scorning--the look the man had for his enemies--and he was left with
swimming head and trembling knees. Then the great Nebraskan came, and
Jason heard him tell the people to vote against him for President if
they pleased--but to stand by Democracy; and in his paper next morning
Jason saw a cartoon of the autocrat driving the great editor and the
Nebraskan on a race-track, hitched together, but pulling like oxen
apart. And through the whole campaign he heard the one Republican cry
ringing like a bell through the State: "Elect the ticket by a majority
that CAN'T be counted out."
Thus the storm went on, the Republicans crying for a free ballot and a
fair count, flaunting on a banner the picture of a man stuffing a
ballot-box and two men with shot-guns playfully interrupting the
performance, and hammering into the head of the State that no man could
be trusted with unlimited power over the suffrage of a free people. Any
ex-Confederate who was for the autocrat, any repentant bolter that
swung away from the aristocrat, any negro that was against the man from
the Pennyroyal, was lifted by the beneficiary to be looked on by the
public eye. The autocrat would cut down a Republican majority by
contesting votes and throw the matter into the hands of the
legislature--that was the Republican prophecy and the Republican fear.
Manufacturers, merchants, and ministers pleaded for a fair election. An
anti-autocratic grip became prevalent in the hills. The Hawns and
Honeycutts sent word that they had buried the feud for a while and
would fight like brothers for their rights, and from more than one
mountain county came the homely threat that if those rights were
denied, there would somewhere be "a mighty shovellin' of dirt." And so
to the last minute the fight went on.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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