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 013 786 526 9 
 
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THE PUBLIC DEBT A DEMOCRATIC LEGACY, 
 
 .R395 The First Rebellion a Rally for Slavery. 
 
 Copy 1 
 
 WHAT IT COST THE NATION. 
 
 A SE 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE UNION REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE, WASHINGTON, D. C. 
 
 WHO BEGUN THE RERELLION. 
 
 "/tcitV tell you another fact, which is enough for this time, that as the late war was prodcced 
 
 BY THE DEFBATED DEMOCRATIC PARTY IN 1800, SO wc shall never have peace till it is restored to povxrr 
 
 in 1868." 
 
 Kx-Unitfd states and ex- Confederate Stales Senator Toombs' speech at Atlanta, Oa., July 8, 1868. 
 
 WHAT THEY BEGUN IT FOR. 
 
 "l^hc new (Confederate) Constitution ha^ put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating 
 to cur peculiar institutions — African Slavevg — as it exists amongst us, the proper status of the negro 
 in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late ruptdre and present 
 RF.VOLUTION. » » * Qur new Government is founded up)on exactly the opposite idea — (ihe 
 idea of Mr. JefiFerson that 'the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature, 
 and wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically.') Its foundations are laid — its corner 
 stone rests upon the great truth « * * that slavery subordination to the superior race is 
 HIS {the negro's) natural and normal condition !" 
 
 Confederate Vice-President A. IT. Stephens' speech at Savannah, Ga., March 21, ISGU 
 
 In 1856, James Buchanan, "a northern man with southern principles," was 
 elected President of the United States. At this time, and during th(i whole of his 
 administration, until after the triumph of the Republican party in 18G0, the country 
 was at peace with all the world, the Government was respected abroad, and the 
 people were prosperous and happy. The annual resources of the national Treasury 
 far exceeded its expenditures ; taxations for the support of the Government had no 
 existence, and the national debt was merely nominal. 
 
 Upon the elevation of Mr. Buchanan to the Presidency, he surrounded himself 
 with some of the worst men in the nation, and selected to constitute a majority of 
 his cabinet, either avotced secessiojii'sts, like Cobb, Floyd, and Thompson, or the 
 still more infamous Toucey, all of whom were life-long Democrats, and gave their 
 whole personal and official influence to the work of organizing the rebellion while 
 constituting a portion of the Government. 
 
 For years, the South had been threating a dissolution of the Union, encouraged 
 by the leaders of the Democratic party north. 
 
 PREPARATIONS FOR THE REBELLION. 
 
 Very soon after the inauguration of Buchanan, the slave-holding democracy com- 
 menced, more actively than ever, preparations for their long-threatened rebellion. 
 Everywhere throughout' the South the people were organized into military bands and 
 subject to military discipline. 
 
 In this active preparation for civil war, they were op6nly and efBciently aided by 
 Mr. Buchanan's cabinet. Floyd stole arms from the arsenals North and sent thcpi 
 
 y 
 
Eg 
 
 no 
 
 to the Southern States to be used in arming the conspirators. He also sent the whole 
 army into Texas to be surrendered to the rebels the moment the first blow should be 
 struck against the Goverment, while Toucey ordered the navy to distant foreign ports, 
 and Cobb was successfully employed in exhausting the public Treasury and destroying 
 the national credit. 
 
 By these means tfie Democratic party South, actively assisted hy a Democratic 
 Administration, and openly encouraged by the democratic leaders North, 
 believed they had rendered the Government powerless and put the success of their 
 rebellion beyond all contingency. 
 
 FEEMONT'S ELECTION TO BE A SIGNAL FOR EEVOLT. 
 
 Previous to the elections of 1856, it had been arranged that the election of Free- 
 mont should be the signal for secession from the Union then, though they were not 
 fully prepared for the fatal plunge. His defeat enabled them to postpone the blow 
 till the next election, and gave them time to complete their treasonable arrangements. 
 
 The election of Mr. Douglass, or any other Northern democrat not pledged to the 
 purposes of the secessionists, no less than Mr. Lincoln's, would have been seized upon 
 as the pretext for revolt, just as Mr. Lincoln's was. 
 
