Southern Democrats

“ Some of the Southern Democrats advocate doctrines which are far removed from traditional democracy, for Populistic ideas have not entirely died out and some of the farmers still demand special privileges, which, however, they would be the first to deny to any one else. Democracy in the South really means the white man's party, and the Democratic doctrines are those in which it is 202 thought the majority of the white men of the State or section believe for the time. Though the negro is no longer a voting power, the malign influence of the negro question persists. ”

“ The independents in the South have to face the same state of affairs that the independents of the North did in the ’80’s—all the better traditions connected with one party, and most of the respectable people belonging to the same party. Just as George William Curtis and his followers were accused of being Democrats in disguise and of being traitors to the ‘grand old party’ that had saved the Union and freed the slaves, and deserters to a party of Copperheads, so the Southern independent is said to be a Republican in disguise, and is told of the awful crimes of the Reconstruction era. ”

“ The Democratic party had the control of every department of the Government, and a formidable popular majority behind it. It had the complete command of its own fortunes, and there was no cause or even excuse for the division which threatened its life. The difference between the Southern Democrats and the followers of Douglas was purely metaphysical, eluding entirely the practical common sense of the people. Both wings of the party now stood committed to the Dred Scott decision, and that surrendered everything which the extreme men of the South demanded. ”

“ And then again those men believed then, and some of them still believe or profess to believe, that southern Democrats were and are honest and sincere in the declaration that the presence of the colored men in the Republican party prevented southern white men from coming into it. "Draw the race line against the colored man,—organize a white Republican party,—and you will find that thousands of white men who now act with the Democratic party will join the Republicans." ”

“ The rights of the emancipated class being out of danger, the negro vote will then naturally divide itself between the different parties, and there is the solution of that fearful question of the war of races, with which the Democrats have endeavored to frighten our nervous brethren. Political parties will no longer think of a war of races when they think of gaining negro votes for their respective tickets. The Southern Democrats are now going through a preparatory course, and for a beginning they do admirably well. ”

“ These resolutions were indorsed by Democratic conventions, approved at public meetings, and amplified by state legislatures. In Missouri, Tennessee, and Kentucky the feeling quickly reached fever heat; in the cotton States sentiment boldly favoured "A Southern Confederacy." Sectional interest melted party lines. "The Southern Whigs want the great question settled in such a manner as shall not humble and exasperate the South," said the New York Tribune; "the Southern Democrats want it so settled as to conduce to the extension of the power and influence of slavery." ”

“ The only remedy for the exodus is in the hands of Southern Democrats themselves, and if they do not change their treatment of the Negro and recognize his rights as a man and a citizen, the movement will go on, greatly to the injury of the labor interests of the South, if not the whole country. ”

“ The South defies anything which the Federal Government may devise. As Senator Lamar, of Mississippi, said to his colleagues in the Senate:
“But there is one issue upon which the South is solid, and upon which she will remain solid—the protection of her civilization from subjection to an ignorant and servile race. And neither Federal honors nor Federal bayonets can shake that solidity.”
President Wilson’s administration has been one which was dominated by Southern Democrats, and as the Southern vote has been behind him and them, there could hardly be any help given to the Negroes. ”

“ They committed themselves so far in favor of the Southern policy at the North that they lost the confidence of their fellow-citizens of the North, and with their confidence lost their votes; and when they lost their votes, the Southern men could no longer depend upon them to protect their peculiar interest—they smote those that had been their humble servants for two generations past. They taught Southern Democrats that they could ask no humiliation which would not be yielded ”

“ The defeated Democrats, who all the while had predicted dire mischief in case of a Republican victory, were, of course, not slow to take advantage of the disturbed state of the popular mind. Some of them openly justified the secession movement under existing circumstances; others loudly demanded that the victorious party should abandon the anti-slavery principles and policy it had been contending for, and thus induce the Southern leaders to let their States stay in the Union. ”

“ A very large portion, I have been credibly informed, are the political opponents of the party to which I belong—democrats, as they most undeservedly call themselves, who have eagerly seized this opportunity to wound, as they imagine, my feelings, and to aid the cause to which they are attached. In other quarters of the union, democrats claim to be the exclusive champions of southern interests, the only safe defenders of the rights in slave property, and unjustly accuse us Whigs with abolition designs wholly incompatible with its security. ”

“ The disputed succession still remains unadjusted. A new election has come on. For a time, the Northern Democrats, with notable exceptions, gave a more or less liberal support to the Government, against the Democratic insurgents of the South. But the same Democratic forces which figured in the election of 1860, now appear in the political field, with positions and policy unchanged since that time, as I think, except for the worse. The Southern Democracy is still in arms under the usurper at Richmond. ”

“ In the Southern States, for instance, the Independent Democrats may, in the course of time, find themselves obliged to “fuse” with the Republicans; or a number of citizens may, without any permanent organization, assume an independent attitude with the intention of casting their votes for the candidates of one or the other of the old parties, as the interests of good government may in their opinion suggest, as is the case, to a greater or less extent, in all parts of the country. ”

“ The actual point of difference is this: the Democrats affiliate with their old political friends in the South, the late rebels, the friends and followers of Breckinridge, Lee, and Davis. The Union majority, on the other hand, naturally affiliate with the loyal men in the South, the men who have always supported the Government against Breckinridge, Lee, and Davis. Each party wants the South reconstructed in the hands of its own “southern brethren.” ”

