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Franklin Repository: September 13, 1865 Go To Page : 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |

Speech Of Mr. McLellan
(Column 4)

Summary: A transcript of the speech given by William McLellan at the Democratic County Convention. McLellan discusses the issues that will form the core of the party's platform in the upcoming election, including obtaining compensation for farmers from the state's border region, black suffrage, and President Johnson's Reconstruction policies.

Origin of Article: Valley Spirit

Editorial Comment: "Mr. McLellan, the Democratic nominee for Assembly, was called on by the Convention for a speech, to which he responded. In the last Spirit we find a report of the address, and we copy it as a part of the history of the campaign. He said:"

[No Title]
(Column 7)

Summary: An extract from an address given by Gen. Grant in which he claims that, as a conquered people, Southerners "have forfeited their rights" to their land, property, or slaves. For this reason, he states, Union soldiers should feel no remorse for taking the "Rebels'" property while on their "great march."

Editorial Comment: "Gen. Sherman delivered a speech somedays since at Lancaster, Ohio, at a soldiers' picnic. After treating on several questions, he proceded to consider the proper civil status of the Rebels. He defined it as follows:"

Close Up The Ranks!
(Column 1)

Summary: With the state elections less than a month away, say the editors, Republicans of Franklin county must mobilize to ensure that Pennsylvania does not wind up in the hands of the traitorous Democrats. It is particularly important for the "Unionists" to get "systematically and thoroughly organized and polled" this year, they claim, because the state is closely divided, therefore, Franklin, as well as other "Union strong-holds" such as Lancaster, Somerset, and Bradford, will play an important role in determining which way the election turns out.

Full Text of Article:

We are now within a short month of the October election. There have been issues of more immediate moment in past political conflicts, when the very life of the Republic trembled in the scale; but never had Pennsylvania a more solemn duty to perform, touching the future peace and safety of the Nation, than that devolved upon the faithful people by the vital issues of the pending contest.

If Pennsylvania shall falter, there is not a despairing traitor who will not take fresh courage in his work to embarrass the happy restoration of the revolted States; there is not a foe of free government or of freedom who will not be glad; there is not a sordid, faithless devotee of repudiation who will not rejoice that, even after armed treason has been overthrown, the great Republic of the World may yet be shorn of its strength and the lustre of its triumphs dimmed by the destruction of its credit.

Loyal Men of Pennsylvania!--you who have with unfaltering faith upheld the cause of the government in the darkest days with which murderous treason shadowed us--you who have given freely of your sons as martyrs to a holy cause, and withheld not your means when imperiled credit threatened to give triumph to the foe--there are but few days for thorough organization; for patient, tireless, systematic work; and the success of the Union ticket depends wholly upon the fidelity with which you discharge that duty. If we shall prove faithless, the better discipline and ceaseless efforts of the Democracy will prevail.

Immediate and thorough organization only will save Pennsylvania this fall. Our opponents are well prepared for the conflict. They have ceased not to prepare for the struggle since the overthrow of the rebellion gave them new issues under which to hide their substantial aid and sympathy with treason during the war, for which they were so overwhelmingly condemned by the people. They have now new banners, with new devices, and where their heaviest artillery thundered before they come with gifts more to be dreaded than their blows.

They profess to accept the results of the war, and yet quibble with and respond to every complaining traitor whose treason and wanton sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of lives and countless treasure, have won but a tithe of their just penalties. They seek to disarm the loyal people by professing to sustain President Johnson, and yet they denounce his daily acts, and plead the cause of every assassin who is overtaken by justice. They declare that the National faith must be maintained, and yet not a journal or orator of their faith but denounces every measure of the government devised to preserve our credit--the only safety and the chief peril of the Republic.

They will poll their full vote. In the North-east, they will do quite as well as last year. There is not a skulking conscript who will not now return to vote in behalf of the remnant of the treason whose triumph he sought to insure by deserting honor, home and country. In defiance of the law justly disfranchising them, they will vote, and swell the thousands of majority which so nearly made Pennsylvania a suicide one year ago. Other thousands in Schuylkill, Luzerne, Carbon, Lehigh, Northampton, Monroe, Pike and Wayne, who have concealed or postponed their naturalization until now, in order to evade the defence of the government they have adopted, will now swarm upon the assessments and rejoice with the Hughes's, Reeds, Woodwards, &c., when their immense majorities are announced.

In the Southern counties--those South of the Juniata and Susquehanna and East of the Alleghenies, we cannot materially improve the October vote of last year. It is possible to reduce the crushing majorities of York, Cumberland, Adams, Fulton and Bedford a thousand; but more is not to be expected--less may be the result.