 THE FIRST ACT OF WAR. 
 
 Immediately upon the success of the Kepublican party being known, though it 
 was not denied that Mr. Lincoln was elected in strict accordance with every legal and 
 constitutional requirement, one Southern State after another seceded from the Union 
 and open war was commenced ; first, by seizing Forts, Arsenals, Ncmy Yards, Mints, 
 Custom Houses, Post Offices; stealing the public money, appropriating all the public 
 property within the limits of the Southern States to their treasonable purposes; then 
 by organizing a?i independent government, and finally by firing upon the Star of 
 THE West, sent on the humane and peaceful mission of relieving the starving, besieged 
 garrison of Port Sumter. 
 
 Thus the Democratic party South, loith the open and poicerful assistance of a 
 Democratic Administration, and the leaders of the Democratic party North, com- 
 menced A four years civil war — the wickedest, the crudest, the bloodiest the world 
 ever saw, and all to establish a government " lohose corner-stone was to be slavery." 
 
 NO JUSTIFICATIOK FOR TREASON. 
 
 At the time the slave-holding and slavery-defending democrary began this terrible 
 civil war, the government of the country was practically in their hands, as it had 
 been for sixty years, with very brief intervals. Though a republican president had 
 been elected, the Supreme Court and both branches of Congress were against him, 
 and the Republican party was, therefore, absolutely powerless. Both the Legislative 
 and Judicial departments of the Government were democratic, for the republicans had 
 not a majority in the House, while the other branch of Congress was overwhelming 
 against them. Mr. Lincoln could not even have secured a cabinet unless with the 
 "consent" of his political opponents. Slavery was as safe as it had been any ti)ne 
 in sixty years. Not a law on that, nor indeed on any other subject, could the Republi- 
 can party have passed if the Democratic senators and members had all stood at their post. 
 
 But they had been threatening secession for nearly thirty years, had been vigor- 
 ously organizing for civil war for four years, and were all ready to raise the bloody 
 flag of rebellion as soon as the result of the election of 1860 should be declared. 
 They at once plunged madly into the contest for disunion, sovereignty , and slavery. 
 
 WHAT THIS DEMOCRATIC REBELLION COST. ^ ' '' - 
 
 And now let us count the cost of this Democratic civil war — a war inaugurated 
 under a democratic administration, encouraged by a democratic president, actively 
 aided by democratic members of his cabinet, begun by the democratic leaders, and 
 carried on by the Democratic party, a war in which every' man who fought against 
 tJie old flag was a democrat, every man v:ho encouraged the rebellion was a democrat, 
 and a war in which every RepidAican in the Union was on the side of the Government. 
 
 To begin, then, this democratic rebellion cost the nation a four years' war, 
 
 \ 
 X 
 
mare unjust, and cruel, and unnecessary than any in the history of the world, and 
 'Z^m •which a more brutal, revengeful., and barbarian spirit was exhibited by its authors 
 ^v than by any other people, either savage or civilized. 
 
 ^,. This four years' democratic war cost us the lives of three hundred thousand as 
 
 '-.brave, patriotic, noble hearted, intelligent "men as ever died in defence of their 
 
 ^ jcountry. 
 
 •^ This four years' democratic war has also made three hundred thousand equally 
 
 V\ brave, patriotic, noble hearted men cripples, and many of them pensioners for life. 
 
 This four years' democratic war has made teii hundred thousand widows 
 
 and orpJians, depriving them of their natural protectors and rendering them dependent 
 
 upon the liberality of the people through the bounty of the Government. 
 
 This four years' democratic war has cost the people three thousand millions 
 OF DOLLARS, every cent rendered absolutely necessary to save the nation against this 
 mighty democratic conspiracy, and every cent of which, except what fell into the 
 hands of disloyal democratic speculators, was expended in enabling GcTieral Grant to 
 overthrow this democratic rebellion. 
 
 This four years' democratic war has left upon the people a national debt of 
 TWENTY-FIVE HUNDRED MILLIONS OF DOLLARS. J^ot one cent of this debt would have 
 existed had not the Democratic party, under a Democratic Administration, headed 
 by Democratic members of the Government, begun the rebellion without any cause, 
 and for no other purpose than to establish a sLAVE-iiOLDiNa confederacy. 
 
