Author 
 
 Title 
 
 Class 
 
 Book 
 
 B (oTO 
 
 Imprint 
 
 16— 2717&-1 GPO 
 
A PLAIN STATEMENT 
 
 ADDRESSED TO ALL 
 
 HONEST DEMOCRATS. 
 
 BY 
 
 ONE OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 BOSTON : 
 GEO. C. RAND & AVERY, PRINTERS, 3 CORNHILL. 
 
 18G8. 
 
3 V f 5- 
 
.o-to 
 
 ^K\ 
 
 PLAIN STATEMENT. 
 
 The founders, and for many years the leaders, 
 of the Democratic party in this country, were 
 honest men, who sincerely and earnestly labored 
 for the welfare of the people. 
 
 Something of the character of the democracy 
 which they taught may be learned from the follow- 
 ing definition, taken from Kendall's Exposition : — 
 
 " The democracy we advocate is justice between man and 
 man, between State and State, between nation and nation. 
 It is morality. It is giving every man his due. It is doing 
 unto others as we would have them do unto us. It advocates 
 the banishment of falsehood, iraud, and violence, from the 
 affairs of men. It is the moral code of Him " who spake as 
 never man spake." It is the perfection of reason and the law 
 of God." 
 
 And also from the following resolutions, adopted 
 at a Democratic State Convention at Worcester, 
 Mass., Sept. 22, 1847 : — 
 
 " Resolved, That the Democratic party and creed are the 
 party and creed of truth and freedom, whose fundamental 
 tenets are the inborn, Heaven-granted freedom and equality of 
 all men (to deny which is to destroy republicanism) ; the 
 limited powers of all governments, and their derivation from 
 the people as the fountain of political authority. 
 
" Resolved, That the corner-stone of all rcpublk-an institu- 
 tions is the inalienable freedom and equality of all men ; that 
 the American Revolution, and all the political blessings thereby- 
 secured to our country, were the legitimate result of the adop- 
 tion of that great principle by our fathers ; and that we ought 
 never to forget, or fail to declare, our undying attachment to 
 this chief tenet in the creed of Democracy." 
 
 Such was the democracy of the fathers. It 
 was everywhere the foe of tyrants and the friend 
 of man. It abhorred slaveiy. Its apostles and 
 leaders were anxious for its extermination. Jeffer- 
 son denounced it as " a bondage, one /iowr of which 
 is worse than ages of that which we rose in 
 rebellion to oppose.'' But the new Democracy, 
 from its early association and fellowship with 
 slavery, has fellen from the ancient faith, has re- 
 moved the old land-marks of freedom, has turned 
 away backwards, and " gone after strange gods ; " 
 and in the contest between freedom and despotism, 
 under the form in which that contest is waged in 
 this countiy, it has chosen the side, has been, and 
 is now, fighting the battles of despotism against 
 freedom, of falsehood against truth, as will be fully 
 shown by what follows. " Out of thine own mouth 
 will I condemn thee^" 
 
 " The Richmond Examiner," a most zealous de- 
 fender of both slavery and democracy, ('* for how 
 can two walk together except they are agreed ? ") 
 during the presidential canvass of 1856 said, — 
 
 " The South maintains that slavery is right, natural, and 
 necessary, and does not depend on difference of complexion. 
 Tlie laws of the slave States justify the holding of white men 
 in bondatio." 
 
And tbo leading Democratic journal of South 
 Carolina, '' The Charleston Mercury," declares that 
 " slavtri/ is the normal and natural condition of the 
 laboring-man, whether white or black. The great 
 evil of Northern free society is, that it is burdened 
 with a servile class of mechanics and laborers 
 unfit for self-government, and yet clothed with the 
 attributes and powers of citizens. Master and slave 
 is a relation in society as necessary as that of ^Ja?"- 
 ent and child. And the Nortliern States will yet 
 have to introduce it. Their theori/ of free govern- 
 ment is a delusion." 
 
 ''The New-York Day-Book," which has for a 
 long time aspired to the leadership of" the entire 
 Democratic forces of the country, in its issue of 
 June 21, 1856, indorses these doctrines in these 
 words : — 
 
 " Slavery is the basis of American Democracy ; for the sub- 
 ordination of an inferior race has secured, and always will 
 secure, the equality of the superior race." 
 
 Hon. Rupus Choate, in 185G, went and joined 
 himself to the Democratic leaders. To prepare the 
 way for such a step, he first wrote them a letter, 
 in which he sneered at our great charter of liberty 
 as " the glittering and high-sounding generalities 
 of natural right, which make up the Declaration of 
 Independence." 
 
 Strange as it may seem, the aristocratic slave- 
 holders of the South allied themselves to the 
 Democratic party, and at length drew into it, for 
 the same reasons which led them there, the great 
 body of men of like tendencies with themselves — 
 
6 
 
 men who despised genuine democracy — who loved 
 power and rule, and who had morbid cravings for 
 an aristocratic form of government, with its orders 
 of nobility and hereditary titles and distinctions, 
 which should lift them above, and separate them 
 forever from, the great mass of the people, whom 
 they would keep in such a state of ignorance, that, 
 while toiling to support their masters, they should 
 look up to them as superior beings, on whom they 
 were dependent for food, shelter, and protection. 
 
 But such a consummation, under the existing 
 circumstances, could only be reached in the names 
 and under ,the guises of Liberty and Democracy ; 
 and this involved no less an undertaking than 
 the breaking-up of this Union, even at the expense 
 of civil war, and all the sad havoc upon life and 
 property which followed : and the movers in this 
 plot made no concealment of their purpose to break 
 down and destroy the democratic republic of tli'e 
 fathers, and to establish a slaveholding aristocracy 
 upon its ruins. 
 
 In an elaborate speech in the United-States 
 Senate, immediately before actual secession. Sena- 
 tor IvEESON of Georgia said, — 
 
 " Sir, there is but one path of safety to the South, but one 
 mode of preserving her institution of domestic slavery ; and 
 that is a confederacy of States having no incongruous and 
 opposing elements,. — a confederacy of slave States alone, with 
 homogeneous language, la-ws, interests, and institutions. Under 
 such a confederated rej)ublic, with a Constitution which should 
 shut out the approach and entrance of all incongruous and 
 conflicting elements, which should protect the institution from 
 
change, and keep the whole nation ever bound to its preserva- 
 tion by an unchangeable fundamental law, the fifteen slave 
 States, with their power of expansion, would present to the 
 world the most free, prosperous, and happy nation on the face 
 of the wide earth." 
 