Philadelphia must fall off essentially in her vote, because the vast manufacturing for the army has been almost wholly arrested, and thousands of government employees and operatives on government work of various kinds have been scattered in other channels of industry over the country. Their reduction must diminish the large Union majority of last year from 2,500 to 3,000, and the adjoining county of Delaware can scarcely fail to be similarly effected by the same causes.

The success of the Union ticket depends wholly on the organization and full vote of Lancaster, Dauphin, Somerset, Bradford, Susquehanna, Tioga, Erie, Crawford, Indiana, Lawrence, Allegheny, &c. If these Union strong-holds shall be systematically and thoroughly organized and polled, we shall carry the State by a decisive majority. If they fail, as they did last year in October, the State will inevitably be lost.

Loyal men of the Union counties!--forewarned forearmed! The issue of this momentous struggle is with you, and upon your verdict will the verdict of the State depend. The Union State Committee is, we are assured, pressing organization and discharging its duty with matchless energy; but without complete local co-operation, it cannot insure the triumph the Union cause should attain. There is still time enough for Work, FOR VICTORY! Close up the Union ranks--forward the whole line, and the people of Pennsylvania will be faithful to their past history--to their martyred sons; to their noblest inheritance, to Freedom, Justice and a redeemed Republic!

Bedford Democracy In Grief
(Column 2)

Summary: The editors deliver a stinging rebuke to their counterparts at the Bedford Gazette for articles that have recently appeared in that journal denigrating blacks. The articles, they note, are part of their agenda to inflame the passions of Bedford county residents against "Ethiopians" whom, the Gazette claims, seek to become "the dominant race" in America.

Full Text of Article:

We deeply, indeed profoundly, sympathize with the Bedford Gazette and the Bedford Democracy generally. They have more than their share of sorrow. They have lost elections; they have lost a war; they have lost agonizing conscripts; they have lost offices; they have lost the loaves and fishes; they have lost hopeful sons for a season in the rebel armies; have lost upright, eminently order-loving citizens from their social circle for the mere eccentricity of murdering a Deputy Provost Marshal and enlisting in the rebel army to devastate their own homes; and to crown their deluge of grief, the Ethiopian now threatens to arise from his abject degradation, marry their daughters, confiscate their lands, and crack the master's whip about their loins as they go forth from day to day to unrequited toil. We keenly sympathize with them, for--
"Like warp and woof all destinies
Are woven fast."
And when the dark day of Ethiopian dominion shall come, none can escape the terrible doom--"the paining jar through all will run." Well does the Gazette proclaim the danger. "Arouse! Arouse!" it thunders to its imperiled readers, and decide "whether you shall continue to be the dominant race in this country." Whether the historic hills and fastnesses of Bedford, which have been hitherto sacred to bounty-jumpers and skulking conscripts, shall henceforth resound the broad, deep, sonorous voice of the lordly African calling his Meyers's, Shannons and Reeds--his unwilling but yet subdued and obedient serfs--to their daily tasks; or whether they shall remain, as now, the recipients of the priceless religious, civil and social blessings conferred on them by a government they have rewarded with the deepest hate and the most persistent efforts to destroy it. Such is the issue--so fraught with weal or woe; so pregnant with the question of dominion between the sable and the pale faces of our Western citizens. The Gazette has read Jefferson--the father of Democracy--and it remembers that, in consequence of Slavery, he trembled for his country when he reflected "that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever; that considering numbers, nature and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation is among possible events; that it may become probable by supernatural interference," and that "the Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest!" Well has the Gazette trembled, and it and its sorrow-stricken followers--
"Thus roving on
In confus'd march forlorn, th' advent'rous band,
With shuddering horror pale, and eyes aghast,
Viewed their lamentable lot, and found--
No rest!"
The Ethiopian is omnipresent with them. Their dreams are shadowed by sable nightmares; their waking hours are made hideous by dark apparitions ever flitting before them; the lash and chains are ever clanking and whirling in their ears, and they are at last driven to that depth of despair where "hope ne'er dawns and pleasure never smiles." In starless midnight of their grief they cry to themselves and to their followers to "Arouse! Arouse!" for the African is at their doors, and with grimly smile he rattles the dead bones of a million of his sleeping race, cursed, brutalized and benighted by man, each one crying for that vengeance which God has "no attribute" to interpose and break its fearful sweep.

