Rensselaer Union, Volume 3, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 March 1871 — The Democracy and Reconstruction. [ARTICLE]

The Democracy and Reconstruction.

In the Journal of yesterday, we stated our belief that the Democratic party, if restored to power, would undo ali the beneficent works of reconstruction which the Republican party has accomplished, and tlie people have repeatedly ratified. For proof of this a cloud of witnesses could be summoned. The orators and eiitors of the party are continu ally furnishing evidence of it. Most con vincing proof that we do not misrepresent the real animus of the Democracy is found in the Senatorial debate of Wednesday, taken In connection with the previous declaration of the Democratic leader, which declaration he real '

The attempt of the present Democratic Indiana Legislature to nullify the raiiflca- ' tion of the Fifteenth Amendment of its Immediate Republican predecessor, was made a fit occasion for a discussion of the whole subject. Mr. Morton was naturally the champion of Republicanism, locality, if nothing else, designating him. Why was Frank Blair the champion of the Democracy ? He is, officially, the youngest member of the Senate. The Presidential campaign of 1868 furnishes the explanation. Blair was the nominee of his party for the Vice-Presidency because he had written a letter peculiarly Democratic in its attitude toward reconstruction. The best epistolary exponent of his party, he had paramount claims to leadership in the Senate. In the debate, that Broadhead letter was referred to, and the author of it distinctly reasserted his adherence to the position therein taken. The indorsement of the National Democratic Convention of 1868 was, therefore, reaffirmed by the party through its present representatives in the upper [house of Congress. The letter has thus been revived, and has to-day even more iuterest to the American people than it had two years and a half ago. Many Republicans believed that the interval since the last Presidential election had wrought some change In the Democracy, and that, by this time, all thought of reopening the recon-traction issue and rej storing the old Southern regime had been ; abandoned. This delusion has now been I dispelled. No one can mistake the posii tiou of the Democracy, after reading the following extract from the Broadhead letter:

“ There is but one way to restore the Government and the Constitution, and that is for the President 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 reorganize their own gov emmcntß and elect Senators and Representatives. The House of Representatives will contain a majority of Democrats from the North, and they w ill admit the Representatives elected by the white people of the South, and with the co-operation of the President it will not be ilifflculCtO compel the Senate to submit once more to. the obligations of the Constitution. *l* will not be able, to withstand tbe public judgment, if distinctly Invoked sod clearly

expressed, on this fundamental issue, an d it is Die sure way to avoid all iuturo strife, to put this issue plainly to the country.” it will be seen tint no more than the whites are to be consulted in the Democratic reconstruction of the South, and that whatever they should demand the Democracy would grant. In other words, t lie rebel minority would be allowed to have things all their own way, which is equivalent to saying that the repudiation *f the national debt, the assumption of the reb. l debt, and even the restoration of slavery itself, would be sanctioned if the Democrats werfi restored to power. To talk of disbanding the Republican party with such an issue before the country is downright treason, or the gibberish of an idiot —Chicago Journal