 Alexander H. Stephens, in the spring of 1861, 
 addressed his fellow-citizens of the Confederacy 
 at Savannah, Ga. : saying, among much more of the 
 same sort, — 
 
 " Our new Constitution has put at rest forever all agitating 
 questions relating to our peculiar institutions, — African slavery 
 as it exists among us. This was the immediate cause of the 
 late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson, in his forecast, 
 had anticipated this as the ' rock on whiqji the old Union 
 would split.' The prevailing ideas entertained by him and 
 most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of 
 the old Constitution were, that the enslavement of the African 
 was in violation of the laws of Nature ; that it was wi-ong in 
 principle, socially, morally, and politically. Our new govern- 
 ment is founded upon exactly the opposite idea, — that slaveiy, 
 subordination to the superior race, is his natm"al and normal 
 condition. This stone, which was rejected by the first build- 
 ers, ' is become the chief head of the corner ' in our new 
 edifice." 
 
 In an address of Hon. L. W. Spratt of South 
 Carolina to the Confederate Congress in 1861, in 
 whicli he insists that the enslavement of at least 
 one-half the population of any State is absolutely 
 essential to its stability and safety, he declares 
 that 
 
 " The South is now in the formation of a slave republic: . . . 
 and the contest is not between the North and South, as geo- 
 graphical sections ; for, between such sections merely, there can 
 be no contest. . . . But the real contest lies between the two 
 
forms of society which have become established, — - the one at 
 the North, the other at the South. . . . Society is essentially 
 different from government ; and within this government two 
 societies had become developed, as variant in structure, and 
 distinct in form, as any two beings in animated nature. One is 
 bound together by the two great social relations of husband 
 and wife, and parent and child, embodying in its political 
 structure the principle, that equality is the right of man ; and 
 expands upon the plane of a pm-e democracy. The other is 
 bound together by the three great relations of husband and 
 wife, parent and child, and master and slave, embodying in its 
 structure the jirinciple, that equality is not the right of man, 
 but of equals only ; and has taken to itself the rounded form 
 of a social aristocracy." 
 
 But the obj&ct of the late Rebellion is now so 
 well understood, that it is needless to add testimony 
 on that point. We desire chiefly to show, that, 
 in " the contest" — now happily transformed from 
 the battle-field to the ballet-box — between "the 
 two forms of society,'' — the " pure democracy " 
 and the " rounded aristocracy," described by Mr. 
 Spratt, — the leaders of the Democratic party have 
 given the weight of tlieir sympathy and support 
 
 TO THE ARISTOCRACY." 
 
 How a Democrat, who believes in " the inborn, 
 Heaven-granted freedom and equality of all men/' 
 and that " the coRNER-stcfne of all republican institu- 
 tions is the inalienable freedom and equality of all 
 men/' can give any sympathy, support, or fellow- 
 ship whatsoever, to a class of men who publicly 
 denounce and scout their ideas, and have engaged 
 in a most atrocious, bloody, and unprovoked civil 
 war for the sole purpose of " destroying republican- 
 
ism," * and establishing a slaveholding or any 
 other " aristocracy " on its ruins, is " a mystery 
 of iniquity " not easily explained. 
 
 James Buchanan, in his last annual message 
 to Congress, Dec. 3, 1860, declared that 
 
 " The lon^-continiied and intemperate interference of the 
 Northern people with tlie question of shivery has at len^-th 
 produced its natural effects ; . . . and no political union can loner 
 continue if the necessary consequences be to render the homes 
 and the firesides of nearly half the parties to it habituall}' and 
 hopelessly insecure. Sooner or later, the bonds of such a 
 union must be severed." 
 
 And though lie denied the constitutional right 
 of secession, as well as the constitutional power to 
 " hinder " it, he told the South, which was at that 
 moment taking the preliminary steps to secede, 
 that if the " personal-liberty bills " of some of the 
 Northern States were not repealed, — 
 
 " In that event, the injured States, after having first used 
 all peaceful and constitutional means to obtain redress, would 
 he justified ix revolutionary resistance to the Gov- 
 ernment OF THE Union." 
 
 Howell Cobb was so well pleased with these 
 views, that, in a confidential letter to a Georgia 
 editor, lie saitl, — 
 
 " Tlie administration of Mr. Buchanan is the most thorough- 
 ly identified with our principles and our rights of any that 
 has ever preceded it ; and I am willing to stand or fall upon 
 the ifisue." 
 
 On Dec. 13, 18G0, while the secession of Soutli 
 Carolina was rapidly maturing. Judge Woodward, 
 
 * See Democratic resolutions quoted at the beginning of this work. 
 
10 
 
 the most prominent and trusted Democrat in 
 Pennsylvania, in an address to his fellow-citizens 
 in Philadelphia, said, — 
 
 " We must arouse ourselves, and re-assert the rights of the 
 slaveholder, and add such guaranties to our Constitution as 
 will ^'otect his property from the spoliation of religious 
 bigotry and persecution, or else we must give up our Constitu- 
 tion and Union. Events are placing the alternative plainly 
 before us, — constitutional union and liberty according to 
 American law ; or else extinction of slave-property, negro 
 freedom, dissolution of the Union, and anarchy and confusion. 
 We hear it said, ' Let South Carolina go out of the Union peace- 
 ably.' I say, Let her go peaceably if she go at aU ; but why 
 should South Carolina be driven out of the Union by an ' irre- 
 pressible conflict ' about slavery ? " 
 
 And so fully did the Democrats of Pennsylvania 
 fellowship these views of Judge Woodward, that 
 they nominated him for Governor of the State in 
 1863. 
 
 Ex-President Franklin Pierce, in a letter to 
 Jefferson Davis, Jan. G, 1860, gave " aid and com- 
 fort " to aristocratic treason in these words : — 
 
 " Without discussing the question of right, of abstract 
 power, to secede, I have never believed that actual disruption 
 of the Union can occur without blood ; and if, through the 
 madness of Northern abolitionists, that dire calamity must come, 
 the fighting will not be along JMason and Dixon's line merely : 
 it will be within our own borders, in our own streets, be- 
 tween the two classes of citizens to whom I have referred. 
 Those who defy law, and scout constitutional obUgation, will, 
 if ever we reach the arbitrament of arms, find occupation 
 enough at home." 
 
 " The two classes of citizens " referred to by Mr. 
 Pierce are those who believe with Thomas Jeffer- 
 
11 
 
 son and the Declaration of Independence, on the 
 one side, and those who believe with Alexander 
 H. Stephens and the Confederate Constitution, on 
 the other; and the ''fighting" ivas, and forever 
 must be, between these two classes. 
 
 " The States and Union," of Portsmouth, N.H., 
 supported the position of Ex-President Pierce in 
 the following language, on the very day of the 
 attack on Fort Sumter : — 
 
 " We are amazed at the stupidity of the Republican leaders. 
 We told them, months ago, that they were precipitating a war 
 which neither the army nor the people would fight. Bitterly 
 as the Southern people hate abolitionism in any form, nearly 
 one-half the Northern people execrate it more, and will never 
 fight its battles. We know its false and proscriptive spirit, 
 for we have felt it; and not a man of the thirty- three thousand 
 Democrats of New Hampshire will shed his blood for it if he 
 can help it. 
 