 This four years' democratic war has caused, and is now causing, a yearly tax 
 of two hundred millions of dollars upon the people to pay the interest on this democratic 
 naiiorud debt, the pensions to disabled soldiers, and to the widows and orphans of 
 those who died in defence of their country. 
 
 This four years' democratic war, in causing an enormous national debt, and 
 in substituting a paper for a specie currency, has so inflated prices, that the people 
 can now buy no more with two dollars than they could with one before the Demo- 
 cratic party brought upon us this enormous democratic debt. 
 
 This four years' democratic war has fastened a burden of taxation upon the 
 people, that fur forty years loill eat up, directly and indirectly, a tenth part of 
 every man\ earnings. And this tax is the inevitable result of a war begun by the 
 Democratic party without the slightest justification — begun deliberately and wickedly, 
 after counting all the cost and four years' careful, zealous, and systematic preparations. 
 
 ITS EFFECTS UPON THE SOUTH. 
 
 But the terrible consequences of this four years' democratic war have not been 
 confined to the loyal States. It has caused the most unutterable woe to the poor 
 people of the South. As many of them xoere sacrificed in this rear for slavery, as 
 many maimed hi battle, and as many widmcs and orphans made as at the North, 
 lohile infinitely more property icas destroyed by the ravages of war. And yet the 
 mass of the southern people had nothing to gain and nothing to hope, even from 
 the success of the rebellion. The war was begun and carried on by the Demo- 
 cratic party for the benefit of the privileged class of slave-holders, against 
 the interest of the vast majority of the people. 
 
 This four years' democratic war begun and carried on, as the vice jyresident 
 of the rebel government officially declafed, to perpetuate and extend slavery, 
 could have no other result than still further to degrade the poor white man and make 
 him still more dependent upon a slave-holding aristocracy . Tnis was its secondary 
 0B.1ECT. The census of 1860 shows slave property then to be worth /o!/r thousand 
 millions of dollars, and the land, &c. , held by the slave owners to have been worth 
 as much more. Besides owning all the material property of the South, the slave- 
 holding oligarchy possessed absolutely the whole political power of the old slave 
 States, and for sixty years had substantially controlled the enti-re policy of the general 
 government, partly through the extra members of Congress their slaves gave them, 
 but mainly through the base subserviency of the Northern Democracy to their interest. 
 
Eg no 
 
 In 1860 the slave States contaiueil about twelve millions of people, of whom 
 four millions were slaves, and eight millious whites, only tuukk iiundked and iifty 
 'iiiovsx'SD uf ichom were slave-hoUIers, o\yiii'Sii all tue puopekty, exercisikg all 
 TUE POWEK, AND CONTKOLUNG TUE DUSTINIES of the white people as ahsulutdij and 
 tijrannicaUy as they did the negroes. iLwas for the sole bcwjit »f this privll'-ged class 
 that three hundred thousand lives of Southern white men \7ere sacrificed, a7id a 
 inillion of widows and orjjhans created. And this oligarchy of slave-holders ifas hut 
 one twentij- fourth part of the Southern white pjopulation, and less than a seventieth 
 part of the white p>opulation of the whole nation. 
 
 WAGED TO ENSLAVE THE POOR. 
 
 In TUis DEMOCRATIC WAR, waged to perpetuate, the privileges and power of this 
 mean and cruel oligarchy, to degrade still further the poor wuites, to render labor 
 s!dl more odious, and poverty still harder to be borne, the icorhing masses of the 
 isouth fought four long years, shedding blood like water, and making themselves 
 almost literally a nation of paupers. The oligarchy, though they lost their slaves, 
 still keep their lands. They are now laboring again to '' fire the Southern hexrt,''^ 
 find to incite, with the aid of Seymour and Blair, another democratic, rebellion, 
 through the means of which they hope to regain their loxt power, re-estadlisii 
 SLAVERY, repudiate THE PUBLIC DEBT, and retain the Southern white masses inignor- 
 ance and dcgredation I 
 
 This is a part of the price the people were compelled to pay, and a part of the 
 burden they are still compelled to bear as a penalty for permitting the Democratic 
 victory of 1856; and these are some of the fearful consequences of the four years' 
 war, which was begun and carried on by the Democratic party, through the aid, 
 I xtendcd to the conspirators by the democratic administration which that victory 
 broiigJd into p>ower, to destroy the Government and perpetuate slavery. 
 
 democratic fraud and FALSEHOOD. 
 
