Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 October 1884 — DEMOCRACY UNMASKED. [ARTICLE]

DEMOCRACY UNMASKED.

The Soiled Career of the Bourbon Party and Its Impure Motives. I An Eloquent Speech by Oliver T. Morton, at Indian* spoils, Ind. To the novitiate the broad lines which separate the great political parties are but faintly legible. A comparison of the platforms reveals but little difference between them. The platitudinous verbiage of She Democratic instrument shows nothing of the soiled career of that partv and its impure motives. But an experienced observer will discover behind the mask of virtue which it assumes its wolfish tongue. Democracy flees from its past like a fugitive from justice, like a criminal from the specter of his victim. But they cannot divorce their past from the present. As Freeman says, history is the politics of the past, and politics is the history of the present. No present event stands Isolated, but is connected with the pasfeby the indissoluble links of cause and effect. The doctrlhe of the heredity of crime is the only rational Explanation of the continuous misdeeds of the . Democratic party. Its antecedents are notoriously bSd. It changes its professions every lour years as regularly as those years roll by. It juggles with political principles like a mountebank, and treats an Intelligent public as though they were a set of bumpkins, devoid of memory, sense and judgment. Suppose you intend to employ a man to fill a position of trust in your business. You would not pay the slightest attention to his pretensions; you would demand recommendations attesting his punctuality, honesty, efficiency. The Democratic party presents to the country this year a hand-bill of moral platitudes, termed a platform, which vaguely promises some things that are good and others that are not so. But how can we believe one word which that party of faithless pledges and broken promises says, when we recollect that the Democratic party of the North, in 1860, favored secession? In 1862 it opposed secession and favored reconciliation on the basis of slavery. In 1864 it declared the war a failure; in 1866 it declared the war a success. In 1868 it opposed the constitutional amendments; in 1872 it approved the constitutional amendments. In the same year it demanded the immediate resumption of specie payments; in 1876 it demanded an immediate repeal of the resumption act. In 1880 it demanded a tariff for revenue only; in 1884 it tried to get on the fence, slipped, and fell on the thorns of free trade, where it ignominiously lies. What that rugged oid philosopher. Dr. Johnson, once said to the young man applies to the Democratic party: “Young man, you must have taken great pains with your education. You could not possibly by nature be as stupid as you axe." In view of tins trifling with national questions of grave import, It may well be inquired what States the Democrats will carry in the coming election. To answer this question I must open the darkest chapter in the annals of American history—the record of the Democratic party in the South since the war—a record that defiles the page and shames the historian. They will carry the State of Mississippi, where, untjl 1875, the Republicans had a majority of 30,000,' but which was overturned in that year by a revolution so cruel and so bloody as to blanch the face of outraged humanity. Public massacres, midnight hangings, ostracism—those threats of violence that spread a nameless terror through the community, that ferocity which stamps barbarism on the savage —all tended to show to an astonished world what the Democratic party meant by a white man's government. In Yazoo County, where the Republicans had a majority of l.oi't) and more, seven Republican votes were cast, and there were many others in the same ratio. They will cany the State of Louisiana, where, between the years 1866 and 1874, more than 4,999 Republicans were killed and wounded simply for exercising their constitutional prerogative of casting a vote. Negroes were pursued like lepers, and justice was so prostituted that slavery in comparison seemed a protection and a blessing. They will carry the States blistered by the ma-sacrcsat Hamburg, Danville, Clinton, Coushatta, Colfax, Vicksburg, Red River, and Mechanics’ Institute. The Republican vote in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, North and South Carolina has been literally burned out—vanished as smoke in the heavens—leaving only the cinders behind to tell the ghastly tale. Hundreds of thousands of votes have been annihilated. They will carry every district in the South where there is an illicit distillery; every district where a Government revenue officer has been killed; every district whefe there is no schoolhouse; every district whore the ballot-boxes have been stuffed; every district where men, Illegally armed, have surrounded the polls; every district where Kuklux and White-Leaguers existed; every district where the Union soldier sleeps under the sod of the battle-field; every district where man has been held as a slave; every district where the blood of the negro has stained the soil; every district where the tyranny of one party remains; In line, they will carry every district that is controlled by the despotlam of ignorance and that, is enshrouded .in the black mantle of crime. I do not say that every Democrat in the South, or a majority of them, were Ku-kluxand WhiteLeaguers, and favored the measures of these organizations, but I do say that every Ku-klux and White-Leaguer was a Democrat. The Democratic party, that putrefied reminiscence of treason, crime, and blunder, is engaged in telling the country to-day that the mission of the Republican party is accomplished. The mission of the R ‘publican partywill never be accomplished until the Democratic party is dead. They ask that we shall no longer talk of Southern outrages. Now that the bloody work is over, and they are masters of the situation, their sensitiveness may be accounted for. They have gained control of every electoial vote south of Mason and Dickson's line. The South presents an impregnable and sullen front todays as it did twenty-four years ago, and is a menace to the peace and prosperity of this country. If the Democrats in the North desire a change so ardently, let them adjure their Southern brethren to permit a fair count, and some of the Southern States will cast a legal Republican majority. The Democratic party not only threatens, but absolutely pledges itself to cut off the pensions of Union soldiers. It said, in a plank unquestionably dictated by the Southern members of the convention: “We denounce the Republican party for having failed to relieve the people from crushing war taxes.” And again: “The system of direct taxation known ao the .nternal revenue is a war tax, and so long as the law continues the money derived therefrom should be sacredly devoted to the relief of the people from the remaining burdens of the war, and be made a fund to defray- the expense of tire care and comtort of worthy soldiers disabled in the line of duty in the wars of the republic, and for the payment of such pensions as Congress may, from time to time, grant to such soldiers, a like fund for the sailors having been already provided, and any- surplus should be paid into the Treasury.” They favor paying pensions out of the proceeds of a tax whoso existence they denounce The spirit of prophecy moves me, and I predict —in view of these words and the light of the past—that a Democratic government will cease to pay pensions to U nion soldiers unless the South is similarly provided for. The first step will be to pension Southern widows and orphans, who, they will sentiments ly urge, are innocent victims of the late strife. That will probably prevail, and more will follow. This threat and the talk of "crushing war taxes" come in bad grace irotn the South. In 1878 the Republican States paid fifteen-sixteenths of the whole customs revenue of the nation. Between the years 1 866 and 1878 $2,055,397,846.18 were collected as internal-revenue taxes. Of this sum the eleven Coni ederate States paid $201,906,096.15 —a less amount than that collected in the State of Ohio. The charges of misgovei mnent preferred against the Republican party by the Democrats may bg shortly dismissed. They say the Republican party does not protect its citizens abroad, and quote McSweeney. McSweeney. lived in Ireland five years, took his oath of office as Poor-Law Guardian, thereby severing his allegiance to the Unite ! States. He was released rbm prison through the demand of Secretary Blaine, although that gentleman's right to make the remonstrance was not at all clear. McSweeney is now running as a candidate for the English Parliament. The Republican party protected its citizens abroad when it battered down the forts of Corea: when it drove the French out of Mexico; when it forced $15,00J,000 out of England as a settlement of the Alabama claims, and finally when it made it possible for a German to return to his own country without being impressed into the army of the empire, and to have his naturalization papers respected. They say that the Republican party is reducing the public debt too rapidly. In the imbecile administration of Buchanan, during a time es profound peace, the Democratic party ran this country into debt $70,000,000. Since 186 •, notwithstanding the most destructive war of the century, the Republican party has paid off $1,;»0,000,060 of our national debt, an unparalleled achievement. But that part y which voted against the fourteenth amendment, and which has repudiated the whole or a portion of the debt of every State in the South, says that we should only pay the interest on our national debt, and let the pri" _-i] al iructify in the pockets of the people. In reph’ we urge that nine-tenths, of the United Stetes bondholders are Americans, and that if you liquidate the national debt you pay the money light back into the po.-ke** ot the