 " The Republicans had better understand the issue of this 
 war before they begin it ; for, as we write, no blood has been 
 shed. They will be disastrously ivhipped ; and we want them 
 to note that we say this on the twelfth day of April, 18(J1. The 
 last election showed that a majority of a million of the jjeople 
 interested in this fray abhor them and their measures. The 
 regular army will be against them ; the people will be against 
 them : and nobody will fight their battles but the ministers and 
 the strong-minded women." 
 
 On the IGth of January, 1861, the Democratic 
 party of Philadelphia assembled at a great meeting 
 in National Hall while State after State was pass- 
 ing ordinances of secession, and seizing forts, ar- 
 senals, dock-yards, custom-houses, &c. They had 
 no word of condemnation for Southern treason : on 
 the contrary, they adopted a series of resolutions, 
 
12 
 
 in which they declared that the citizens of Penn- 
 sylvania should 
 
 " Determine with whom their lot should be cast, — whether 
 with the North and East, whose fanaticism has precipitated 
 all this misery upon us ; or with our brethren of the South, 
 whose wHongs we feel as our own." 
 
 And what were the " wrongs " under which " onr 
 brethren of the South " were groaning, and crying 
 out for deliverance? In an address to the Georgia 
 Convention in January, 1861, by Alexander H. 
 Stephens, he answered tbis last question to the 
 entire satisfaction of every honest and enlightened 
 man. Mr. Stephens said, — 
 
 " \A'hat right has the North assailed ? What interest of 
 the South has been invaded ? What justice has been denied ? 
 Or what claim founded in justice and right has been with- 
 held ? Can either of you to-day name one governmental act 
 of wrong deliberately and purposely done by the Government 
 at Washington of which the South has a right to complain ? 
 I challenge the answer. Vv^hile, on the other hand, let me show 
 the facts which now stand as records in the history of our 
 country. 
 
 " Uhen we of the South demanded the slave-trade, did they 
 not yield the right for twenty years ? When we asked and 
 demanded a three-fifths representation in Congress for our 
 slaves, was it not granted ? When Ave asked and demanded 
 the return of any fugitive from justice, or the return of those 
 persons owing labor or allegiance, was it not incorjjorated in 
 fhe Constitution, and again ratified and strengthened in the 
 Fugitive-slave Law of 1850 ? 
 
 " But do you reply, that in many instances they have vio- 
 lated this compact, and have not been faithful to their obliga- 
 tions ? As individuals and local communities, they may have 
 done so : but not by the sanction of the government ; for that 
 has always been true to Southern interests. 
 
13 
 
 " And I must declare here, as I have often done before, and 
 which has been repeated by the greatest and wisest statesmen 
 and patriots in this and other kinds, that it is the best and freest 
 government, the most equal in its rights, the most Just in its 
 decisions, the most lenient in its measures, and the most inspiring 
 in its principles to elevate the race of men, that the sun of heaven 
 ever shone upon. 
 
 " Now, for you to attempt to overthrow such a government 
 as this hi the height of madness, folly, and wickedness, to wliicli 
 I can neither lend my sanction nor my vote." 
 
 The " madness, folly, and wickedness " here 
 spoken of by Mr. Stephens are just what we are 
 charging upon the leaders of the Democracy North 
 and South. 
 
 They inaugurated and led on this Rebellion, yes, 
 and swept Mr, Stephens into it, after his truthful 
 utterance, for the sole reason '' that it is the best 
 and freest government that the sun of heaveii»ever 
 shone upon." 
 
 ** The Detroit Free Press," a Democratic organ, 
 in its issue of Api-il 16, 18G2, said, — 
 
 " History will relate that we " [the North] " manufactured 
 the conHict, forced it to hotbed precocity, and nourished and in- 
 vited it." 
 
 Now, " The Detroit Free Press " knows that 
 *' history will " not " relate " any such thing. 
 
 On Jan. 18, 1861, the Military Committee 
 reported to the United-States House of Represen- 
 tatives a bill for calling out the militia; when Mr. 
 George H. Pendleton made an argument against 
 it, in the course of which he said, — 
 
 " IMy voice to-day is for conciliation ; my voice is for com- 
 promise. I beg you, gentlemen, to hear that voice. If you will 
 
14 
 
 not; if you find conciliation impossible ; if your differences are 
 so great that you can not or wiU not compromise them, — then, 
 gentlemen, let the seceding States depart in peace ; let them 
 establish their government and empire, and yrork out their 
 destiny according to the wisdom which God has given them." 
 
 In the spring of 1861, Ex-Governor Price of 
 New Jersey, in a letter to L. W. Burnet of Newark, 
 in answer to tlio inquiry of the latter as to " what 
 position for New Jersey will best accord with her 
 interest, honor, and the patriotic instincts of her 
 people," in the pending conflict, said, — 
 
 " I say. emphatically, They would go with the South from every 
 wise, prudential, and patriotic reason." 
 
 In a speech in the Chicago Convention of 1864, 
 D. H. Mahony, a delegate from Iowa, said, — 
 
 " We must elect our candidate, and then, holding out our 
 hands'to the South, invite them to come and sit down again in 
 our Union circle. [A voice, ' Suppose they won't come ? '] If 
 they will not come to us, then I am in favor of going to 
 them." [Loud cheers.] 
 
 In a speech before the Lansing (Michigan) 
 Democratic Association in March, 1863, G-eorge W. 
 Peck declared, — 
 
 " You black Republicans began this war. You have carried 
 it on for two years. You have sent your hell-hounds down 
 South to devastate the country. And what have you done ? 
 You have not conquered the South : you never can conquer it. 
 
 And why ? Because they are our brethren." 
 
 The sympathy and fellow-feeling existing between 
 the Northern Democrats and the Southern rebels 
 was well stated by *' The Grand Rapids (Michigan) 
 Inquirer " in 1861 : — 
 
15 
 
 " The Democrats and the South have no quarrel. "Wliy, then, 
 should we be called upon to assault and murder our friends, 
 and desolate their lands ? It seems unreasonable that sensible 
 men should ask such a tiling. If we remain passive in this 
 contest, these abolitionists ought to be satisfied. Again we say, 
 Democrats, ponder well before you enlist." 
 
 Hon. D. "W. VoORHEES of Indiana, in an address 
 to his constituents in April, 1861, thus put himself 
 on record on the point we are proving : — 
 
 " I say to you, my constituents, that, as your representative, 
 I will never vote one dollar, one man, or one gun, to the adminis- 
 tration of Abraham Lincoln to make war upon the South." 
 
