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The Record Of Republicanism

The Record Of Republicanism image
Parent Issue
Day
7
Month
October
Year
1880
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

" Look at our record," say Republicans; "upon that we are willinjr to stand or fall." Well, let us look at this record. It will be twenty years on the 4tli oi Mareli next since the Reptlblteail party came into power, and the first result ol its supremacy was tour years of civil war. " Whether Ropublican mlc froiu 1861 to 1881 is worth the price paid fot it at the outset, we leave the people te determine. The opinión prevails in some quarters that the article is exceedingly dear iL the country had reoeived.it gratis. But it is a significant fact that Republicans pride themselvei more upon their war record than upon anything else. They resemblo the famous doctor who always threw his patients into fits,, beoau.se " he wat heavy on üts." One of their most distinguished leaders, the late lamentet Chandler, declared that " the country would never be worth a curse withou a little blood-letting," and there eer tainlv was " blood-letting" enough te satisï'y even the patriotic thirst oï the Michigan statesman. Republicans claim that they " saved the Union," meaninp therebythattheir party did the nglitim which secured National salvation. I this were true they would be entitled to no more orodit than the man who having set his own house atire, suc eeeds in extingui3hing the llame without the assistance of his neigh bors. But it is not true, " bj a large majority." In 1860 Mr Lincoln received 1,886,322 votes During the war which he superintend ed the"e were enlisted 2,678,967 volun teers. Republican lightning calculator may rise and explain wherethe 792. 64 extra Union soldiers carne f rom; and if we are not mistaken, there wer several Republicans who did not g within smelling-distance of rebc powder. The war having been brough toa successful conclusión by Demo cratic aid in purse and person, Repub licans took entire charge of the proces! callcd "the restoration of the Union. It is another and equally signiiiean fact, that Republicans do not prid themselves particularly upon the per formances between 1865 and 1877. They are inclined to ignore, as f ar aspossible, the twelve years spent in an effort to Republicanize the South by machinery composed of negroos, carpet-baggers and federal bayoneta; though nobody is likely to forget that the machinery was used until popular pressure compelled a Republican Administration to adopt the Democratie policy in Southern affairs, and that then its abandonment was denounced by more than niaetenths of the party as an act at once suicidal and unneeessary. But saving and restoring the Union did not monopolize Republioan energics from 1861 to 1.S77. With the war bogan that system of organized corruption and rasrality which plundcred aud disgraced tho Nation, a'nd which camc boldIy to the front no ago than the Chicago Convention, whena Republican ex-Senator exclaimed: "Whatarewe here for, if not for the otliees?" Indeed, the eandidate who carne so near being the uominee of that Convention, was himself the representativo and champion of rings the like of which the world had never seen before- one of them, according to the estímate of a prominent member, robbing the Government of nearly$3,000,000 in a single revenue district in six years. And we may remark while Grañt thus narrowly escaped nomination for a third term, and is still the exhaustless theme of Republican eulogy, Bristow, the honest Seeretary of the Treasury, who endeavored to punish tho whisky thievcs whoHi Grant protected, has been driven into political obseurity by "the party of great moral ideas." When sueh a fate has overtaken such a man, it is not strange, perhaps, that the same party has ncver thought it necossary to apologize for any part of the ring iniquity; and that its Presidential eandidate to-day Stands oonvtotéd betore a llepublioan investigating CommiUee, of particlpatton in one of the most shameless of these stoals - which hesupplementcd by perjury. Asa fitting crown to the Republican column, we have only to point to the eonspiracy of 1876-77, by which a eandidate whom the people had rejected was thrust into the Executive chair. In that infamous transaetion, too, the jresent Republican standard-bearer tigured oonspicuously; fint helping to lix the fraud as a "visiting statesman," and eonfirming and consummating it as an Electoral Commissioner. Such, in brief, is tho Republican record, upon which that party professos to pride itself, and which it urges as an all-suflicient argument for its retention in power. Possibly the American poople may accept and indorse tlie argument by electing as their President a man who.se name is indissolubly connected with Credit-Mobilier, De Golyer and the Electoral swindle; and electing as their Vice-President a man who was kicked out of the New York CustomHouse in order, as Mr. Hayes said, "to insure an honest administration of the olHce." But we do not believe the American people have y et reached that depth of demoralization which such acceptanco and indor.sement would require. - St. Louis litpublican. There is more dirty work for the Republican Supremo Court of Maine. If the County Canvassers f uil to oount in Corporal Davis the Supreme Court is to be ealled on to tinker the law so as to crowd him in any how. The Republicans invented adouble-edged Constitutional amendment whieh was to react on the cleetion of this week if adopted, and the programmc now is that this back-actia arrangement is ti lm good kuv or bad law according as it helps or hmts the Republican party. The Supremi', ('ourt lias heretofore displayed its vvilliugness to liUine the law to suit the emergency, and it will hardlv fail its party in this desperate strait.

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Subjects
Old News
Ann Arbor Democrat