people. Where it does fructify m business enterprise, in the ventures of capitalists ana the support of labor, aind in addition you have swept away the interest, a sound economical operation. They protest against the surplus, apparently ignorant of the fact that it belongs to the people, and not the Government. To vouch it is robbery. Redeem the Treasury notes, gold and sliver certificates, bank notes and called bonds, fail to provide for current expenses and the sur,vlus disappears. A certain portion goes to the payment of our national debt every month, since we are bound to do nationally that which we do individually, pay our honest dues. Demagogism, thv name is Democracy. Thev sav the Republican party has mismanaged the finances. When it came into, power, in 1861, most of the specie had been driven out of the country. To meet the obligation of the great war, a -paper currency was issued, to the redemption of which the Republican party pledged its honor. A toill in Congress renewing that pledge was opposed by the Democratic party. But on the ,Ist day of January, 1879, specie payments were,resumed and the Republican party bad kept its premise, all of which the Democratic party had declared to be impossible and had endeavored to make so. They cannot say the Republican party has injured our credit abroad. When the Democratic party retired in disgrace fiom the management of this country our 6-per-cent. bonds were being hawked about Europe at 17 pe,r cent, discount, and yet we were a nstion of 30,00.0,000 of people and of illimitable resources. Under the rule of the Repuolican party our 3 and 4 per cent, bonds command from 12 to 20 per cent, premium, and our public credit is the highest of the world. They say that the country has not prospered under the rule of the Republican party. Mr. Blaine tells us in his admirable letter of acceptance that the true value of property in this country in 1860, the result of the toil of two centuries, was $14,000,000,000. Within the past twenty-four years the amount has more thafi trebled, and is now $44,000,000,000. The sands of my time are running low and I have been able only to hint at the great deeds of the greatest party in history. We.are here to-night as Republicans. Wc are here to say why we are what we are. We are Republicans because that party wounded unto death the diseased and infamous doctrine of State sovereignity: because that party made the flag of rebellio.n the shroud of treason; because that party struck the manacles from 4,000,0'10 slaves; because that party said the ballot and the life of the voter were sacred: because that party vindicated the national financial honor; because that party touched the dead body of our national credit and it sprang to its feet; because that party has added five. States to this Union; because that party has given homesteads to the poor; because that party has been a shield to the laborer; because that party fosters the education of the masses: because that party touched with its wand the untilled prairies and they waved with golden grain; because that party is the torch-bearer of Western civilization, and lights the way of progress. We are Republicans because that party sprang out ot the black night of the war-times, like a fair god, dad in the panoply of war, the hope of liberty to unborn millions, the prayer of the slave, and stands to-day, as it stood- twenty-four years ago, the best repr, sentative of the intelligence, the honor, and the patriotism of this nation.