 Hon, Green Clay Smith of Kentucky introduced 
 the following resolution into the House of Repre- 
 sentatives, and a vote was taken upon it on the 
 17th December, 1863: — 
 
 " That we hold it to be the duty of Congress to pass aU 
 necessary bills to supply men and money, and the duty of the 
 people to render every aid in their power to the constituted 
 authorities of the government in the crushing-out of the Re- 
 bellion, and in bringing the leaders thereof to condign pun- 
 ishment." 
 
 And on this simple proposition, in a solid body of 
 sixty-eight Democratic members, all but three went 
 with Mr. Voorhees, and voted " No." 
 
 the CHICAGO CONVENTION OF 1864. 
 
 The grand Quadrennial Council of the Democ- 
 racy of the nation, at its convocation iu Chicago, 
 in October, 1864, — 
 
 " Resolved, Tliat this Convention does explicitly declare, as 
 the sense of the American people, that, after four years of 
 failure to restore the Union by the experiment of war, — dm-ing 
 
16 
 
 which, under the pretence of a miUtary necessity of a war- 
 power higher than the Constitution, the Constitution itself has 
 been disregarded in every jiart, and pubUc liberty and private 
 rights alike trodden down, and the material prosperity of the 
 country essentially impau*ed, — justice, humanity, liberty, and 
 the public welfare, demand that immediate efforts be made for 
 a cessation of hostilities, with a view to an ultimate Conven- 
 tion of all the States, or other peaceable means, to the end, that, 
 at the earliest practicable moment, peace may be restored on 
 the basis of the Federal Union of the States." 
 
 At a great ratification meeting in Philadelphia, 
 Mr. George Wharton declared, 
 
 " The platform of the Chicago Convention stands before the 
 American people as the political creed of the Democratic 
 party in the existing crisis of the country. It must be the 
 rule of practice of every one who accepts office under it." 
 
 So this may be regarded as the concentrated 
 and authoritative utterance of the Democratic lead- 
 .ers of the country. And whom do they charge with 
 having " disregarded the Constitution in every 
 part," and with " having alike trodden down public 
 liberty and private right"? The rebels, who had 
 been for years engaged in a most terrible war for 
 :the very purpose of destroying the Constitution, 
 and " alike trampling down j^tiblic liberty and pri- 
 vate right " ? Oh, no ! Not a word of judgment or 
 condemnation for these. 
 
 This sympathy of the Northern Democracy was 
 well understood and duly appreciated by the 
 rebels. 
 
 Hon. W. W. BOYCE of South Carolina, in a letter 
 to Jefferson Davis, Sept. 29, 1864, said, — 
 
17 
 
 " I think our only hope of a satisfactory peace — one con- 
 sistent with the preservation of our free institutions — is in 
 the supremacy of this (the Democratic) party at some time or 
 other. Our poUcy, therefore, is to give tliis party all the 
 capital we can." 
 
 And the Hon. H. W. Hilliaed of Georgia ac- 
 cepts the Chicago platform : — 
 
 " It seems to me plain that we should accept the forum indi- 
 cated by the Chicago Convention, as the appropriate one for 
 the settlement of our troubles." 
 
 And " Tlie Mobile Register " of a recent date, 
 speaking of presidential nominations, and the claims 
 of Northern Democrats " who kept their political 
 faith and integrity under all the trials and tempta- 
 tions of the late war," says, — 
 
 " But there is another class of men whom people appear to 
 forget, and to whom our obligations are still higher. Tliis 
 class includes JeiFerson Davis, Robert E. Lee, Joseph E. John- 
 ston, and a few others of the same sort. Tf we are to discard 
 all considerations of policy or availability, why not go to the 
 fountain-head of principle or sentiment, and nominate one of 
 these at once ? " 
 
 All of which expressions prove a fellowship and 
 sympathy of the most cordial nature, as having a 
 continuous and unbroken existence between the 
 Democratic leaders of the North and the rebel 
 leaders of the South, l)cfore, during, and since the 
 Rebellion. That sympathy exists to-day in full 
 vigor. 
 
 ''The New- York Daj'-Book," late in the year 
 1867, calls for the re-establishment of slavery, in 
 an article from which the following is an ex- 
 tract : — 
 
18 
 
 " But Mr. Johnson has failed signally, — fatally failed. In- 
 stead of getting the negro question out of the way by his 
 policy, he has only succeeded in getting it exactly in the way. 
 So far from conciliating the abolitionists by can-ying out INIr. 
 Lincoln's unholy and sinful edict, he has exasperated them to 
 such a degree, th^t they desire above all tilings to hang him. 
 Mr. Johnson having, therefore, such poor luck in trying the 
 role of conciliator, why does he not abandon that policy, and 
 try the virtue of a plain, old-&shioned. Democratic fight ? 
 He is commander-in-chief of the army : let him withdraw 
 every soldier from Southern soil, and turn over the whole ques- 
 tion to the courts. Let this be done at once, so that the 
 Southern State legislatures may be got together to pass some 
 laws to re-instate the negroes to their late masters, to save them, 
 as a matter of humanity, from the disease, death, and destruc- 
 tion awaiting them this winter. It is also important that it 
 should be done at once, so that the planters may secure their 
 laborers, and make preparation for the next year. If this were 
 done now, we should have at least two millions of bales of 
 cotton next year, — perhaps three." 
 
 It will be remembered, that, at the October elec- 
 tion of 1867, the Democrats succeeded in electing 
 a majority of the Ohio Legislature ; and one of its 
 first acts, on the assembling of its members last 
 winter, was an attempt to revoke the fourteenth 
 article of amendment to the United-States Consti- 
 tution, ratified by the legislature of the previous 
 year. For the purpose of showing what it is that 
 arouses the hostility of these men, two sections of 
 the al)0ve-named article are here inserted : — 
 
 " Sect. 1. — All persons born or naturalized in the United 
 States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of 
 the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No 
 State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the 
 jirivilegos or immunities of citizens of the United States ; nor 
 
19 
 
 shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, 
 without due process of law, nor deny to any person witliin 
 its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. 
 
 " Sect. 1. — The validity of the public debt of the United 
 States, autliorized by law, including debts incurred for the 
 payment of pensions and bounties for services in sui^pressing 
 insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither 
 the United States, nor any State, shall assume or pay any debt 
 or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against 
 the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of 
 any slave ; but all such debts, obligations, and claims shall be 
 held illegal and void." 
 
 What is the answer of Democracy to the first of 
 these sections ? Plainly this, — that ''all persons 
 born or naturalized in the United States " shall not 
 be citizens thereof: for they hold to making- slaves 
 of the poor, ignorant, and weak ; and slaves are 
 not citizens. And further, — that any State may 
 " make or enforce any law which shall abridge the 
 privileges or immunities of citizens of the United 
 States; " or may "deprive any person of life, liberty, 
 or property without due process of law ; " or may 
 " deny to any person within its jurisdiction the 
 equal protection of the laws." 
 
