14 



ALABAMA. 



our rights and liberties by the peaceful but efficient 

 power of the ballot-box." 



The speeches of our candidates and our other 

 public speakers in this canvass have reflected, en- 

 couraged, and illustrated the sentiments thus urged, 

 as essential to good order, obedience to law, and to 

 the complete triumph of our party in the coming 

 election and we here declare that we dp not believe 

 that in a single instance has any authorized speaker 

 of our party departed from the line of conduct above 

 recommended. 



But notwithstanding these peaceful, law-abiding 

 declarations and conduct of our party, the public 

 press of the Eepublican party North and the Kepub- 

 lican press of Alabama have teemed with the vilest 

 slanders of our people ; slanders concocted, we fully 

 believe, by the leaders of the Kepublican party in 

 Alabama, for the express purpose of misleading the 

 public mind, and against law, justice, and honesty, 

 to secure to themselves another lease of ill-gotten 

 power, heretofore used to wrong and oppress the 

 good people of this State. 



We recognize the fact that a large proportion of 

 the most worthy and respectable people in the 

 North, East, and West, are to be found in the ranks 

 of the Republican party, and that their party asso- 

 ciations are dictated by an honest judgment and true 

 patriotic feeling. 



But with us in Alabama the case is widely different. 

 The negroes, forming nine-tenths of the party 

 here, are of course as a body ignorant, and from 

 their recent condition of slavery a low order of mo- 

 rality prevails among them. 



The remainder of the party is made up chiefly of 

 professional politicians and their hangers-on, who 

 live by office, and a few worthy people who have 

 been induced heretofore to act with the Kepublican 

 party. This little army of office-holders, with a few 

 honorable exceptions, teel that the contest is one for 

 their daily bread, and, though " .work they will not,', 

 yet they are not ashamed to " beg," to steal, or to 

 lie. 



We assert on our word as men of character who 

 have something to lose by asserting a falsehood, 

 that no unprejudiced man of either party in the 

 North, East, or West,' who knows any thing of the 

 facts, or of the character of those by whom the 

 charges are made, can come to any other conclusion 

 than that they are made without foundation in fact, 

 were known by those who made them to be an-; 

 founded, and were made for the vile purpose of ob- 

 taining for themselves and their associates a con- 

 tinuance of their power to be exercised for purposes 

 of plunder. 



That Governor Lewis, who has some character to 

 lose and who must be informed of all the facts, has 

 failed to give any official sanction to the complaints 

 against our people, is of itself suggestive of their 

 Utter falsehood. 



And, in order the more easily, as they supposed, 

 to secure their purposes, the leaders of the Republi- 

 can party have represented to the President of these 

 United States that our party is opposed to the Gov- 

 ernment of the United States, and in favor of a new 

 rebellion, when they well knew that our opposition 

 is not to the Constitution or Government of the 

 United States, but only to the persons who have 

 abused the public trust, squandered the people's 

 money, bougnt and sold our public offices, and who 

 have in every conceivable manner violated the prin- 

 ciples of a just and pure government. 



The greater portion of the address consists 

 of affidavits, cited to show that there was 

 " little foundation in truth " for that portion 

 of Mr. Hays's statement concerning a general 

 war between the whites and blacks of Ohoctaw 

 County. In one of these affidavits the deputy- 

 sheriff of Choctaw County, E. 0. Glover, gives 



the particulars of going in August with a posse 

 of 150 men to arrest Jack Turner and about 

 thirty other negroes for having attempted to 

 lynch one Huff Cheney. The negroes dis- 

 banded and scattered, and were not found at 

 that time; but eleven of them were subse- 

 quently arrested without any disturbance. The 

 deputy - sheriff concludes his affidavit, which 

 is dated September 26th, by saying, " I have 

 not heard of a negro being killed or wounded 

 in this county during the time I have been 

 acting as sheriff, now nearly seven months." 

 Other affidavits are adduced to corroborate 

 these statements. The address then concludes 

 as follows : 



These affidavits not only show that this charge 

 is false in fact, but that Mr. Hays must have known 

 it to be false when he wrote his letter to General 

 Hawley. 



All the other charges contained in the letter ol 

 Mr. Hays, except the fact of the killing of Billings 

 and Ivey, are equally destitute of any toundation in 

 truth, and are admitted to be untrue by every intel- 

 ligent and unprejudiced man in this State. 



That Billings and Ivy were killed, is true; but 

 there is not one s'cintilla of evidence to show that 

 either was killed by Democrats, or for party pur- 

 poses. But -the facts as they have been developed 

 tend strongly to show that other than political causes 

 produced the death of Billings and Ivey. 



The general charges made against our people, by 

 Hays, White, Spencer, Martin, Stokes, and Pelham, 

 to the effect that there is a reign of terror in this 

 State, through intimidation practised by our party 

 to control the voters and to prevent the free expres- 

 sion of opinion, are untrue, particularly and gener- 

 ally. Letters and affidavits of Republicans of re- 

 spectable standing have been publisned in the coun- 

 ties where such terrorism is particularly alleged to 

 exist, showing that no such terrorism and no such 

 intimidation nave been practised. The fact that 

 there are, to-day, two negroes, nominated by the 

 Kepublican party, the one in this district, and the 

 other in the Mobile district, daily traveling through 

 these two most southern districts^ and making 

 speeches, unmolested, is proof positive that the 

 peaceful disposition of our people has been basely 

 slandered. From the beginning of the canvass, 

 there has never been a disturbance of a Republican 

 speaker, or of a Rapublican audience, by any mem- 

 ber of our party, according to the best of our knowl- 

 edge, information, and belief. 



Yet, upon such ch'arges as these ; with no better 

 foundation than we have shown, United States troops 

 have been sent to the State of Alabama, and they are 

 now engaged in arresting and handcuffing white citi- 

 zens of this State, and dragging them from their fam- 

 ilies, and incarcerating them in the dungeons, under 

 the leadership of deputy United States marshals, 

 members of the Republican party. And this is done 

 when there is no obstruction to the full execution of 

 the laws of Alabama, or of the United States, and 

 while there are hosts of officers willing to execute 

 the law in every nook and corner of this State, and 

 when there is not a just shadow of pretext that the 

 officers or people of this State are either unwilling 

 or unable to enforce the law. 



We call especial attention to the fact, that the chief 

 executive officer of this State belongs to the Repub- 

 lican party, and he has never asked for troops of the 

 United States to aid in the execution of the laws. 



As a significant fact, showing the animus of thos_e 

 who have thus slandered the people of our State, it 

 is now notorious that the fund appropriated by Con- 

 gress for the overflowed districts in this State has 

 been and is now distributed for electioneering pur- 

 poses, by Kepublican instrumentalities, generally in 