 A violent attempt has been made by the baser sort of the copperhead Democracy 
 to hold the Republican party in some way responsible for the crushing weight oj 
 taxation this democratic rebellion has brought vjxm the people. But the charge 
 itself is treason, for it implies that tlie Bepubliean party should have made no effort 
 to jnd down the rebellion and save the Union. If they had made no resistance to 
 their armed attack upon the Government, bat permitted them, peaceably, to destroy 
 the Union and establish a slave-holding confederacy vpon its ruins, there would have 
 been no war, no national debt, no ta.xatio.v ! 
 
 TREASON TO BE MADE HONORABLE AND LOYALTY ODIOUS. 
 
 The American people are asked to mahe treason a virtue and loyalty a crime 
 by the election of the rebel candidates for President and Vice-President in prefv;ronce 
 to the General who overthrew the rebellion and saved the Union, and to punish by 
 defeat the Republican party, who furnished Grant the men and means to accomplish 
 that object at the expense of a large national debt, and to reward by victory the 
 Democratic party, whose treason and rebellion rendered that debt necessary. Such 
 a verdict would convert the men who served this nation into traitors and those who 
 fought four years to destny it into patriots! 
 
 Mr. Seymour's New York "friends," who inaugurated, at his suggestion, the auti- 
 draftriot of July, 1803, and murdered negroes, burnt orphan asylums, and destroyed 
 the property of loyal men, have shown a keener sense of decency and prnpiiety 
 than the advocates of Seymour and Blair have in thus attempting to hold the Repub- 
 lican party responsible for the burdens which their own crimes brought upon the 
 country. They have not been shameless enough to charge upon the National Gov- 
 ernment, or the party which controlled it, the responsibility of the expense rendered 
 necessary to suppress the riot, and to pay for the property they burnt and the lives 
 they sacrificed. 
 
 The copperhead demand, that the American people shall punish, ns criminals, the 
 Repiiblicau party for the present national debt, and its burden of taxation, could find 
 no litter and more siirnificant illustration than in the conduct of the sou who sought 
 
to take from a father the control of his estate, on the ground of incompetency or 
 dishonesty, because he had entailed a debt upon it in extinguishing a fire which that 
 incendiary son had wilfully communicated to it. 
 
 The Democratic party, in 18G0, applied the incendiary torch of civil war to the 
 fabric jf civil liberty erected by the Fathers of the Republic, and for four long years 
 labored with bloody ferocity to destroy it. They failed in their treasonable designs, 
 and the nation was saved. They now ask the people to hurl from power the party 
 who thwarted their conspiracy and to give them the control of the Government tchich 
 they sacrificed tuhee hundred tuousand lives and compelled the expenditure of 
 TUiiEE TUOUSAND MILLIONS OF DOLLARS in trying to destroy I 
 
 IS THE UNION WOKTH WHAT IT COST? 
 
 The question for the American people to decide is — first, whether the Republican 
 party icere guilty of a crime, by armed resistance to the efforts of the Rebel Democracy 
 to overthrow the Government ; and second, if they were not, whether the price paid 
 for jrntting down the rebellion and saving our free Rcp)uhlican Institutions, purged of 
 the only blot upon them, 2vas more than they luere worth. If they believe the Repub- 
 lican party should have permitted the government, founded hy Washington and his 
 associates, to be destroyed without a struggle to save it, or that it is not worth 
 the lives and treasure which that struggle involved, they tvill elect Seymour and Blair, 
 TUE candidates NOMINATED BY THE REBELS. If they think the establishment of Lib- 
 erty, Justice, and Equal Rights on this continent is worth the sacrifices made to secure 
 tbem, tliey will elect Grant and Colfax, the candidates of the loyal men of the nation. 
 
 DEMOCRATIC CORRUPTION. 
 
