructions and delays. The Com-
mons had excepted only a few of the most
notorious regicides, whereas the Lords were
for giving their resentment a much larger
scope. ‘I'his severity of theirs not suiting,
however, with the policy of the times, his
Majesty came to the house (July 27) and from
the throne expressed himself as follows:
** My lords, when I came first hither to you, which
was within two or three days after I came to White-
LEIS ALLELE LL TO LCD DO CL LLY OTT TELE TI
hall, I did, with as much earnestness as I could,
both by myself and the chancellor, recommend to
you and the House of Commons the speedy dis-
patch of the act of indemnity as a necessary found-
ation of that security we all pray for. I did since,
by a particular message to the House of Commons,
again press to hasten that important work, and did
likewise, bya proclamation, publish to all the king-
dom that I did with impatience expect that that
act would be presented to me for my assent as the
most reasonable and solid foundation of that peace,
happiness, and security I hope and pray for to
myself and all my dominions. I wili not deny it to
you that I thought the House of Commons too long
about that work, and therefore, now it is come up
to you, [ would not have you guilty of the same
delay.’”’
The chancellor. subsequently called their
especial attention to the provisions of the act
prohibiting the calling of ‘‘names or other
words of reproach any way leading to revive
the memory of the late differences or the occa-
sion thereof,’’ and appealed to them ‘‘to learn
the excellent art of forgetfulness.’’ Cannot
Americans in the nineteenth century learn that
excellent art practiced by a Stuart two hun-
dred years ago?
Now, while admitting neither the wisdom
nor justice of such a course on the part of
this Government, I am persuaded that it would
have been more merciful to the southern people
to have hanged or shot as many of us as would
have glutted the vengeance of the politicians
immediately after the war, than to have kept
up for purely party purposes the system of
robbery, fraud, and oppression which has, since
the war ended, been unrelentingly exercised
over them. That system has but illustrated
the truth of what the blessed St. Augustine
said concerning such a state of peace as we
enjoy:
‘* Heec facta sunt in pace post bellum. Pax cum
bello de crudelitate certavit, et vicit. Illud enim
prostravit armatos, istud nudatos. Bellum erat, ut
qui feriebatur, si posset, feriret; pax autem non
ut qui evaserat viveret, sed ut moriens non repug-
naret.’’
Your peace has surpassed war in cruelty.
You have struck down the helpless and naked,
and now, when the armor has been stripped
from your former antagonists, your policy
seems to be not only that they shall not live,
but that even in dying they shall not defend
themselves. It is not too late now to repair
your error and to make the southern people
your friends. Try it, but not in the way rec-
ommended by the majority of this committee,
Do not accompany an act of grace. as you term
it, with a renewed system of oppression and
outrage. If you do, where will be your claim
to gratitude? It is a radical error to suppose
| | 14 y i :
that the men who are iio bare Seomibitoa tiny Enotrane® | by the four-
teenth amendment from holding office are con-
sumed with a passion to taste of the flesh-pots
of this Egypt. There are some things dearer
to them than office, and the fear that they will
again return to plague the modern exponents of
Americanism may be dismissed. I have never
considered this amnesty business the only one
thingneedful. I have never regarded the with-
holding of it by Congress as the cause of all
our woes, nor will.the granting of it be a pan-
acea for them. It is but one, and by no means
the most serious, of the impediments which
lie in the way of our return to prosperity;
but the concession of it will greatly smooth
that way.
And now, Mr. Speaker, I have done. Thave
spoken as I felt, and. have uttered feebly, but
sincerely, what '[ believe to be the honest sen-
timents of every true man south of the Poto-
mac. I hope it is the last time I shall ‘ever
find it to be my duty to speak in this behalf,
but until my tongue is palsied I shall always
be ready to do so if occasion shall require, for
I jove the land’ of my birth and the people
whose afflictions have excited the sympathy,
as their fortitude under them commands the
admiration, of-the civilized world.
Photomount
Pamphlet
Binder
Gaylord Bros.
Makers
Syracuse, N. Y.
PAT. JAN 21, 1908
aM
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