 In other words, the fourteenth amendment erects 
 a barrier to the establishment or the re-establish- 
 ment of slavery in any State of this Union. This 
 barrier the Democratic leaders mean to pull dow^n, 
 so that there shall be nothing to hinder. 
 
 The fourth section guarantees the payment of 
 the public debt, including the pensions and boun- 
 ties to soldiers and their widows. This guaranty 
 the same men mean to destroy. 
 
 2 
 
20 
 
 The amendment further prohibits the taxing of 
 loyal or any other citizens for the payment of the 
 rebel debt. This prohibition the Democrats mean 
 to remove ; for the Democratic Legislature of Ohio 
 have already begun the work on all the above- 
 named points. 
 
 We have further charged the Democratic party 
 with having espoused the cause o^ falsehood against 
 truili. No other testimony is needed on this point 
 than the bare fact of its complicity with slavery ; 
 for that, John Wesley truly said, ''is the sum of all 
 villanies." Nevertheless, as the direct evidence 
 may be demanded by some, we here give it in the 
 resolutions adopted by the Democratic State Con- 
 vention of Connecticut, held at New Haven on 
 Jan. 29, 1868. The whole twelve are in the same 
 spirit with the three here presented. 
 
 The resolutions were read by Mr. Hammersley 
 of Hartford, as follows : — 
 
 " Resolved, That tlie present so-called Congress, consisting 
 for the most part of men who have perverted the very objects of 
 a Federal Legislature by refusing representation to ten of the 
 States of the Union, is, by reason of its existence in its present 
 form, a revolutionary body, whose usurpation challenges the 
 opposition of every constitution-loving citizen. 
 
 " Resolved, That this assemblage have usurped the authority 
 of the Executive, and so have broken down the balance of 
 power established by the fathers. They are now planning to 
 rob the Judiciary of its powers, in order that it may be pre- 
 vented from deciding in favor of the Constitution ; they have 
 deprived the Legislative body of its own integrity, by so redu- 
 cing its numbers as to enable the usm-ping remainder to carry 
 out their destructive plans ; they have denied the sovereign 
 
21 
 
 power of ail the States, by placing a portion of tliem under 
 military despotism ; they have erected a number of new oflices, 
 and sent to a portion of the Republic a swarm of officers to 
 harass the people ; and they are now loading with taxes the 
 citizens of the North, for the purpose of enslaving theu* 
 brethren of the South ; they have in many instances abolished 
 the right of trial by jury, and the right of habeas corpus, and 
 by military force have overtlvrown the civil power, and de- 
 prived our people of their liberties ; they have made Avar on 
 the Constitution, on every department of the Government, on 
 the States, and on the people, and have enslaved the white 
 man in order to give the ballot to the negi-o. - 
 
 " Resolved, That we are opposed to forcing negro suffrage on 
 other States, or of establishing it in our own. "We are opposed 
 to the first, because we have no right to interfere with the do- 
 mestic affairs of other sovereignties ; we are opposed to the 
 second, because the introduction of this inferior element would 
 only lead to demoralization." 
 
 Now, the men who adopted these resolutions 
 know, and no men know better, — for they under- 
 stood and were in sympathy with the wliole plot, — 
 that all the grievous offences which they charge 
 upon the " so-called Congress " were caused wholly 
 by their rebel allies and " brethren of the iSouth," 
 who, instesid of being " refused representation," 
 voluntarily, and in spite of all entreaties and re- 
 monstrances, turned their backs on the halls of 
 Congress. 
 
 And, so far from '' refusing representation to ten 
 States," Congress stands, and, during the last two 
 years, has stood, holding the door of " representa- 
 tion " wide open to these States, upon the broad 
 basis of '' the chief tenet in the creed " of the old 
 " Democracy." 
 
22 
 
 The Washington correspondent of '' The Boston 
 Post," the leading Democratic journal in Massa- 
 chusetts, writes, under date of June 4, 1868, as 
 follows : — 
 
 " THE NATIONAL PLATFORM. 
 
 " The subject of a platform for the National Democracy in 
 the next Presidential election is now exciting much interesting 
 discussion among party-leaders here, most of whom repudi- 
 ate the ideas expressed in the columns of ' The New- York 
 World.' The Democratic politicians in Washington insist 
 that the platform resolutions shall be few and very brief. The 
 living issues between the parties being now reduced to the sin- 
 gle proposition, ' whether or not this is a white man's govern- 
 ment,' on this proposition let the fight be made, they say, and 
 let this single issue stand out in bold relief. There is a large 
 number of minor issues which can be settled in future ; but the 
 result of the approaching Presidential contest must and will 
 determine whether this once-proud Kepublic is to be placed 
 absolutely under negro control. The radicals wiU exert them- 
 selves to raise and combat side-issues of an unimportant char- 
 acter : but the poUcy of the conservatives wUl be to hold them 
 squarely to their platform, — negro supremacy in the South ; 
 in the North, States rights." 
 
 Now, these " leaders " very well know that the 
 most thorough-going " radical " living does not 
 propose or desire to place "this Republic under 
 negro control." They know that the " negroes," 
 counting in all shades of complexion, from those 
 who have been bleached to the whiteness of their 
 fathers and masters to the darkest hues of Nigritia, 
 constitute only about one-third of the population 
 of the Southern States, and about one-eighth of the 
 population of the country ; and to talk of their " ab- 
 
23 
 
 solute control " is arrant nonsense, wliicli no honest 
 man will indulge in. 
 
 The lato election riots in the District of Colum- 
 bia, in which negroes bore a prominent part, 
 have filled the souls of the Democracy with right- 
 eous indignation; and the Washington correspond- 
 ent of the paper last quoted, in his letter of June 
 5, 1868, speaks of them as "terrible negro riots," 
 involving " brutal murders," " felonious house- 
 breakings," " murderous assaults," &c., during 
 which these " demons let loose " " yelled for Clrant 
 and Colfax while robbing, plundering, and mur- 
 dering." 
 
 Now, we say of every kind of mob-violence, 
 what one said of slavery, " It is wrong, all wrong ; 
 and no possible contingency can make it right." 
 
 But have these papers so soon forgotten Mem- 
 phis, New Orleans, and the three-days' ''reign of 
 terror" in New York, in all of which places 
 " white " Democrats " held high carnival of blood," 
 and shot, hung, cut the throats, and beat out the 
 brains, of " negroes " at pleasure ? Ay ; but that 
 was the white bull goring the black ox. But now, 
 when the black ox turns and makes a thrust at his 
 old tormentor, words are inadequate to express 
 the Democratic horror. 
 