 Whether the war cost more than it ought is not a question for its authors to raise, 
 because in all the frauds committed upon the Government during its existence, they 
 have been the greatest and most numerous criminals, stealing fifty dollars to the 
 Republican's one. 
 
 Nor does it become the rebel and copperhead Democracy to complain of the burden 
 of taxation for another reason. They not only created the national debt, but it is by 
 
 THEIR frauds THAT THE GOVERNMENT IS SWINDLED OUT OF THE REVENUE WHICH WOULD 
 
 so LESSEN THE BURDEN OF TAXATION as to make it Scarcely felt by the peoph. 
 
 f^inety millions of gallons of whiskey are annually manufactured, subject to a 
 tax of two dollars per gallon, or one hundred and eighty millions in the aggre- 
 gate; but through the influence of the "Whiskey Ring,'' composed exclusively of 
 copperheads and rebels, and sustained by the President and his Democratic supporters, 
 only thirty millions annually (last year less than half that sum) is paid into the 
 Treasury, and the tax payers are tjierefore cheated out of ove hundred and fifty 
 millions of dollars annually, which they must make^ vp in taxes. This theft is 
 committed by democrats, every one of whom is the noisy advocate of Seymour and 
 Blair. 
 
 REPUBLICAN ECONOMY. 
 
 A few facts will show how free from prodigality and corruption the Republican 
 party has been since it came into power, and that it has been far more economical 
 than its predecessors in all ordinary expenditures. 
 
 No comparison, of course, can be made of the cost of the war and many depart- 
 ments of the Government between Mr. Buchanan's administration and the republi- 
 can administration which succeeded it; but there can be between the two adminis- 
 trations in regard to the civil and diplomatic expenses of the government. And this 
 comparison is most favorable to the Republican party. Read the following facts: 
 Civil and Diplomatic expenses of the Government during 1860, the last year of 
 
 Mr. Buchanan's administration, was $45,7^6,058 
 
 First year of Mr. Lincoln's, 1861 $46.14.'!. 059 
 
 Founh " " 1864 27,800,400 
 
 First year of Johnson's, 1865 40 .346.55.3 
 
 Second " " 1866 42,420,8:0 
 
 Third " " 1867 52,008,021 
 
 Making an aggregate of. $208,808,862 
 
I- c^ 
 
 Which is an average of about ^41 ,700,000 yearly, or an average of four millions a year 
 less since tht Republicans came into power, and covering the whole period of the war, 
 than during the last year of Mr. Buchanan's administration. This item, it must be 
 remembered, includes the salaries of all officers engaged in the civil service at home — 
 president, members of the cabinet, heads of bureaus, revenue officers, clerks, &c., as 
 well as oixr diplomatic agents. And yet, notwithstanding the enormous increase oi 
 clerks and other civil officers, especially those connected with the internal revenue 
 departiuent, rendered necessary by this great Democratic rebellion, four millions ol 
 dollars annually have been saved to the tax payers of the nation in our civil and 
 diplomatic expenditures alone, for seven years, making an aggregate of twenty-eight 
 millions. The years 18G2 and 1863 have been omitted because the payment on the 
 public debt for those years is included in the statement of civil and diplomatic ex- 
 penses in the Financial Report from which these figures are taken. 
 
 The expenditure of Mr. Buchanan's administration, the last year of its existence, 
 was, in gold, a little over ^80,000,000, or more than $112,000,000 in greenbacks 
 at the present rate of exchange. This too was when the army was vastly less than 
 it is now, and the navy scarcely half as large. 
 
 For the ordinary expenses of the Government for the fiscal year, which begun 
 the 1st day of July, 1868, the appropriation by a Republican Congress was one 
 hundred and six millions eight hundred thousand dollars, being more than five millions 
 OF DOLLARS LESS, when reduced to gold, than Mr, Buchanan expended the last year of 
 his rule. These are only fair examples of the economy of a Republican Congress in 
 every department of the public service. They have labored with unceasing zeal 
 and fidelity to lessen the burdens brought upon the people by the Democratic rebel- 
 ion of 1861. 
 
 ANOTHER CIVIL WAR THREATENED. 
 
