The Jackson Standard

Hallelujah!

All the rebels, Democrats and "conservatives," are rejoicing that gentle peace once more reigns in the South. Jefferson Davis, President of the late Confederacy, has been making a speech, in which he says he sees a silver lining to the cloud, and that the new "policy" will give the rebels all they failed to acquire on the field of battle.

Alexander H. Stephens, late Vice President of the Confederacy-the man who wrote a book-two large volumes, in favor of breaking up the Union, and founding a Confederacy, the chief corner stone of which was human bondage-this man has been closeted with President Hayes, and both were supremely happy.

Next comes the old Jackson Association of Washington City, and they feel good. Here is a dispatch about them:

The Democratic Jackson Association of this city has unanimously passed resolutions commendatory of the President's policy. One speaker said that the President did as much to harmonize the interests of the country and to promote its prosperity as could have been expected from a Democratic President. Gentlemen of both parties from New Orleans speak in enthusiastic terms of the good feeling and conduct of all, produced by the recent pacification. Republicans say the colored people are treated better than ever.

Next the Louisvillians come to the front thus:

THE PRESIDENT'S POLICY-THE CITIZENS OF LOUISVILLE CELEBRATE THE RESTORATION OF PEACE THROUGHOUT THE UNION.

Louisville, May 1.

The Louisville celebration to-night, in commemoration of President Hayes' action in withdrawing the troops from the Southern States, and thereby allowing the people to be governed by those of their own choice, was a great success. The City Building and a large number of private residences were beautifully and brilliantly illuminated, and the entire population seemed possessed with patriotism. The celebration was non-partisan.

The following explains itself:

"To His Excellency, Rutherford B. Hayes, President of the United States:

"The citizens of Louisville, irrespective of party, in mass meeting assembled, joyously give glory to God in the highest and thanks to your patriotism, that the Union is once more perfect and complete in its every part-a union of hearts and a union of hands, and earnestly pray that God in His mercy may forever vouchsafe peace, prosperity, and happiness to the American people."

CHAS. D. JACOB, Mayor.

Many years ago we read the fable of the boys and the frogs. Some boys were throwing stones at the frogs, when an old frog stuck his head out of the water and told the boys that although it was sport for them, yet it was death to the frogs.

We do not want to compare Southern Republicans, black or white, to frogs; but this whole proceeding reminds us of the fable.

Here is the other side.

We take the following from the South Florida Journal, published at Sanford, Orange county, Florida:

As we go to press, we learn that George Johnson, a colored preacher, who with two or three others were engaged in clearing a piece of land for Charley Beck, near Sylvan Lake, was shot with two loads of buckshot while sleeping in his tent Wednesday night. Dr. Popoff has gone out to attend him, and we cannot learn the extent of his injuries until the Doctor's return.

We take the following from the Cincinnati Gazette:

Nashville, Tenn., April 25.

On Tuesday morning, at 3 o'clock, twenty armed men entered Dover Court House, and forced the Sheriff to surrender his keys to the prisoner's cell, took Wm. Mockbee a short distance out of town and hanged him to a limb, shooting him eight times. Mockbee and Jack Wilson are the two negroes who brutally murdered Willie McClish last August, and were sentenced by the Dover court to be hanged. They appealed their case to the Supreme Court, and were remanded for a new trial. They obtained severance last week, and Wilson had a second trial, and was sentenced to be hanged on May 25. Mockbee obtained a change of venue to Houston County, and the idea gained credence that he would come clear on some technicality in the law, which, no doubt, instigated the lynching. No doubt Mockbee was guilty, and led Wilson into the crime. The lynching was conducted in a very quiet manner. The citizens had no knowledge of the affair until the business hours of the day. Wilson was left in prison, to await the execution of his sentence.

A special from Columbia to the Nashville American states that it is rumored at 2 p. m. that Israel Thomason will probably be spirited away on the evening train for Nashville, but nothing definite could be learned regarding it. A few moments before the arrival of the train a hack drove to the jail with the Sheriff and his deputies, and was driven hurriedly to the depot. As soon as this became known the citizens collected in groups and uttered exclamations of indignation. Had there been more time the Sheriff would have been mobbed. The outspoken sentiment of the people is for the organization of a vigilance committee to attend to all such cases in the future. When Thomason was told of his commutation, he became almost prostrate, and expressed great fears of a mob. He did not feel safe when he arrived at Nashville, and asked his guards to double-quick to the penitentiary, so possessed was he of fear, and then that the doors be well barred and bolted.

To the Associated Press:

Nashville, April 25.