 A convention of the Democracy of South Caro- 
 lina assembled at Columbia in the first week of 
 June, 1868, and 
 
 " Resolved, That having entire confidence in the principles 
 and patriotism of the Democratic party, and believing and 
 
24 
 
 trusting to their assurances that they will, if triumphant, 
 restore and maintain at the South, as they have done in the 
 North, in the East, and in the West, the supremacy and govern- 
 ment of the white race (a. white man's government), 
 leaving to the States themselves to regulate their suffrage 
 laws ; and also that they will expunge the usurpations and the 
 fraudulent governments created by the military power under 
 what are called the reconstruction laws, and thereby restore to 
 the Union the Southern States such as they were before the 
 enactment of said laws, — we hereby pledge ourselves to the 
 support of the candidates of that party for President and 
 Vice-President of the United States to be nominated at the 
 coming Convention in the city of New York on the fourth day 
 of July next." 
 
 And "The Petersburg Index," of a recent date, 
 closes an article on the political situation with the 
 following paragraph : — 
 
 " But meanwhile, Virginians, be firm as the bases of your 
 historic mountains, unbending as their snowy caj)s ; make no 
 compromise ; be deceived by no such trap for gidls as tliis 
 Chase movement. You have taken your stand : maintain it 
 against all assailants alike. Virginia belongs to white men, 
 and they never will be ruled by negroes." 
 
 If such desires and purposes did not exist, they 
 could not, of course, find expression ; as, " from 
 nothing, nothing can come." 
 
 The Maine Democratic State Convention for nom- 
 inating candidates for Governor, delegates to the 
 National Convention, and Presidential electors, as- 
 sembled in Augusta on June 23, 1868. In his 
 address to the Convention, the President, Hon. 
 Nathaniel S. Littlefield, said, — 
 
 " That no party but the Democratic party could successfully 
 carry on the government of this country." 
 
25 
 
 How " successfully the Democratic party could 
 carr}^ on the government " was fully illustrated 
 during the last eight years of its trial ; closing 
 with the administration of Mr. Buchanan, which 
 " successfully " led that party headlong into league 
 and fellowship with the Southern Rebellion. 
 
 And then the resolutions which were unani- 
 mously adopted by the Convention declares, — 
 
 " That the present Congress, instigated and controlled by a 
 spirit of local animosity and partisan hate, have persistently ex- 
 cluded from the Union a large number of independent States, and 
 deprived their citizens of all representation in the government of 
 the United States." 
 
 On looking at the proceedings of Congress for 
 June 24, 1868, we find that a resolution from the 
 Election Committee directing the oath of ofHce to 
 be administered to the Arkansas representatives 
 was reported. 
 
 Mr. Brooks of New York presented a protest, 
 signed by all the Democratic members of the House. 
 
 So it is the Democrats who keep " a large 
 number of States from the Union." 
 
 But, really, what would these Democrats have? 
 The doors of " the Union " kept upon the swing, 
 so that ambitious aristocrats, their "brethren of the 
 South," may run out and make war upon the 
 Government, and, failing of its destruction, run 
 back again at pleasure, with all their old "rights 
 unimpaired,^' — the ''right" to e nslav e "laboi^iitg 
 men, ivhether white or black/' included? If not that, 
 what then? 
 
26 
 
 These Maine resolutions further declare, — 
 
 " That large classes of the most intelligent citizens have 
 been wholly disfranchised, while the right to vote has been 
 conferred on hordes of ignorant negroes." 
 
 Have these Democratic leaders so soon forgotten 
 that " the most intelligent citizens " of the Southern 
 States were and are now the bitterest enemies 
 which this Government ever had to contend with, 
 and that those " ignorant negroes " were and 
 still are its truest friends ? No ; they have not 
 forgotten : but their love of the country's enemies, 
 and their hatred of its friends, is so great, that 
 they are determined, if possible, to ignore all the 
 crimes of the one, and all the virtues of the other. 
 
 That this charge is founded on truth and justice, 
 and fully sustained by the facts in the case, will be 
 shown b}^ what follows. 
 
 We have already referred to the Democratic 
 platform of 1864, for the purpose of showing the 
 sympath}'^ and fellowship of the party with the rebel 
 enemies of the country, and its hatred of its true 
 and loyul friends. Four years have passed away, 
 and the Democratic National Convention, com- 
 posed of delegates from all the States, including 
 several generals and officers in the late rebel armies, 
 among whom were Gen. Wade Hampton, and Gen. 
 Forrest of Fort-Pillow fame, assembled in Tam- 
 many Hall, New York, on the 4th of July, 1SG8, for 
 the purpose of adopting a platform of jjrinciples, 
 and nominating a candidate for the Presidency. 
 On the same day, there met in Cooper Institute, in 
 
27 
 
 that city, a " Conservative " or Democratic Con- 
 vention of " soldiers and sailors," for the purpose 
 of indorsing whatever action the first-named Con- 
 vention might take. Both of these Conventions 
 adopted platforms, and were addressed by several 
 speakers ; and we here present extracts from both 
 platforms and speeches, for the purpose of showing 
 that time has in no wise cooled the ardor of Demo- 
 cratic friendship for the enemies, nor abated its 
 hatred of the friends of the country. 
 
 On calling the Convention to order, the chair- 
 man of the National Democratic Committee, Mr. 
 August Belmont, said, — 
 
 " Instead of restoring the Southern States to tJieir constitu- 
 tional riffhts, instead of trying to wipe out the miseries of the 
 past by a magnanimous policy, the Radicals in Congress have 
 placed the iron heel of the conqueror upon the South. . . . 
 Military satrajis are invested with dictatorial powers, over- 
 riding the decisions of the courts, and assuming the functions 
 of the civil authorities. The white populations are disfran- 
 chised, or forced to submit to test oaths alike revolting to justice 
 and civilization ; and a debased and ignorant race just emerged 
 from servitude is raised into power, to control the destinies 
 of that fair portion of our common country." 
 
 Mr. Belmont goes on with a long string of bit- 
 ter complaints against the party which subdued 
 the Rebellion, and adds, — 
 
 " And now this same party wliich has brought all these 
 evils upon the country comes again bei'ore the American peo- 
 ple asking for their suffrages." 
 
 Mr. Belmont would hang a single murderer, and 
 imprison a common thief: but his rebel friends, who 
 have murdered nearly a million of men, and laid 
 
28 
 
 dishonest hands on nearly half the territory and 
 other property of the United States, are in his eyes 
 worthy of no punishment whatever ; and he talks 
 of these " constitutional rights " as if they had 
 never forfeited the in. 
 
 The platform adopted by the Convention may 
 be rightly considered as expressing the settled 
 views and feelings of the entire Democracy of the 
 country. 
 