 But the copperhead and rebel democracy are not satisfied with the awful calamity they 
 
 , brought upon the nation by that wicked and bloody conspiracy, the hundreds of 
 
 thousands of lives they sacraficed, the millions of widows and orphans they made, 
 
 the three thousand millions of dollars they expended, the enormous and grinding national 
 
 debt and its contingent weight of taxation they created.. 
 
 The taste for blood, and the love for plunder and devastation and ruin, which that 
 four years of carnage and crime begat, instead of being satiated, has only been 
 sharpened by what it fed upon. And they are now inaugurating another civil war. 
 
 If the democracy elects Seymour and Blair, they declare that the first act of their 
 President will be the commencement of a war to overturn the Southa-n reorganized State 
 governments, to annul all the reconstruction laws of Congress, to take from the colored 
 people of the South the right to vote, and to disperse Congress at the point of the 
 BAYONET, if it shall stand in the way of these great Democratic reforms ! 
 
 This SECOND DEMOCRATIC CIVIL WAR, which is only to be prevented by their defeat 
 at the polls, will, undoubtedly, be as long and bloody, and destructive and expen- 
 sive as their first revolt, and will cost the nation another three thousand millions 
 OF dollars, three hundred thousand more precious lives, and make another million of 
 widows and orphans ! 
 
 There is evidence, strong as proofs of holy writ, that the copperhead and rebel 
 democracy are preparing to precipitate the nation into such a second rebellion, 
 if the people, in their madness, or God in Ilis wrath, should permit Horatio Seymour 
 to be elected President and Frank Blair Vice President. This evidence // the solemn 
 declaration of the candidates of that corrupt, utterly unscrupulous, and disloyal party — 
 the platform adopted at their New York National Convention, the avowel of all the 
 Sonthern rebels, delegates to that convention, and others who dictated its policy and 
 are its admitted leaders, such as Howell Cobb, Robert P. Toombs. A. H. Stephens, 
 General Forest, General Wade Hampton, General Preston, Gov. Vance, Gov. 
 Perry, Basil Duke, Barksdale, Beauregard, Vallandigham, &c., the tone of the copper- 
 head rebel press generally, and the whole spirit and temper of the rebel people and their 
 Northern henchmen. 
 
THE PROOF OF THEIR INTENDED REBELLION. 
 
 The treasonable letter of Frank Blair, which procured him the nomination he holds, was 
 indorsed by the New York rebel Convention, and is the key-note of the campaign. It is, 
 therefore, an authentic and official declaration of the purposes of the rebel and copperhead 
 Democracy. It is dated June 30th, and contains this threat of civil war: 
 
 "If the President elected by the Democracy enforces, or permits others to enforce, these 
 reconstruction acts, the Radicals, by the accession of twenty spurious Senators and fifty Repre- 
 sentatives, will control both branches of Congress, and his administration will be as powerless 
 as the present one of Mr. .Johnson. 
 
 "There is but one way to restore the Government and the Constitution, and that is for the 
 
 PRKSIDENT-ELECT TO DECLARE THESE ACT8 NULL AND VOID, COMI'KL THE ARMY TO UNDO ITS USURPA- 
 TIONS AT THE South, disperse the carpet-bag State governments, allow the white people to 
 
 REORGANIZE THEIR OWN GOVERNMENTS, AND ELECT SENATORS AND RePRESE.NTATIVES. 
 
 " We must restore the Constitution before we can restore the finances, and to do this we 
 must have a President who will execute the will of the people ry trampling into dust thb 
 
 DSURPATIONS of CoNGRESS, KNOWN AS THE RECONSTRUCTION ACTS. 
 
 CLAIR'S TREASONABLE THREAT ENDORSED. 
 
 The New York copperhead Convention, which did not contain a loyal delegate from tho 
 South, nor one who had not taken an active part against the Government, gave General 
 Hampton, the bitterest rebel of them all, unconditional authority to place any plank in the 
 platform the South might demand; and he placed there this endorsement of Blair's threat of 
 civil war, which the Convention approved by .acclamation : 
 
 "Resolved, That we regard the reconstruction acts (so called) of Congress as usurpa- 
 tions, AND unconstitutional, REVOLUTIONARY, AND VOID." 
 