The sentence of Israel Thomason, who was to have been hanged at Columbia on Friday, for the murder of Rufus C. Jackson, having been commuted by the Governor to imprisonment for life, on the recommendation of the Supreme Court, he was brought here to escape lynching to-night. The people of the State have been divided as to whether Thomason should be hanged on circumstantial evidence, and considerable feeling has been manifested. An indignation meeting over the commutation of the sentence of Thomason was held at Columbia to-night. The Governor and the Judges of the Supreme Court were burned in effigy. The dispatches do not state the number of persons who took part in the affair, but it is thought to be large.

And also this:

Jackson, Miss., May 1.

Thursday evening John W. Gully, a prominent citizen of Kemper County, was assassinated by an unknown party. This created intense excitement, and every means was resorted to to discover the perpetrator. On Saturday two colored men made affidavit that Benj. Rush, a white man, did the deed, and that Judge Chisholm, who ran for Congress on the Republican ticket in the Third District, at the last election, his son, and Gilmer, Rosenbaum and Hopper, prominent white Republicans, knew of and instigated the crime. Chisholm and his son were arrested and imprisoned at DeKalb. Mrs. Chisholm and her daughter insisted on sharing their confinement.

On Sunday Chisholm sent to Scooba for Gilmer, for whom a warrant had been issued. Gilmer came, and on his arrival was arrested, but just as he arrived at the jail he was set upon by a mob and killed. The jailor was then overpowered by the mob, who immediately attacked Chisholm, mortally wounding him, and killing his son. Miss Chisholm, in defending her father, shot and killed Dr. Rosser, and Mrs. Chisholm severely wounded young Gully, a son of Gully, who was assassinated. Miss Chisholm was also seriously wounded. Rosenbaum and Hopper were carried to the woods by the mob to extort from them the whereabouts of Rush, the alleged assassin of Gully. When last heard from, some weeks ago, Rush was in Arkansas. It is supposed that Rosenbaum and Hopper were hanged.

It is reported that a horrible state of affairs is existing throughout that section. The people are wild with excitement, and other hangings will probably follow.

Here is something further about this murder:

MISSISSIPPI ASSASSINATION.

[Washington Dispatch to Cincinnati Commercial.]

Prominent Mississippi Republicans here are much exercised over the assassination of Judge W. W. Chisholm, Hon. John P. Gilmer and Mr. McClellan, leading Republicans of Kemper County, Mississippi, at DeKalb, the county seat, on Saturday last. They represent the parties killed as natives of the South, ex-Confederate soldiers, and among the largest property owners in that section of the State. Messrs. Chisholm and Gilmer have been prominent in politics in Mississippi, and both have held very responsible positions. Judge Chisholm advocated the acceptance of the reconstruction measures, and early became an active Republican. He was Probate Judge of his county, and at the first and each succeeding election since the reconstruction up to last fall was elected Sheriff of Kemper County. He was the Republican candidate for Congress in the Third District last fall. Mr. Gilmer was a State Senator for three or four years. They are both said to be brave, determined men, and it is believed by the Republicans here that their assassination was the result of a pre-arranged plan. These gentlemen testified before the Senate Committee on Elections in February, and when preparing to go home, stated that they were probably going home to meet their death.

In conclusion we have to remark that Governor (!) Nicholls of Louisiana, has proclaimed a day of thanksgiving for all these manifold blessings. Hallelujah!

SOUTH CAROLINA.

President Hayes has got matters pretty well shaped in South Carolina. The Republican State officers have had to yield to the rebel Hampton, without waiting for a decision of the Court. The following dispatch tells the story:

The question of the title to the State offices was settled to-day by the counsel for the Republicans, who went into the Supreme Court and moved to withdraw the answers from file, and consented that judgment be entered in favor of the plaintiffs. The Hampton State officers were advised of the entry of judgment, and Gov. Hampton issued instructions to remove the seals from the several offices. The offices will be transferred to-morrow.

The Republicans had a majority in the State Senate, but it was no trick for the rebels to get rid of that majority, under "my policy." Here is how it was done:

Judge McKee to-day arrested Dublin Walker and put him in jail on a criminal charge, which keeps one Republican absent to-morrow at the reorganization of the Senate. The Republicans have a working majority of two in this Senate, and Walker's arrest reduces it to one. Of course Judge Mackey will see that Walker doesn't make his appearance. In all probability he will arrest Bird, another Republican Senator from Fairfield, before he can get here. -That will make the Senate a tie, and the presiding officer, a Democrat, having the casting vote, will give the Senate a Democratic organization.