In clarity we would whisper philosophy to the palpitating hearts of the Bedford Democracy. How much they merit the fearful doom that makes them utter the cry of despair, lest the African may win distinction over those so sparingly endowed as the Democratic leaders of Bedford, we do not pretend to decide; but we assure them that all needful protection shall be awarded them. If it must be so, we shall favor statutory interdiction to protect the Gazette from the competition of a better and abler democratic organ being published by a sable son of the South, or even one of mingled African and lordly Democratic blood. If they fear that the disenthralled slave shall outstrip them in the learned professions; shall make their fields to blossom with still richer fruits; shall shame them into the support of truth and justice as voters at the polls; shall win popular elections by honest suffrages rather than by manipulating election returns; shall gather their daughters in marriage over their paler rivals, and, in short, make Democracy and the Gazette forget their cunning, and draw them step by step from power to the voluntary surrender of dominion--if these are to be the inevitable fruits of the freedom of the benighted bondman, when his untuned chords shall strike in painful melody with the fine-strung social strains of his oppressor, then must there be law to save the Gazette and its race from the unequal struggle. Rest easy, tender, trembling Gazette. Jefferson's appalling prophecy will fall short of fulfillment, for the reason that the God of justice did not sleep until the slave worked out his own redemption. His proud, insolent, traitorous lords, and their cowardly, coppery serfs of the North, hastened the triumph of Freedom, though they marked its victorious path with rivers of gore. The slave is free, but he rules not. His fidelity and his bayonet, turned the tide of the terrible conflict when loyal hearts were dismayed with agonizing doubts, and when the Gazette and its treacherous satellites demanded the confession of treason's supremacy. He has won the right to be a man; to own himself; to protect the purity of his hearth; to shield his children from the auctioneer's block and a master's brutality and lust. No more, no less, is his victory; and having consigned him to a bondage that made him but a chattel, a thing, a stranger to light and knowledge, we now condemn him because he has not defied all statutes and moral and social barriers, and fitted himself for citizenship. He is committed to our care for atonement--not as the prey of the fears and prejudices of the ignorant, who tremble at the prospect of his progress, and demand protection from his probable intellectual, social, and political power. The Gazette, and like organs and orators, who dare not to be just lest the degraded bondsman shall teach them humility, will be faithless still; but the enlightened, the patriotic, the Christian sentiment of the Nation will in due time vindicate itself, and labor to elevate an abject race, made so by our crimes--not theirs. Let the Gazette quiet its fears, let it learn to accept the inevitable logic of events, for--
"The mower mows on though the adder may
writhe,
And the copperhead coil round the blade of his
scythe."

Mr. McLellan's Speech
(Column 3)

Summary: In reaction to McLellan's address before the Democratic Convention, the editors note that, although they agree with "his views relative to restitution to the despoiled border, and the propriety of supporting the President," his opinions relative to the reintegration of the southern states are reprehensible. His "gravest error," however, is his "assumption" that blacks cannot "'be permanently elevated'" without making them the social equal of the "white man."

Full Text of Article:

We give elsewhere in to-day's paper the Spirit's report of Mr. M'Lellan's speech before the Democratic Convention, believing that our readers who have been used to his speeches on the right side, may feel some solicitude to know how he will advocate the other side. It reads oddly enough, and but for the concluding portion of it, the reader would be perplexed to make it harmonize with the accepted convictions of his new associates. All will endorse his views relative to restitution to the despoiled border, and the propriety of supporting the President in his administration of the government. Had he stopped just there, it would have required a distinct label to stamp him as a Democrat; but forgetful of the wise admonition given the young judge by his father, he gives too many reasons for the faith that is in him, and badly damages the symmetry of the faith itself by awkward and ill-shaped props proposed in vindication of it.

Whether the South should be held in military subjection or restored to the entire supremacy of civil law, is a question for defeated traitors themselves to determine--not for us. If the North had the option, then Mr. M'Lellan would be justly sustained in his theory that it is a question of finance, and civil law should be at once restored to arrest our expenditures. But it is not a question for us to decide. We wish indeed that it was; but the same wicked treason that made wanton war, still practically defies the supremacy of the civil authority unless it can control said authority and use it to crush out every man who was not a traitor during the war. Traitors are willing to accept pardon; to resume possession of their lands; to vote at elections provided they can vote for blood-stained rebels, and to accept offices and administer the local governments, provided they can be rebels still and practically punish the faithful men of the South for the crime of loyalty to the Union while treason was seeking to overthrow it. If they will accept the arbitrament of the sword and the clearly defined results of the war, let them vote and reign; but the government owes it to all men in the subjugated States, and especially to those who were faithful among the faithless, the same protection in the exercise of citizenship that is due Mr. M'Lellan; and the opening efforts for the restoration of civil power in Virginia have demonstrated that no such security can be attained under a restoration of rebel rule. Until they will thus rule, as faithful citizens and not as malicious foes, seeking covertly to crush loyalty and weaken the parent government, military occupation of the South and even military government are imperious necessities, and rise above all considerations of a possible increase of a few millions of debt.