 Here is General Hampton's own construction of the meaning of this resolutioo, delivered 
 at a mass meeting of the copperhead and rebel Democracy before he left New York : 
 
 " We can have no relief until the Democratic party will come out and pledge itself that the white 
 people of the South shall vote. I want you all to register an oath thai, when they do vote, their votes 
 shall he 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 theii." 
 
 All but a few of the worst rebels vote now; they cannot vute without "trampling the law3 
 under foot," as they propose. 
 
 JOII^'SON TO BEGIN WAR BEFORE THE ELECTION. 
 
 The President clearly intends to take the lead in the proposed rebellion, by destroying the 
 new State govornments, and nullifying the laws of Congress before the election. This is an 
 improvement on the rebel and copperhead policy, which is to commence the rebellion only in 
 case of Sej'inour's election. But Johnson means the rebel votes shall be counted for him. 
 In his veto of the electoral college bill he thus lays down his way to begin the war. After 
 expressing his opinion that the rebel States wei'e legally "organized and restored " under hia 
 "policy," prior to March 4, ISGY, he says : 
 
 "The only legitimate authority under which the election for President and Vice-President 
 can be held therein must be derived from the governments instituted before that period. It 
 ckarly follows that the State governments organized in those States, under act of Congress for that 
 purpose, as under militar)/ control, are illegitimate and of no validity whatever; and, in 
 
 THAT VIEW, the VOTES CAST IN THOSE StATES FOR PRESIDENT AND ViCE-PrESIDENT IN PURSUANCE OF 
 acts PASSED SINCE THE 4tH OF MaRCH, 18G7, AND IN OBEDIENCE TO THE SO-CALLED ACTS OF C0N(;RKSS, 
 CANNOT BE LEGALLY RECEIVED AND COUNTED ; WHILE THE ONLY VOTES IN THOSE STATES THAT CAN BE 
 L>:GALLY cast and counted will be THOSE CAST IN PURSUANCE OF THE LAWS IN FORCE IN THB 
 
 BEVERAL States prior to the legislation by Congress upon the subject of reconstruction." 
 
 GOVERNOR PERRY SAYS BLAIR'S LETTER MUST BE CARRIED OUT. 
 
 At a meeting of rebels, held in Charleston, to ratify their nominations at New York, Gov- 
 ernor Perry, a rebel delegate who had just returned from that conclave of traitors, said : 
 
 "Hampton was the lion of the Convention. Hami)ton was courted by all parties. North, 
 South, East, and West; and when, as a member of the Committee on Platform, he submitted that 
 section ichich declares the reconstruction acts void and revolutionary, the rest of the committee tald 
 him to make it as strong as he pleased — they would endorse it. He paid the highest encomiums to 
 Seymour and Blair. Alluding to the late act of Congress rcspeuting the electoral college, he 
 {■aid it was the greatest fraud yet attempted, and meant that if the Southern States cast their 
 votes for Grant they would be counted ; if for Seymour they would be excluded. In this case, 
 he said General Blair's letter would have a practical illustration, and the Democrats North 
 and South would rise up and drive the usurpers from the halls of legislation. 
 
LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 
 
 T8 llllilllllllllill^ 
 
 013 786 526 9 "^ 
 
 HOWELL COBB'S ADVICE TO REBELS. 
 
 Cobb, who was Secretary of the Treasury under Buchanan, and used his position first to 
 ruin the credit of this Government, and then to overthrow it, is as black-hearted a traitor now 
 as he was tlien. He recently made a speech to the traitors at Atlanta, in which he exhibited 
 this infernal spirit toward the loyal, true men of the State : 
 
 "You owe it to the living, you owe it to your own children and to their children. Write 
 down in their memories this day and all d.ays, and for all time to come, the feeling and spirit 
 of abhorrence with which you regard and estimate these men. Oh, Heaven ! for some blister^ 
 irig wordii, that I may write infamy upon the foreheads of these men [applause]; that they may 
 travel through earth despised of all men and rejected of Hiaven, scorned by the devil hiimclf. ' They 
 may seek their final congenial resting place under the mudsills of that ancient institution. 
 * * * Upon.them there should be no mercy. They have dishonored (hemtselves and 
 
 sought to dishonor you. Anathematize them. Drive them from the pale of social and political 
 society. Leave them to wallow in their own mire and filih. Nobody will ever envy thorn ; 
 and if they are never taken out of the gully until I reach forth my hand to take them up, they 
 will die in their natural element." 
 