 This document brings more grievous and bitter 
 charges against the " Radical " party than the colo- 
 nies did, or could, against King George III. Some 
 of these charges are here inserted. It will be 
 observed, that, in the only mention here made of 
 " those who brought all these evils upon the 
 country," they are spoken of tenderly and con- 
 siderately as " a most gallant and determined 
 foe ; '' while the " Radical " deliverers of the nation 
 are represented as little, if any, better than the 
 Devil himself. '"'A fellow-feeling makes us won- 
 drous kind." 
 
 " Under the Constitution, it has repeatedly violated that 
 most sacred pledge under which alone was rallied that noble 
 volunteer army which carried our flag to victory. Instead of 
 restoring the Union, it has, so far as is in its power, dissolved 
 it, and subjected ten States, in time of profound peace, to mili- 
 tary despotism and negro supremacy. Under its repeated 
 assault.^, the pillars of the Government are rocking on their 
 base ; and should it succeed in November next, and inaugurate 
 its President, we will meet, as a subject and conquered people, 
 amid the ruins of liberty and the scattered fragments of the 
 Constitution. And we do declare and resolve, that, ever since 
 the people of the United States threw off all subjection to the 
 
29 
 
 British crown, the privilege and trust of suffrage have belonged 
 to the several States, and have been granted, regulated, and 
 controlled exclusively by the political power of each State 
 respectively ; and that any attempt by Congi'ess, on any pretext 
 whatever, to deprive any Stite of this right, or interfere with 
 its exercise, is a flagrant usurpation of power, which can find 
 no warrant in the Constitution, and, if sanctioned by the people, 
 will subvert our form of government, and can only end in a 
 single centralized and consolidated government, in which the 
 separate existence of the States will be entirely absorbed, and 
 an unqualified despotism be established in place of a Federal 
 Union of co-epal States ; and that we regard the reconstruction 
 acts, so called, of Congress, as such a usurpation, and uncon- 
 stitutional, revolutionary, and void ; that our soldiers and sailors, 
 who carried the flag of our country to victory against a most 
 gallant and determined foe, must ever be gratefully remem- 
 bered, and all the guaranties given in their favor must be 
 faithfully carried into execution." 
 
 Ill his address to the Convention, Hon. Thomas 
 EwjNG of Ohio said, — 
 
 " Since our meeting here, we have had the pleasure of 
 friendly intercourse with many of the most promiilent of the 
 generals of the Confederate army. Knowing them to be men 
 of honor, comparing views with them, and feeling that their 
 views and our views as to the present and future policy of this 
 Government coincide, we will take them by the hand as 
 brothers." 
 
 While speaking of the Republican party, he 
 said, — 
 
 " We care not for their dogmas of negro suffrage. We 
 abhor their measures of white disfranchisement. We look 
 upon them as enemies of the Republic when we see them en- 
 deavoring, by means of that power which a great, confiding 
 people intrusted to them, and undertaking to overthrow the 
 settled foundations of our Government." 
 
30 
 
 The Platform or '' Address " of the Democratic 
 or " Conservative " Soldiers' and Sailors' Conven- 
 tion charges that 
 
 " The party now in power has destroyed the equaUty of the 
 States ; has forced the unreconstructed States to submit to 
 have their constitutions and laws framed by ignorant nerjroen 
 just released from a condition of servitude ; while at the North 
 it has denied the negro (although comjiaratively well edscated) 
 even the right of suffrage." 
 
 Indeed, are these " conservative Democrats," 
 then, in favor of giving " comparatively well-edu- 
 cated negroes even the right of suffrage "? If so, 
 how long -since ? If the Democracy were in favor 
 of giving the suffrage to negroes, there is no State 
 in the Union wherein they might not enjoy that 
 right to-day, as these men well know. 
 
 Hon. Lewis D. Campbell of Ohio presented a 
 preamble and resolution to this Convention, in 
 which he sympathetically speaks of those who so 
 lately drenched the country in blood, in their 
 struggle to shipwreck the nation, as " a brave 
 THOUGH MISGUIDED FOE;" and then goes on to 
 charge the Radical party with '' having practically 
 suspended, if it has not wholly destroyed, the vital 
 principles of our Federal repul)lican system of 
 government." 
 
 And what, Mr. Campbell, liad your " brave foe " 
 to do with "destroying the vital principles of our 
 Government " ? Who strove so hard to lay the axe 
 at the root of that tree ? Was not the whole aim, 
 plan, and scope of the Rebelhon centred upon 
 
31 
 
 the " destruction of the vital principles of our Gov- 
 ernment"? The Rebellion failed of its purpose; 
 and now you, and the whole conservative Democ- 
 racy, turn round and hypocritically charge tlie tre- 
 mendous crimes of your Southern rebel friends 
 upon the only party loho rallied to the defence of 
 and stood by those vital principles in the times of 
 their greatest peril. 
 
 It will be noticed that the old spirit of caste, 
 slavery, and hatred of an " inferior race," is made 
 quite prominent in the speeches, resolutions, and 
 platforms of the party ; all of wliicli show that the 
 lessons of the past are lost upon these unrepentant 
 sinners. 
 
 In the address of Gen. Ewing to this Conven 
 tion, this feature is especially marked. Speaking 
 of the Radical party, he said, — 
 
 "It resolved to keej) out, for party-purposes, the intelligent 
 •wliite, and admitted the uneducated, barbarous negro, not alone 
 to sutFrage, but to supremacy. He was at a loss to understand 
 how any American, proud of his race and of his name, could 
 behold the process of reconstruction unmoved. It was said to 
 be in the interests of humanity, while it left the superior to be 
 governed by the inferior race ; it was said to be in the interests 
 of Union, when ten of our great States were left out, and the 
 ignorant negro put over the white man ; in the int<3rests of na- 
 tional prosperity, when our markets were destroyed, to see the 
 pampered negro, kept idle by the proceeds of the industry of 
 the white man, ruling their former masters, and living in luxury 
 and idleness ; to see the cotton-crop wasted and destroyed, and 
 the boorish black man sitting in convention." 
 
 Now, all these expressions have a deeper signifi- 
 
32 
 
 cance than appears upon the surface. It will be 
 observed tliat the platforms and addresses above 
 quoted complain that the rebel States are kept out 
 of the Union ; while it is a notable fact, that the 
 Democrats in and out of Congress vote against, 
 protest against, and oppose all plans of the major- 
 ity in that body for their admission into the Union. 
 Now, if these men are sincere in their complaints, 
 why do they not help, both in and out of Congress, 
 to get their dear friends back again as speedily as 
 possible ? Here is the answer. 
 