The gravest error of Mr. M'Lellan's whole speech is his assumption that the negro cannot "be permanently elevated without placing him on a social equality with the white man." This theory ignores the highest duties of the citizen, and thickens the curse upon a race we have brutalized by slavery because he has not defied all accepted rules of progress among whites, and elevated and enlightened himself in spite of the laws interdicting his education. That he is degraded is our shame, not his crime; and now that the great National crime of bondage has crimsoned the fair fields of the Republic in its death, and the Christian world rejoices at our National disenthralment, it becomes not us to declare that the victims of our brutality shall not be elevated lest they should win from us social equality, and mingle their blood with the proud Anglo-Saxon. We advocate no such solution of the grave problem as either social equality or amalgamation. They could not be enforced even by statute, nor can they be attained by the workings of any social system unless the whites shall proffer their vices--not their virtues--to the victims of slavery. For such men we have no fears to deter us--no hopes to make us be unjust to any. They will be criminals whether surrounded by whites or blacks--the degraded of any race, and no political theories will either protect them or deepen their disgrace. We cast them aside in measuring the duty we owe to a people we have made strangers to light and knowledge--used to gratify our tastes and lusts, and thus plunged them into abject moral and social darkness. We owe them elevation now--not curses for the hard destiny we have wrongfully imposed upon them, and no one can be more sensible of this truth than Mr. M'Lellan. There are those who might tremble at the elevation of the negro--some whom a discriminating Creator has but poorly endowed, and who might justly fear that the negro would outstrip them in the race for social distinction and business success; but we trust that Mr. M'Lellan does not confess to that standard for himself. If he does not, then is his argument unworthy of his sense of justice and confronting a manifest duty to a race long doomed to ignorance and by our wrongs. The time has come for atonement to the slave--not by high-sounding theories of social equality, but by patient, just, generous effort to make them useful to themselves and to others, and aid in the early fulfillment of the justice of Him who "doeth all things well."

[No Title]
(Column 4)

Summary: The article informs readers that C. M. Duncan won the Democratic nomination for Senate and remarks on his place on the Democratic ticket relative to the other nominees from his party seeking office.
(Names in announcement: C. M. Duncan, McSherry, Judge Kimmell, Sharpe, McLellan, William Stenger)

Full Text of Article:

The Democratic Senatorial Conference met at Goodyear's on Thursday last, and C. M. Duncan, Esq., of this place, was unanimously nominated for Senator--Mr. M'Sherry having previously withdrawn. Mr. Duncan will please clean up his revolvers and prepare for a new peace campaign. Judge Kimmell is Chairman of the Democratic County Committee, and he will see that the bottle and sponge are kept in order. Sharpe is ordered to the rear, for the crime of knowing too much about some things and too little about some other things, and he can amuse himself with the stragglers. M'Lellan will be assigned the task of skirmishing around the enemy with occasional flags of truce to take President Johnson's latitude, and with a strong guard to prevent the Ethiopian from thanking him in moral and social progress. Stenger will be charged with the task of proving that as himself, Duncan and the other party leaders all voted against conferring the right of suffrage upon our soldiers, therefore the soldiers should vote for them. He is expected to demonstrate his proposition on the scriptural principle that the soldiers when smitten on one cheek by himself and his associates, should with becoming meekness present the other cheek also. Perhaps the machine will run that way, and perhaps it may get a little tangled. As Duncan and Stenger insisted, a year ago, that the soldiers didn't know enough to vote independently, and therefore should not be allowed to vote at all, the soldiers may still not know enough to vote for such candidates this year. They might in the course of a century or two, learn to appreciate the theories of such Democratic leaders; but just now a few may be wise that way, but most of them otherwise!

[No Title]
(Column 5)

Summary: It is reported that the grand jury of Bedford returned a true bill against John P. Reed for the murder of Jacob Crouse. Two others held in the murder, Mengel Reed and Schell Reed, were discharged, but immediately thereafter the U. S. Deputy Marshall, Col. Alexander Compher, arrested Mengel on the charge of treason. Mengel had joined the rebel army during its invasion of the state in 1863.

Local Items--Mercersburg College
(Column 2)

Summary: Relates that the Mercersburg Classis of the German Reformed Church purchased the property on which the old Marshall College once stood and intends on establishing "a school of high order" on the grounds. Though such an enterprise may be profitable, the article suggests that the school's main purpose "is to supply a pressing demand for the facilities of christian education" in the region.