“ On our conduct have been placed constructions which seem to spring from direst hate or malice. By representative men Southern States are spoken of as outside the Union; and "a solid South" has been the party appeal most efficacious for arousing sectional and vindictive passion. Every Southern citizen who followed his convictions, and affiliated with the 1,640,000 Democrats of the North, is suspected of disloyalty or treason. No protestations of men or parties, no avowals of governors or legislatures, are accepted as sincere unless accompanied by a support of the Republican party. ”

“ Democratic construction of the Constitution, 432; right of self-protection, 434; military rule in the South, 436; slavery upheld by Northern Democrats, 439; right to secede claimed by Southern Democrats, 442; negro suffrage, 443; why the freedmen are Republicans, 448; negro supremacy, 450; immigrants needed, but not encouraged, 452; political traditions of the South, 455; Grant and Lee, 457; Grant's election best for the South, 459; revenge basis of Democratic platform, 461; the Democratic ticket of 1868, 462; consequences of a Democratic victory, 465; the Democrats part in the rebellion, 469 ”

“ The Solid South votes Democratic to a man. The Negro, if he had a chance, would vote as solidly Republican. I remember being present at a violent quarrel at a Negro meeting in New Orleans—one Negro, though he had not a vote, had actually called himself a Democrat. A remedying of the defective suffrage would be an enormous access of strength to the Republican party. For this reason Democrats exaggerate their racial fear. And also for that reason every Republican politician who gains power is bound to make a bid to break the solid South. ”

“ I am a democrat, and it is because I am a democrat that I go for human freedom. Human freedom and true democracy are identical. Let the Democrats, as they are now called, get into office, and what would be the consequence? Why, under this hue-and-cry for Union, Union, Union, which is like a bait held out to the mass of the people to lure them on, they will grant to the South the meanest and the most contemptible compromises that the worst slaveholders in the South can require. ”

“ There is but one safe and constitutional way to banish that mischievous hope from the South, and that is by lifting the laborer beyond the unfriendly political designs of his former master. Give the negro the elective franchise, and you at once destroy the purely sectional policy, and wheel the Southern States into line with national interests and national objects. The last and shrewdest turn of Southern politics is a recognition of the necessity of getting into Congress immediately, and at any price. The South will comply with any conditions but suffrage for the negro. ”

“ The accession of a large body of colored voters will, of course, make the Democratic party in the South much stronger than before. But it is probable that, in the absence of the cohesive power of common fears and of a distinctively Southern policy, the divisions on local questions which have already taken place will facilitate the formation of new groupings on questions of a National character, and that the South, at a day not very distant, will cease to figure as a “solid” quantity in our National elections. ”

“ The colored people of the South, desirous to keep their newly acquired rights unimpaired, have mostly come to the very natural conclusion that the same men who gave them their liberty can be best relied upon to secure it to them. They are, therefore, strongly inclined to vote Republicans into power, and in doing this, every fair-minded man will admit, they show eminent good sense. But it is just this evidence of good sense which makes the Democrats so very savage in denouncing the colored people as unworthy the right of suffrage. ”

“ Finally, the last great argument of the Democratic party is, that the Republican policy can not give peace to the country, because the majority of the Southern whites will not submit to it. Ah, indeed, they will not submit! I am by no means inclined to judge harshly of the Southern whites. I have treated them here without passion or prejudice, as a fit subject of pathological inquiry. As we pity a sick man for his bodily ailments, so we give our sympathy, and, if possible, our aid to those who are afflicted with mental and moral infirmities for which they are not entirely responsible. ”

“ In discussing these sad and shameful events, we wish it distinctly understood that we do not arraign the whole people nor even the entire Democratic party of the States in which they have occurred. The colored and other witnesses all declare that the lawlessness from which they have suffered does not meet the approval of the better class of Democrats at the South. They are generally committed by the reckless, dissolute classes who unfortunately too often control and dominate the Democratic party and dictate its policy. ”

“ The sum total of Democratic policy in the South is the condign punishment of venial crime committed by Republicans and negroes, and amnesty for all crimes committed by Democrats. The Democratic party has never been strong enough anywhere to declare its independence of the dangerous classes.—Philadelphia North American. ”

“ Examine the political parties which exist in the South and you will find that the Democratic party of that section, as it now is, cannot give peace and order to southern society, for the simple reason that the lawless element is too powerful in it, and that it is controlled by a reactionary tendency. The Republican party in the South, as it now stands in several States, is equally incapable of securing peace and order to society, because as long as ignorance there is led by unscrupulousness it cannot produce good government and cannot exercise great moral power. ”

“ It is powerless to dissolve the solid South and to restore to that section bi-party in place of one-party governments. It is wholly incapable of attracting Southern whites in sufficient numbers to raise it to the rank of a party of opposition, or to give to it the barest chance of achieving success at the polls. ”

“ I certainly do not speak as a partisan, when I say that it is no sectional feeling which induces most of us to criticise and oppose political practices and theories which, with equal determination, we would criticise and oppose among ourselves,—such as encroachments upon the rights of voters, a dangerous financial policy, and the like; things detrimental to the principles of republican government, and to interests common to the whole country,—South as well as North. In the same measure as Southern men show that they are willing to respect the rights of others as their own are respected ”