Here is what Redfield telegraphs to the Cincinnati Commercial.

COLUMBIA, S. C., May 2.

By the time the Democrats get through with investigations here may not be much left of the Republican party in South Carolina. Committees were appointed to-day, and the frauds in the Government offices for the past seven years are to be inquired into, and the guilty punished, if caught.

The Republicans have lost the House, and only have one majority in the Senate, which they will undoubtedly lose through the investigations.

The Democrats now have complete possession of everything but the Senate. The State is very quiet and peaceable, and the white people in better spirits than at any time since the war.

Chamberlain is selling out, bag and baggage, and will follow his family North in a few days. Leading Republicans say that their party in this State is finished.

H. V. REDFIELD.

Mr. Redfield last Summer and Fall admitted, and even urged, that the Republicans had thirty thousand majority in the State, yet they are all to be run out of the State, or put in prison, under the sham of investigation.

The rebels will compel Hayes to put a stop at once, and forever, to the prosecutions of the murderers of the negroes at the riots last summer. Read the following:

New York, April 28.

The Times' Columbia special says that the strongest efforts are being made to secure the aid of the President to stop the prosecution of those engaged in the Ellenton and Hamburg riots, in resolutions, which are now before the Senate, charging that the prosecution is a political one, and requesting the President to stop them, in furtherance of his policy of conciliation.

Hampton's message is regarded as the first step toward a wholesale repudiation of the bonded and floating debt of the State. The latter clause of the above refers to debts due to capitalists in the North.

What rights have such creditors, which rebels, "conservatives," and defenders of "my policy" are bound to respect?

WADE AND LINCOLN.

About the only answer that the political traitors attempt to make to the cutting, burning words of Benjamin F. Wade, is that he at one time opposed the pro-slavery policy of President Lincoln. It would be well to let Mr. Lincoln's policy sleep. That he was a great and good man at the time of his martyrdom, nearly all admit. The world admires St. Paul: but any one who condemned his course when, as Saul of Tarsus, he persecuted the Christians, and held the clothes of the mob while they stoned St. Stephen to death, should not be sneered at for finding fault with Saul.

It was after Paul had fought the good fight, kept the faith, and finished his course, that he became worthy of commendation.

Benjamin F. Wade, and a very few others of us, believed then, and believe still, that human slavery was the sum of all villanies: that it was a denial and mockery of the Golden Rule laid down by Jesus Christ; a denial and mockery of the Declaration of American Independence; a denial and mockery of every principle of honesty and justice, and that Thomas Jefferson, in his Notes on Virginia, was correct when he declared that the Almighty had no attribute which could take sides with the advocates of human bondage.

Now let us very briefly notice a few acts of President Lincoln which were not calculated to create enthusiasm on the part of anti-slavery men.

On the 31st of August, 1861, Gen. John C. Fremont was in command of the Union armies in the State of Missouri, and he issued a proclamation declaring martial law in a large portion of that State. In that proclamation was this clause:

All persons who shall be taken with arms in their hands within these lines, shall be tried by Court-Martial, and, if found guilty, will be shot. The property, real and personal, of all persons in the State of Missouri who shall take up arms against the United States, or shall be directly proven to have taken active part with their enemies in the field, is declared to be confiscated to the public use; and their slaves, if any they have, are hereby declared free men.

[See American Conflict, by Horace Greeley, Vol. 1, page 585.]

On the 11th of September, President Lincoln abrogated and set aside that part of Fremont's proclamation confiscating property of rebels, and freeing their slaves. That part which subjected them to trial and death, was left. Slavery was much more sacred in the eyes of President Lincoln than was human life.

We copy the following from Greeley's American Conflict, Vol 2, pages 249, 250, 251:

A letter addressed to the President some weeks after this, (Aug. 19, 1862, entitled 'The Prayer of Twenty Millions,' and exhorting Mr. Lincoln-not to proclaim all the slaves in our country free, but to execute the laws of the land which operated to free large classes of the slaves of Rebels-concludes as follows:

*On the face of this wide earth, Mr. President, there is not one disinterested, determined, intelligent champion of the Union cause who does not feel that all attempts to put down the Rebellion, and at the same time uphold its inciting cause, are preposterous and futile-that the Rebellion, if crushed out to-morrow, would be renewed within a year if Slavery were left in full vigor-that army officers, who remain to this day devoted to Slavery, can at best be but half-way loyal to the Union-and that every hour of deference to Slavery is an hour of added and deepened peril to the Union. I appeal to the testimony of your Embassadors in Europe. It is freely at your service, not mine. Ask them to tell you candidly whether the seeming subserviency of your policy to the slave-holding, Slavery-upholding interest, is not the perplexity, the despair, of statesmen of all parties; and be admonished by the general answer!

