The Daily Clarion

Warner’s War Whoop.

Major-General Warner, of the Ames militia, has promulgated the most incendiary appeal to the negroes that has ever been issued through the press. It is not only incendiary, but it is false and slanderous in its assailment of the motives of the honest, law-abiding, taxpaying citizens of the State in struggling to rid themselves of the curse of Radical misrule, and of such villainies as the Pearl River Navigation infamy, into the depths of which Warner himself is plunged.

Here is an extract from this incendiary and insulting pronunciamento of Warner, as produced in the Radical organs:

The mask being off, and there being no longer a motive to deceive, the present canvass opens up with unusual bitterness and severity. Grown desperate by repeated defeats, reckless political leaders, who would again plunge the State into ruin to promote themselves, have incited the more ignorant and lawless of their party to arm themselves and use their arms in the conflict. Vicksburg, Clinton, Yazoo City, Amite, Tallahatchie and Noxubee counties bear ample witness to the character of the present campaign.

But we are not discouraged. It cost the government of the United States a million of lives and untold millions of money to secure a large majority of the Republicans of Mississippi the right to vote. Rest assured that that sacred investment of blood and treasure will be looked after, and millions more will be expended, if necessary, to preserve that right. Then let the fiat go forth, and let it be distinctly and unequivocally understood, first as well as last, that the State and national governments will see to it that every qualified voter shall have an opportunity to cast his ballot as he pleases, "peaceably if he can, forcibly if he must." President Grant has already told the country that in this matter "there shall be no child’s play."

We do not say this to increase the political hostility that already exists. It is too intense now. But we do mean to have it understood that if Democrats can afford to risk their lives for the sake of a few offices, Republicans can well afford to do the same thing to preserve their rights and liberties. We sincerely hope, however, that the sober second thought of the opposition will yet prevail and that the worst has passed; but this is a matter for them to decide. Our opponents can restore the country to a condition of profound peace if they desire to do so. The responsibility is entirely with them. We simply act upon the defensive and will be prepared for any emergency.

The truth in regard to all the disturbances which have occurred are precisely the reverse of what Warner states. It is in proof that the negro mob at Clinton, evidently incited by such adventurers as Warner, forced a quarrel upon the few white citizens who were at the meeting by invitation, in order to massacre them, as they inhumanly did poor Sivley, Thompson and Chilton, whose blood cries from the ground for vengeance! The history of the Vicksburg affair has been told a thousand times, and is known to have been purposely caused by Ames and his clansmen of the Warner stripe in order to procure the killing of negroes for political purposes. Morgan brought on the Yazoo riot. The Amite story was a lie out of whole cloth. The Tallahatchie riot was caused by the attempt of lawless negroes to prevent the arrest of two of their number caught in the act of registering illegally. And so in every case the difficulties commenced with the desperate adventurers themselves, or their depraved and ignorant dupes; and behind all these base deeds is the knowledge that without Federal intervention, Mississippi will be reclaimed from Radical domination.

The boast that millions will be spent if necessary, to preserve the rights of any class of the people, is idle vaporing. If Warner and his clan want to practice the intimidation game let him and them lead the bloodhounds, they are setting on the taxpayers, and meet the consequences of their own acts! There is not a Democrat or a Conservative, or Reformer of any political designation in Mississippi who would interfere with the established rights of any class, and the carpet-bag demagogues know it. But there is a determination abroad in the State, that this wholesale plundering of an impoverished people must cease, and there is where the trouble comes in. Hence these lamentations and wild ravings and cowardly threats.