 The conservative Democrats desire and hope to 
 get their Southern allies into the Union again ; 
 and they complain that they are not admitted back 
 upon their old basis, as they were before the Re- 
 bellion, '^ with all their rights unimpaired." And, 
 although they may have abandoned all expecta- 
 tion of ever seeing slavery reestablished, their 
 visions of an aristocracy, based upon an " inferior 
 race," distinguished by the badge of complexion 
 or laboi^, or both, have by no means faded out. 
 Hence, to undo everj'^ thing which has been done 
 by the " Radical Congress " in the direction of 
 breaking down caste distinctions, and making all 
 men equal before the Constitution and laws of the 
 nation, is one of their darling schemes. How tin's 
 is to be done is foreshadowed by Hon. C. C. Lang- 
 don, one of the Alabama delegates to the New- York 
 Convention, who has published a letter, giving his 
 views of the Democratic situation. He is confi- 
 dent that the party will succeed in electing the 
 
33 
 
 next President ; and he thus significantly sketches 
 the plan of operations which is to lullow : — 
 
 " Our only liopo is in the success of the Democratic party 
 in the ensuing Presidential election, — presupposing that the 
 party will not, in the nomination of a candidate, ignore its 
 creed. The Democratic doctrine is, that the reconstruction 
 measures of the present Congress, and every thing done under 
 them, are iinconstUutional., and, of course, absolutely null and 
 void. This declaration, I take it, toill constitute the main plank 
 in the Democratic platform ; and whoever is nominated must 
 pledge himself to stand b/j it and enforce it. That the Supreme 
 Court will eventually (probably at its next term) decide all 
 these acts to be unconstitutional, is now univei\sally conceded. 
 Then all we want is a President whose views are in accord 
 with that decision, and who has the will and the nerve to do 
 his duty. It will be his duty to enforce the decree of the Court, 
 if need be, at the point of the haijonet. We must have a Presi- 
 dent who will have the patriotic courage, not only to enforce 
 the laws, but to protect the people against unconstitutional 
 enactments. Here, then, is our hope for escaj^e from negro 
 domination. AVith such a decision fi'ora the Supreme Court as 
 I have anticipated, and a Democratic President to enforce it, 
 all the iniipiitous legislation of the Radical Congress relating 
 to reconstruction, all the negro constitutions of the several 
 Southern States, all enactments authorizing negro sulFrage, and 
 the thousand other abominations of Radicalism, will be wiped 
 out forever, and the State Constitutions, established by white 
 men, be declared in full force. It will thus be seen that our 
 sole reliance is in the election of a President who will not hesi- 
 tate to enforce, with all the powers at his command, the decree 
 of the Supreme Court." 
 
 It Avill be seen, by referring to the Platform 
 adopted at New York, that " the reconstruction 
 acts " of Congress are pronounced by the con- 
 servative Democracy of the nation "a usurpa- 
 
tion, unconstitutional, revolutionary, and void ; " 
 and, of course, have no binding force. Thus the 
 party begins its campaign with an avowed deter- 
 mination to put the ''inferior race" down again 
 Avhere it was before, — under the heels of its mas- 
 ters, by and through the methods suggested by 
 Mr. Langdon, — the first step being taken in the 
 adoption of the platform; and, in the second step, 
 — "the nomination of a candidate," — the party 
 did not " ignore its creed." 
 
 Horatio Seymour, the " conservative " Demo- 
 cratic candidate for the Pj-esidency, while Gov- 
 ernor of New York, gave the weight of his official 
 influence — so far as he could do so without an 
 open rupture with the General Government — to 
 aid and comfort the rebels North and South. 
 
 Wliile the terrible anti-draft riots were raging 
 in the city of New York in July, 1863, he went 
 down, and, instead of dispersing the mob with 
 grape and canister, he addressed the rioters as his 
 " noble-hearted friends." 
 
 In his letter to President Lincoln of Aug. 9, 
 18G3, he says, — 
 
 " It is believed by at least ouo-half of the people of the 
 loyal States that the Conscription Act, which they are called 
 upon to obey because it is on the statute-book, is, in itself, a 
 violation of the supreme constitutional law. There is a fear 
 and a suspicion, that, while they are threatened with the se- 
 verest penalties of the law, they ai'e to be de})rived of its pro- 
 tection. ... I do not dwell upon what I believe would be the 
 conseiiuence of a violent, harsh policy, before the constitution- 
 ality of the act is tested. You can scan the immediate future 
 

 35 
 
 as well as I. The temper of the people to-day you can readily 
 learn." 
 
 The siguificance of these thinly- veiled threats is 
 apparent from a call made to the citizens of the 
 Nineteenth Ward, New York, to raise a regiment 
 of National Guards, — 
 
 " To be i)laced at the disposal of the Governor (Seymour) 
 at the earliest possible moment, either to repel a foreign foe, or 
 to maintain the rights of the Empire State. An invasion or 
 usurpation would be equally obnoxious : therefore, as we value 
 liberty, so let us be vigilant." • 
 
 In its candidate for the Yice-Presidency, also, 
 the Democratic party has secured another 'fitting 
 representative of its principles. In a letter written 
 by him on June 30, 1868, Gen. Blair says, — 
 
 " We must have a President who will execute the will of the 
 people by trampling into dust the usurpations of Congress known 
 as the reconstruction acts. I ivish to stand before the Conven- 
 tion upon this issue ; but it is one that embraces every thing else 
 that is of value in its large and comprehensive results." 
 
 He then goes on to explain how this revolution- 
 ary project of " trampling into dust " the existing 
 reconstruction policy of the Government must be 
 carried out. lie says, referring to the contingenc}^ 
 of the election of a Democratic President, — 
 
 " There is but one way to restore the Government and the 
 Constitution ; and that is for the President elect to declare these 
 acts null and void, compel the army to undo its usurpations at the 
 South, disperse the carpet-bag State governments, allow the white 
 people to re-organize their own governments and elect senators 
 and representatives. The House of Representatives will con- 
 tain a majority of Democrats from the North, and they will 
 
36 
 
 admit the representatives elected by the lohite people of the South ; 
 and, with the co-operation of the President, it will not be diffi- 
 cult to compel the Senate to submit once more to the obligntions 
 of the Constitution. It will not be able to withstand the jjub- 
 lic judgment, if distinctly invoked and clearly expressed, on 
 this fundamental issue ; and it is the sure way to avoid all 
 future strife to j)ut this issue plainly to the country." 
 
 Here, then, we have the '' conservative " Demo- 
 cratic platform and candidates in perfect accord, 
 and nicely adjusted to each other ; and the party 
 ^ pledged in both, if it can gain the ascendency 
 at the yjolls next November, to " wipe out for- 
 ever all the legislation of the Radical Congress," 
 which makes " the inborn, Heaven-granted freedom 
 and equality of all meji " a living and practical 
 reality. 
 
 And here, for the present, we are willing to rest 
 the case.