"the pusillanimous notion that freemen may not vindicate their rights by arms...."

   The passage in General Wade Hampton's speech at the Union square ratification meeting which the Times held up to reprobation, is the following:

   "We can have no relief unless this great Democratic party will come out, and pledge itself that we shall have a fair election--that the white people of the South shall vote; and I want you all to register an oath that, when they do vote, that these votes shall be counted, and if there is a majority of white votes, that, you will place Seymour and Blair in the White House, in spite of all the bayonets that shall be brought against them. I only want to see the election fair, and if they do that, even with the incubus of black rule, we can carry the Southern States."

   We find nothing in this to disapprove. We should deprecate the necessity of a resort to force, but we pour scorn upon the craven, the pusillanimous notion that freemen may not vindicate their rights by arms. Courage to resist oppression is the ultimate security for good government. This, at least, was the opinion of our brave forefathers when they took care to provide in the Constitution that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." The right to bear arms implies the right, on a sufficient provocation, to use them. The only debatable question relates to the sufficiency of the provocation.

   If the Democratic party should fairly elect the next President....

- The Evening Telegraph, Philadelphia, Thursday, July 16, 1868. Vol. X--No. 13. Pg. 2.

   Ulysses S. Grant, (April 27, 1822 – July 23, 1885), was the 18th President of the United States....

   So then, how does one best eat crow; with a side order of hypocrisy? (I guess 'Obama' was the long awaited payback by the democrats for the Grant administration, eh?)