Local Items--Senatorial Conference
(Column 2)

Summary: At the meeting of the Senatorial Conferees held on Sept. 1st, D. McConaughy was declared the Union nominee for State Senator for the district that includes Franklin and Adams counties.
(Names in announcement: Col. George B. Weistling, W. S. Everett)

Local Items--Irving Spring Oil Company
(Column 2)

Summary: A meeting of the stockholders of the Irving Spring Oil Company was convened in Shippensburg last Thursday where the following men were selected to serve as the company's officers: Col. James B. Orr,President; Judge Ruby, Secretary; Jason B. Orr, Henry Ruby, Dr. John Montgomery, Major Henry Snyder, John Wunderlich, John Greason, Thomas P. Blair, Dr. John A. Ahl, William M. Marshall, Jacob Bomberger and James Koontz, Directors.
(Names in announcement: Col. James Orr, Judge Ruby, Jason B. Orr, Henry Ruby, Dr. John Montgomery, Major Henry Snyder, John Wunderlich, John Greason, Thomas P. Blair, Dr. John A. Ahl, William M. Marshall, Jacob Bomberger, James G. Koontz)

Local Items--Restored
(Column 2)

Summary: The article joyfully notes that John S. Angle, late Asst. Surgeon of the 123rd Penna. Vols., has been reinstated on orders from the War Department. Angle had been dismissed from military on technical grounds.
(Names in announcement: John S. Angle)

Local Items--Accidents
(Column 2)

Summary: George Bartle and Lieut. Wilson Burk were injured in a separate accidents last Thursday when they lost control of their horses.
(Names in announcement: George Bartle, Lieut. Wilson Burk)

Local Items
(Column 2)

Summary: Frank Bowden has purchased Maj. Kurtz's hotel in Waynesboro and will take full possession of the property on October 2nd.
(Names in announcement: Maj. Kurtz, Frank Bowden)

Local Items
(Column 3)

Summary: A notice that "a valuable tract of land" belonging to Mr. Elwain will be offered for sale next Wednesday. According to the article, the land is "a desirable location" for individuals who wish to grow fruits and vegetables to sell at Chambersburg market.
(Names in announcement: Elwain)

Married
(Column 4)

Summary: On Sept. 5th, Andrew B. Wingert and Lizzie Lehman were married by Rev. J. Dickson.
(Names in announcement: Andrew B. Wingert, Lizzie Lehman, Rev. J. Dickson)

Married
(Column 4)

Summary: On Sept. 7th, Joseph Z. Wingert and Fanny K. Lehman were married by Rev. J. Hassler.
(Names in announcement: Joseph Z. Wingert, Fanny K. Lehman, Rev. J. Hassler)

Married
(Column 4)

Summary: On June 26th, Capt. Benjamin F. Rodes and Georgie D. Kline were married by Rev. F. Dyson.
(Names in announcement: Benjamin F. Rodes, Georgie D. Kline, Rev. F. Dyson)

Married
(Column 4)

Summary: On June 2nd, Rev. Leonard Rife, of the Dutch Reformed Mission, and Helen A., daughter of the late Rev. M. S. Culbertson, of Shanghai, China, formerly of Chambersburg, were married at Amoy, China, by Rev. J. V. N. Talmage.
(Names in announcement: Rev. Leonard Rife, Helen A. Culbertson, Rev. M. S. Culbertson, Rev. J. V. N. Talmage)

Married
(Column 4)

Summary: On Sept. 5th, Philip S. Sheetz and Ellen Diehl were married by Rev. S. McHenry.
(Names in announcement: Philip S. Sheetz, Ellen Diehl, Rev. S. McHenry)

Married
(Column 4)

Summary: On Sept. 7th, Henry Heckman and Annie Stoner were married by Rev. S. McHenry.
(Names in announcement: Henry Heckman, Annie Stoner, Rev. S. McHenry)

Married
(Column 4)

Summary: On Sept. 5th, Hezekiah Killinger and Lizzie A. Nigh were married by Rev. Jason M. Bishop.
(Names in announcement: Hezekiah Killinger, Lizzie A. Nigh, Rev. Jason M. Bishop)

Married
(Column 4)

Summary: On Sept. 7th, Dr. John E. Miller and Kate R. Hager were married by Rev. J. Evans.
(Names in announcement: Dr. John E. Miller, Kate R. Hager, Rev. J. Evans)

Died
(Column 4)

Summary: On Sept. 4th, Bettie E., infant daughter of Jacob B. and Mary Miller, died at 9 months old.
(Names in announcement: Bettie E. Miller, Jacob B. Miller, Mary Miller)