WV REPUBLICAN CONVENTION
HELD AT PARKERSBURG, WV
June 22, 1870
Carpetbaggers in the Ascendant
The Bitter-Enders Triumphant
Black Equality Exemplified
“A RACY DESCRIPTION”
With yet another election period at hand, I was reading some of the political articles in some of the old newspapers and found this one published in 1870 and thought you might enjoy reading it. I have omitted and/or replaced some of the statements and words not suitable in today’s toxic society. I did not correct the grammar or spelling.
Please note that this was written by the opposing party’s journalist and neither me nor this paper’s opinions are expressed in this 1870 article. It is simply an interesting article and a way to peer into politics during the early period of West Virginia during her infancy.
“Editors of the Register:”
“The Governor and his crowd of State house officials and hangers on, came to the Radical State Convention at this place (Parkersburg) on the steamer, “Mountain Boy,” direct from Charleston. The boat tied up at Blennerhassett Island on the way up, while the Executive and retainers went ashore and refreshed themselves amid the classic scenes of that memorable spot. It was indeed appropriate that this band of ‘enemies to public prosperity and private rights’ should linger around the place where the conspiracy of Aaron Burr was matured, and catch the full inspiration of treason, before proceeding to complete their new arrangements for making war upon the peace and happiness of West Virginia.”
“A CONGREGATION OF CARPET-BAGGERS.”
“A few miles below this place, as their steamer was making her way up the river, the delegates from the Kanawha Valley held a caucus on board the Mountain Boy. There were present some forty persons. About thirty-five of these were from Kanawha county, a few from Putnam, one from Cabell, one from Fayette and one from Mercer. Two of the Kanawha delegates, the Fayette Man and the Cabell man had previously been diligent in the matter of gathering up proxies so that they held the vote of about a dozen counties in their “loyal” fists. When the caucus was organized, the Governor took his seat in the midst to see that no harm come to his personal aspirations from the deliberations. Resolutions were offered pledging the vote of all the counties said to be represented to the re-nomination of W.E. Stevenson. There was much inward tribulation among the natives born, but under the eye of power, no protest dared find expression. A glance at the assembly was finely suggestive of the system that now obtains in West Virginia Government. A carpet-bagger presided, a carpet-bagger offered the resolutions, a renegade rebel, on Congressional thoughts intent, supported them in a speech, and an assemblage ruled by carpet-baggery, solemnly resolved to secure the re-nomination of a Pennsylvania carpet-bagger for the position of Governor of West Virginia. A committee composed chiefly of carpet baggers was appointed to form the combinations necessary to secure the ends in view, including the adoption of a proper platform and the triggers were considered set. The result is not to be wondered at.”
“Practical Equality”
“A considerable gang of Black men arrived from the Eastern Panhandle yesterday, and under the advice of a few white scalawags who accompanied them, tried to force themselves into the Swann House of this city. They were denied entertainment, the proprietor being unwilling to give a practical illustration of the social equality theories of the Summer Bill. The crowd retired with many cusses and threats and a suit against the hotel is talked of by their white brethren. Seeking accommodation elsewhere, their Radical friends denied them admission. They went to their own and their own received them not. Sadly and slowly, they crossed the Ohio and found entertainment in the more hospitable region of Ohio.”
“A PROPER PLACE.”
“The Convention met this morning at 10 o’clock in the Market House. A better place could not have been selected. It was an advertisement that the “loyal” party, like its principles, is for sale. The putting forth of nominees that will be led to the slaughter, like sheep to the shambles completed the propriety and left nothing to be desired as regards the fitness of things.”
“QUESTIONABLE TASTE”
“The taste of the State Executive Committee in its selection of a temporary chairman is very generally questioned. The time was when no man in the State would have made a much better President than General Lewis Ruffner. But when all the deplorable circumstances are considered, no one can approve the thrusting into responsible position of a aged Gentleman, who was compelled to fall back upon a fortunately officious person for the aid necessary to “run the Machine.” Had he been a Democrat, it might have been accounted for on the ground that the Radicals were parading a convert, but as that gentleman has always disavowed all connection with Democracy, his selection is bound to be left unexplained and inexplicable.”
“THE SCENTERS OF ATTRACTION”
“The Black delegates were keenly and attentively observed by everybody. A few of them were able to compel attention even at a distance, from the most obdurate olfactory, but barring this the whole drove, about twenty in all, compared quite favorably in appearance with Chapline, Koonce, and the rest by whom they were marshalled. True…”
“…A few of them while here, even washed and wiped upon the same towels with Radical white men, and combed with the same combs…”
“The leading Radicals of the Convention vied with each other in their attentions to the Black delegates, but it is conceded that Bee of Doddridge, old E Clampus Vitis, surpassed them all, as he stood up in the Convention, far toward the front, with an arm thrown affectionately around the neck of the only Black man I ever saw that could rival Ephraim Bee in ugliness. The Juxtaposition of the two concentrated odor and ill-favor to an extent unknown in the previous experience of the eyes and nostrils then and there present.”
“Two years ago, these same Black man-hugging people would have reached for your scalp had you hinted that they favored Black Suffrage. Looking upon this strange scene to-day and witnessing the intimate and easy sandwiching of “loyalty” in black and white, I readily conceded the progressiveness of the party which has made its pledges of two years ago, the most astounding lies of the century.”