I close as I began, with the statement that what an immense majority of the loyal millions of your countrymen require of you is a frank, declared, unqualified, ungrudging execution of the laws of the land, more especially of the Confiscation Act. That act gives freedom to the slaves of Rebels coming within our lines, or whom those lines may at any time inclose-we ask you to render it due obedience by publicly requiring all your subordinates to recognize and obey it. The rebels are everywhere using the late anti-negro riots in the North-as they have long used your officers' treatment of the negroes in the South-to convince the slaves that they have nothing to hope from a Union success-that we mean in that case to sell them into bitter bondage to defray the cost of the war. Let them impress this as a truth on the great mass of their ignorant and credulous bondmen, and the Union will never be restored-never. We cannot conquer ten millions of people united in solid phalanx against us, powerfully aided by Northern sympathizers and European allies. We must have scouts, guides, spies, cooks, teamsters, diggers, and choppers, from the Blacks of the South-whether we allow them to fight for us or not-or we shall be baffled and repelled. As one of the millions who would gladly have avoided this struggle at any sacrifice but that of principle and honor, but who now feel that the triumph of the Union is indispensable not only to the existence of our country, but to the well-being of mankind, I entreat you to render a hearty and unequivocal obedience to the law of the land.

Yours,

HORACE GREELEY."

The President-very unexpectedly-replied to this appeal by telegraph: in order, doubtless, to place before the public matter deemed by him important, and which had probably been prepared for issue before the receipt of the letter to which he thus obliquely responded:

EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, Aug. 22, 1862.

Hon. Horace Greeley:

'Dear Sir: I have just read yours of the 19th instant, addressed to myself through the New York Tribune. If there be in it any statements or assumptions of fact which I may know to be erroneous, I do not now and here controvert them. If there be any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here argue against them. If there be perceptible in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend whose heart I have always supposed to be right.

As to the policy I seem to be pursuing, as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt. I would save the Union. I would save it in the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored, the nearer the Union will be 'the Union as it was.' If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time save Slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy Slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object is to save the Union, and not either to save or destroy Slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it-If I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about Slavery and the Colored Race, I do because I believe it helps to save this Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I believe what I am doing hurts the cause; and I shall do more whenever I believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views as fast as they shall appear to be true views. I have here stated my purpose according to my views of official duty, and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free.

Yours,

A. LINCOLN."

On the 13th of September, 1862, a deputation from the various Protestant denominations of Chicago visited Mr. Lincoln, and urged him to issue a proclamation of emancipation. He answered them, and in the course of his answer said:

"Would my word free the slaves, when I can not even enforce the Constitution in the Rebel States? Is there a single court, or magistrate, or individual, that would be influenced by it there? And what reason is there to think it would have any greater effect upon the slaves than the late law of Congress, which I approved, and which offers protection and freedom to the slaves of Rebel masters who come within our lines? Yet I cannot learn that that law has caused a single slave to come over to us. And, suppose they could be induced by a proclamation of freedom from me to throw themselves upon us, what should we do with them? How can we feed and care for such a multitude? Gen. Butler wrote me a few days since that he was issuing more rations to the slaves who have rushed to him than to all the White troops under his command."

We cannot see how B. F. Wade, Wendell Phillips, and other honest anti-slavery men can feel that they did a very disgraceful thing when they condemned the heartless and cruel reply to Greeley, and were amazed that Mr. Lincoln should be guilty of the glaring inconsistency of declaring in the same sentence that he had not learned that the law of Congress setting slaves of rebels free, had caused a single slave to come over to us, and in the very same sentence declaring that Gen. Butler had informed him that the slaves were rushing to the Union army in such numbers that it was difficult to feed them.

Ten days after this, on the 22d of September, 1862, President Lincoln issued his preliminary proclamation, which was only a bid-an effort to hire the rebels within the next hundred days to elect members to Congress, and promising if they would do so, slavery should not be touched.

The true friends of Abraham Lincoln will avoid any reference to his miserable policy of compromise and expediency, and only remember his last noble words, in his last inaugural address, delivered March 4, 1865. He appears to have learned that "the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness." In that great and grand state paper, Mr. Lincoln closes with these words:

One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate and extend this interest, was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding.

Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses, for it must needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of these offenses, which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may soon pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bond-man's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn by the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

With malice toward none, with charity to all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphans; to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace among ourselves and with all Nations.