 THE LAW TO BE DISREGARDED. 
 
 The Charleston Mercury gives public notice that the Seymourites of that State will neither 
 obey the laws nor recognize the debts of her present Government. Says this admirer of Frank 
 Blair : 
 
 " It (Gen. Canby's Government) has forced into assumed supremacy the negro race on the 
 one side, over the white race on the other ; and has left them to settle which race shall rule 
 South Carolina. Of course, from the very nature of things, the white race will not be held re- 
 sponsible for the actings and doings of the negroes. They will redeem no debts they may 
 incur; they will pay no taxes they may lay ; they will kecoonize the validity of no laws thky 
 MAY PASS. ^ They intend to rule themselves, and not to be ruled by negroes ; and any man who 
 shall aid tl'e efforts of the negroes to rule them, by loaning their money under fraudulent use 
 of the name of South Carolina, is much more likely to be treated by them as an enemy than be 
 recognized as a lawful creditor. Let every one, therefore, who is disposed to loan his money 
 to the carpet-baggers and negroes distinctly understand that the people op South Gauolina 
 
 WILL pay not one FARTHING OF THE DEBT." 
 
 BALLOTS FIRST-THEN BULLETS. 
 
 The Mobile Tribune has no doubts about the real issue of the impending contest. Ballots 
 first, to keep up appearances, and then bullets. The Tribune puts the case plainly : 
 
 " Friends— fellow-citizens of Mobile— comrades of the Queen City of the Gulf! let us make 
 one more effort in behalf of our rights and our liberties. If we are successful in the approach- 
 i.sG contest we shall regain all that wb lost in the ' Lost Cause.' We shall be able to 
 reverse the iron rule which has been imposed upon us, and turning that iron into brands of 
 fire, hurl them back on the heads of the flagitious wretches who have inflicted so many foul 
 flagrant wrongs on our bleeding country. Once more to the breach then — yet once more ! and 
 when the cloud shall have cleared away from the flaming field, our flag — the grand old demo- 
 cratic flag — will be seen in all its glory, streaming like the thunder-cloud against the wind. 
 Let us then rally once more around The Dear Old Flau which we have followed so often to 
 glory and to victory." 
 
 SENTIMENT OF PROMINENT SOUTHERN REBELS. 
 Mr. Williamson, a prominent Democrat, of Shrevcport, La., made a Seymour and Blair speech 
 in New Orleans recently. He "arraigned the Radicals," and this is one of the counts of his 
 indictment: 
 
 " We arraign them in the name of our own dearly beloved Confederate dead [cheers] whose 
 bones are strewn all over the north-west ; killed in battle by the atrocious cruelty of the 
 Radical Government. I believe we will carry our candidates as firmly as there is a throne of 
 God. But even if the defeat should fall upon us do not be discouraged; the time will come 
 ■when we shall redeem the country. Let no man leave the State. Let us lay our bones in Louisi- 
 ana, and if these scalawags and carpet-baggers remain, let us- hunt them from the country." 
 
 Capt. Edward Marshal, a brother of Thomas, made a speech at a recent Democratic ratifica- 
 tion meeting, which is thus sketched in a Kentucky paper : 
 
 " He was enthusiastic in support of Seymour, and gave his reasons therefor. He said 
 Seymour was nominated as a war democrat for the reason that no other could win. He was 
 called a war democrat, but he had never given any aid or support to the Government in 
 prosecution of the war when it could bb avoided. In 18G3, when the rebel troops were in 
 Pennsylvania, and the Government called on Seymour, wlio was then Governor of New York, 
 to furnish troops to expel them, he answered in the same manner, if not in the same language, 
 as the Governor of Kentucky in 1861, viz : that he would not send them. He did send them, 
 however, roR the rbason that he was unablk to do othbbwisb." 
 
 Gibson Brothers, Printers, Washington, D. C. 
 
ooi: 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 013 786 526 9 
 
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