318 



GEORGIA. 



OUT best reliance in peace and for the first moments of 

 war, till regulars may relieve them j the supremacy 

 of the civil over the military authority ; economy in 

 the public expenses, that labor may be lightly bur- 

 dened ; the honest payment of our debts, and sacred 

 preservation of the public faith ; encouragement of 

 agriculture, and of commerce, as its handmaid ; the 

 diffusion of information, and arraignment of all abuses 

 at the bar of public reason ; freedom of religion ; free- 

 dom of the press ; freedom of person under the pro- 

 tection of the habeas corpus ; and trial by juries im- 

 partially selected. 



Let the Federal Government be administered upon 

 these principles, and, speaking for the people of Geor- 

 gia, " we pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sa- 

 cred honor," to maintain the Union in its full vigor. 



The negroes held a convention at Macon on 

 the 6th of October, and published an address, 

 in which they declared that the Democrats had 

 been their enemies from the first. They re- 

 flect with considerable bitterness upon the 

 course which was pursued to deprive them of 

 the right of holding office in the State, and pro- 

 pose to memorialize Congress in their own be- 

 half. The following are the closing paragraphs 

 of the address : 



Our rights, brethren and fellow-countrymen, have, 

 in spite of our appeals to reason, justice, and patriot- 

 ism, been set at naught, and even our calm and temper- 

 ate protest against this nameless outrage was treated 

 with unparalleled contempt. Thus the rights, e\*n 

 under that constitution which, without our help, could 

 not have been framed, have been turned from us. The 

 prejudice of caste, so dominant in the breasts of those 

 who have usurped the power in the absence of thos,e 

 bayonets which had protected us before, will utterly 

 crush and inhumanly oppress us unless we can obtain 

 redress. 



But how shall we obtain it ? Far be it from us to 

 recommend violence ; rather let us suffer the outrage 

 longer, and hope for deliverance through milder means. 

 We still have that potent weapon the ballot, and, if 

 allowed to wield it without molestation, which seems 

 very doubtful, we can remedy all evils. "We do not 

 recommend you to be satisfied with being a mere pack- 

 horse to ride white men into office, whether they are 

 the exponents of our sentiments or not. No ; it 

 would be better that we did not have the ballot. 



Such a worthless application of it as that would not 

 pay for the paper to write it upon. But you need have 

 no fears ; there are loyal and sober men enough in 

 this country yet to rule all the fools, traitors, and pub- 

 lic disturbers in it, whether they are found in the 

 murdering dens of the Ku-Klux Klan or in bogus Le- 

 gislatures. 



To this end, let us vote unanimously for Grant and 

 Colfax ; let us stand by the nominees of the Kepubli- 

 can party ; let us vote only for those who we know 

 are true in pur interest, and in the pending struggle a 

 way of deliverance will be opened. It may cost us 

 much to do BO ; hundreds of us will likely be killed 

 and driven off to starve, for voting for Grant. But he 

 that ended the war will, when elected, put an end to 

 our troubles and outrages. While we, your represent- 

 atives assembled in convention, deliberate and en- 

 deavor to forecast in our common distress, we shall at 

 the same time address an earnest appeal to Congress 

 to guarantee by adequate legislation the rights, privi- 

 leges, and immunities provided for us in the Consti- 

 tution and laws of the United States, and of the State 

 of Georgia. 



For you as well as ourselves we shall, in the name 

 of Heaven, humanity, reason, justice, civilization, and 

 Christianity, prajHo be delivered from the persecu- 

 tions of an oppressive, domineering, and unconscion- 

 able Democratic majority, the odious principles of 

 ;n we invoke you, in the name of yourselves, your 



GERMANY. 



wives, and your children, and the liberty and peace 

 of our country, to spurn as you would the deadly 

 fangs of a viper. For there is not a Democrat, living 

 or dead, who is civilly and politically the friend of 

 the negro. They say, however, they are our " best 

 friends." So says the devil. 



The election in November passed by with- 

 out serious disturbance, and resulted in the 

 choice of the Democratic electors, by a vote 

 of 102,822 to 57,134 for the Republicans, the 

 whole number being 159,954, and the majority 

 45,688. 



At the time when the State officials were 

 removed from office by General Meade in Jan- 

 uary, they refused to turn over to their succes- 

 sors the records and seals of the various depart- 

 ments, and these were not recovered until after 

 the establishment of the regular civil authorities 

 under the new constitution. Captain Rockwell 

 found in the vaults of the Treasury on the 18th 

 of January the sum of ten cents, and after- 

 ward found deposited in the Georgia National 

 Bank of Atlanta the sum of $5,222.89, which 

 had been placed there by Mr. Jones, the former 

 Treasurer. Captain Rockwell occupied the 

 position of provisional Treasurer until the 10th 

 of August, during which period the receipts 

 of the department under his charge, from all 

 sources, amounted to $370,639.44. The expen- 

 ditures of the government for the same time 

 amounted to $272,683.06, and he turned 

 over to the new Treasurer $103,179.37. Mr. 

 Jones had in his hands, when removed from 

 office, funds to the amount of $405,870.83. 

 These he disposed of in payment of interest on 

 the State bonds and in advances to various 

 officers, contractors, etc., with the exception 

 of the $5,222.89, deposited in the Georgia Na- 

 tional Bank at Atlanta. A productive source 

 of revenue to the State is the "Western and At- 

 lantic Railroad, which yielded to the Treasury, 

 during the nine months ending with the 30th 

 of June, $241,895.44. The various institutions 

 and material interests of the State are as yet 

 at a low ebb, but signs of renewing life appear, 

 and it is to be hoped that the chronicles of an- 

 other year may record at least the first steps 

 of returning prosperity. 



GERMANY. 1. THE GERMAN NATIONAL- 

 ITY.* No important change was produced in 

 the course of the year 1868. The Government 

 of Baden openly professed a desire to be ad- 

 mitted as soon as possible into the North- 

 German Confederation, and concluded a special 

 military convention with Prussia ; but practi- 

 cally no advance was made toward the con- 

 summation of a union of all Germany. 



The commercial and national unity of the 

 North and South German States received, 

 however, an important recognition in the meet- 

 ing of the first Customs Union Parliament. 

 (See CUSTOMS [ZOLL] PARLIAMENT.) 

 y A census was taken in December, 1867, in 

 all the North and South German States, show- 



* See the ANNUAL AMEKICAN CYCLOPEDIA for 1867, for 

 a full statistical account of the extent of the German na- 

 tionality. 