“A BELLOWING BLACK GUARD”
“If the thing could have been avoided, I would have been pleased to omit all reference to Tom Swann in this inoffensive sketch. He has been hankering after ‘a skinning’ from some Democratic paper ever since he carried his carcass into the Radical ranks. He has been anxious to be kicked and keen to be cuffed in order that he might bear his bruises to his Radical masters, as a car would carry his wounds and sores to his vagabond owner, for sympathy and ointment. But the Democratic papers have so far refused to gratify him. Moved to compassion by the insulting insolence with which he bespattered his betters to-day, let us tender him a slight excoriation to be used by him as a sign of martyrdom and as the basis of a claim to the practical affection of the “loyal” mob for whose delectation he to-day lifted the lid from his gall pot. When he denounced the Democrats of West Virginia, as he did denounce them, without limit or qualification.; when he called them as “poor, miserable cowards,” he simply proclaimed himself a mob-rouser, a public defamer and a dirty demagogue. The charge of cowardice comes with a poor grace from a man who skulked from the front of the rebel service, and never carried his pompous pussiness when there was the slightest danger of a reduction of inflation by a Yankee bullet. His indecency did not end there. He perorated into a prodigious bowl that the Democrat was a ‘black-livered scoundrel.’ Of course, the applause followed, as it always follows such declamation before a ‘loyal’ mob. And then Tom Swann enacted the meanest piece of poltroonery ever perpetrated before an intelligent audience. He had won the applause of the screaming furies; he would now escape the consequences of his indecency. And so he tried to ‘recall’ the ‘black-livered’ part of his rhetoric. Yet, out of the fullness of the heart the mouth had spoken. He had uttered words that no brave man would have spoken; that no decent man could approve, and that, it uttered personally to one of the men to whom they were applied collectively, would have furnished a broken mouth to the bellowing blackguard, as a warning to sling his slime, if he must get rid of it, upon those who grovel on his level, not at the ‘characters of which he can never in this life get a horizontal view.’ There, Thomas, is a capital grievance. See if it will not carry you into Congress.”
“FLICK AND HIS AMENDMENT.”
“Poor Flick has the sympathy of the public. The committee on Resolutions utterly refused to consider a resolution recommending the people to endorse that amendment, and the best thing the Intelligencer gang could get from the “bitter-enders” was a plank in the platform relieving the party from all obligation to support the amendment in the coming canvass. And then to give emphasis to the stinging insult they put upon his pet measure, the brutal “bitter-ender” cruelly and in cold blood slaughtered, quartered and hung up the author. Nat. Harrison last winter proclaimed himself the first victim of the “let-up” guillotine and prophesied many others. Poor Flick realizes the prophecy, and what is worse, he has furnished the means of his own decapitation. The only wonder is that to no small an amount of “let-up” as was contained in Flick’s amendment there should be appended so much guillotine as he has been subjected to. But your bloody “bitter-ender” is a ruthless creature. And so tonight he sits and smiles amid the ruin he has wrought, and the unpleasant corpses with which he has strewn the ground, thinking little of the advancing tide of public opinion that will soon leave of him nothing but his odious memory.”
“THE BASIS OF REPRESENTATION.”
“The scalawags and carpet-baggers, as a rule, live in the border counties. There the disfranchisement is heavy, and two hundred votes are about what are needed to send a member to the Legislature, while in the northern part of the State it usually requires from twelve to fifteen hundred votes to elect a member. If therefore, the basis of representation be that of votes cast for a Republican candidate for Governor, it is clear that the Republicans in the counties where there is no disfranchisement will largely out vote their brethren of the disfranchised counties. But if the case be contrary, the result will be quite the reverse. If the legislative basis prevail, your border-rullians will outvote the Panhandle people of polish. On the voting basis Ohio county, electing no Republicans to the Legislature, yet casting 2200 Republican votes, will outvote in a tenfold ratio Jefferson county, which with 200 Republican votes, sends two Republicans to the Legislature. But on the legislative basis, Greenbrier and Monroe, with but four hundred loyal votes, offsets Ohio county with her 2200. Hence the scrimmage in the Convention on basis of representation. It is to be hoped that few men ever before witnessed such a boisterous proceeding. That is, it is to be hoped that few such Conventions have ever met. A den of wild beasts, howling, fighting, clawing, biting, tearing and rending, would not have developed more hideous noisiness or more desperate fury that the contest on this same representation question. No Chairman the world ever saw could have stilled the storm. The bad passions of bad men must find utterance and the freer the vent the greater the noise. A temporary lull was secured by the surrender of the field to the carpet-baggers and scalawags. Nevertheless, the question must continue to recur and each repetition will but increase the danger and embitter the agitation.”
“AN EXAMPLE OF HARMONY.”
“Doubtless Judge Brown meant well enough when he bade the Convention set the Democracy an example of harmony. Yet no man ever sent a less happy expression to vibrate on the air. The Democracy struggled manfully to conduct hostilities decently and suspend them at the proper time. But these harmonions “loyal” people seemed neither to know nor care for anything but making a nasty fuss and prolong it. Yet for a wonder, there is no talk of further unity in the Republican party of West Virginia. All seem to recognize that the animosities and rankling prejudices which found expression to-day can have no other result but the defeat of the Republican party. Providence frequently plants the seeds of self-destruction in what is deadly and dangerous. Making Radicalism to work out its own annihilation, does it not seem like the special ordering of Him who “maketh the wrath of man to praise him.” With nothing of the cant or blasphemy of the sniveling sneak who invoked Almighty wrath on their heads to-day, the Democracy can sincerely thank God for this Convention.”
“H. S. W.”
It is obvious that the vitriol and animosity between the parties by some of the people on both sides back in 1870 was nearly as bad then as we find it to be today. Did we never learn? Will we ever learn?
