The weekly Ottumwa courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1857-1872, 1860-10-18
STA Address of the Albany
Irish Union Wide AWakes,
IT, Meir Couatrlnaen and FslLon Citisens

4
! To TIER Countrynen and Fellom Citizens.
| FELLOW CITIZENS: This is a free country,
and every man, however humble can vote
according to the dictates of his own con-
science, certainly in the State of New York.
You need not be told that the Irish Union
Wide Awakes, during the Republican torch
light procession in this City, Sept. 18th,
were greeted with insult for daring thus to
vindicata their political preferences.
b.. Friends, why is it that our becoming Re-
publicans so excites your hostility Let US
reason together and we will convince you
that were we. to support Stephen A. Doug
las, we should act against our best interests,
against the rights of free laboring white men,
as well as against true Democracy. We
have changed our name but not our princl-
pies. and we feel confident, that if you cor
rectly understood the principles of the Dem
ocratic party as expounded,by Douglas, and
of the Republican party as expounded by
Abraham Lincoln, you would, with US, use
every honorable means to secure the election
Of the latter. Believing this, we will give
you some of the reasons which have led us
70 abandon the Democratic party. Three
questions are to be decided by the American
people on the 9th of November next, very
different as to their importance to laboring
men, yet neither Of them 50 insignificant as
not to deserve fair and candid considera-
ton by every orator
LIST. The financial management Of the Ma
tional Government 1t IS true we live in a
land happy beyond all others, and we do not
suffer greatly from taxation; yet almost ev-
cry imported article consumed by US, Gas tea
90 per cent, coffee 30 per cent sugar 80 per
cent, &C. is indirectly taxed to pay the pres
ent enormous expenses of the Government :;
and if we will consider the matter, we shall
see that it is quite material to every laboring
man, whether the annual expenses of the
General Government are fifty million or one
hundred million doll rs, for in the end the
burthen must fall upon the people. Now in
perfect peace it costs the sham Democracy
one hundred million dollars year to rule us,
so that every voter is indirectly taxed $40 a
year to support the present corrupt Admin
istration There is man out West who
will govern us far better for about half that
sum, who proposes to retrench, to stop fraud
and corruption, and to expel from court
those who have thus shamelessly plundered
the public treasury Therefore we shall
vote for Abraham Lincoln.
2ndly. The rights of citizens born in for
eign lands. Who was it gave the death
blow to the American party, beaded by Eras
tus Brooks, the most into.erant bigot that
lives to disgrace this enlightened age and
free country? 1t was William II. Seward
and the Republican Party. While we were
voting against them almost in a solid body,
they were fighting disintcrestedly for our
rights against the combined forces of the
proscriptlve American Party and the sham
Democracy, under the lead of James Buchan-
an. Our votes defeated Fremont, but we
will no longer vote for an empty name against
that party which has proved its honesty by
defending our rights unfalteringly from the
| first moment of its existence. On the other
hand, how has the Democratic Party treated
US who have been its main-stay for the last
eight years? We will here only mention
the fact that we are efIectually excluded from
emigrating to fifteen States Of this Union,
not by the proscriptivc American Party, but
by the a5ominable system of negro Slavery,
upheld and eulogizcd by the Democratic
Party both, North and South That same
party is doing all in its power to exclude not
only US, but all white laboring freemen from
every foot of the public Territories ; for the
bred Scott Decision, which that party, sus-
tains as supreme and final, declares that the
Constitution carries negro Slavery into every
Territory of the United States and if it
does, then white laborers are practically ey-
Guided, since free labor canEot exist when it
comes in competition with unpaid slave labor
But more of this matter in another place -
We have stood by the Democratic Party in
good report and in evil report, and after all
that, when Brooks's proscriptive American
! ism was breathing out its last foul breath
under the stern hold of Seward Republican
ism, sham Democracy stepped in, took the
bleeding harlot by the hand, bound up her
gaping wounds, and bid the resurrected
dame assume her former place among the
political parties of the country. Ye traitors
to true Democracy, where now is all your
boosted enmity to bigotry, intolerance and
dark lanternism? Read the speeches you
| have been dining in our ears for the last
six years, and then fuse with resuscitated
corpse, but know surely, We political gam
blers. that you cannot sell us to be the ser
wants Of Erastus Brooks. Your conduct in
this matter shows concusirely that you care
no more for tho rights OF adopted citizens
than for the rights Of the black bondmen of
the South, except for your votes. You can
sell the sooty African, but you cannot sell
white freemen, I EaaA 1e'- .at5-
"who know their rights and knowing dare maintain "
/ The Republican Party is thu tried friend OF
every laboring man, no matter what may be
| his religious creed, DO matter in what land
l1e may chance to have been born, no matter
in what disastrous battle his rights may
| Il hot