The Burlington weekly hawk-eye. [volume] (Burlington [Iowa]) 1860-1876, 1863-09-26

but unable to change their own minds, and
hoping for their old friends restoration
of sense with a return of sobriety. But
nothing could open the eyes of the leading
men-not even general 'desertion. AT
last You found yourself in a social dilem-
ma. Everybody you liked, everybody you
respected, everybody whose good opinion
was worth having-an your personal
| friendsTall your every day associates were
on the other side, Your political associates
| you were ashamed to be seen with in the
street. With the exception Of a few, in
Guiding the "Marshars Guard" the Work
! ing Democrats were mostly 10 be found
when wanted either at the Custom house
or the House of Correction. The whole
party grew very small so very soon that
] its leaders We're charged with making it SO
on purpose. I cheerfuily acquit them of
that design or of any other. The party
could not help growing conveniently and
even inconveniently small, when its whole
| duty and sole test was to "damn nigger!''
+, I think it lucky for the shoe business that
] these leading minds did not apply their
| energies to that. If they had, they would
| have broken up every shoe shop in the
| United States in year. si
| In the last Presidential election, una
| ble to endure them any longer, we broke
with them, as 1 supposed forever. We had
| separate conventions, separate committees,
separate tickets. They repaid our revolt
with bitter hatred. They struck hands
with Yancey and with Davis, and with
| that most ungrateful son of Kentucky, j.
| G. Breckenridge, to kill Senator Douglas
and to break up the party. Theyidid ruin
| it. They did kill him. Yet even then
such is the force of association and such
| our stubborn fidelity-that excuses were
made for them until they openly abandon
ed the honored name of Democrat as if it
was not good enough, and called them
selves ''National." Then, Indeed, all eyes
were opened. The mean, unprincipled,
narrow-minded, ignorant. arrogant set
were seen as they are by the thousands
who had followed them so long. They were
followed no more. Nobody can stand a
TURNCOAT.
These gentlemen now desire to resume
the name of Democrat, and have actually
been defeated under it in several States al
ready. And they assembled in great force
in our late convention to give the finishing
stroke to the party here.
To that resumption | object. If their
own words, describing their own position,
are to be depended on, they are not Demo-
Gratis at all. I am. / can truly affirm that
democrat is my proper and only politi-
cal name. / did not take it upon myself
1t was imposed upon me long before l was
old enough to know what it meant. Since
became capable of understanding its sig
niucance anu Oi aSSeuClHS 10 us appllca-
| ton, I have borne it, l hope, honorably.-
never abandoned it for the name Of '.Na-
tionar' or "Union" or peoples" or any
other, no matter how sounding. And I
would like, with your assistance, to have
the use of it confined to those of us who
have never deserted or betrayed it. And
have right to complain that while Mr..
Breckenridge and four hundred Thousand
of his party are numbering their fellow
citizens in Virginia, some hundreds of
them make use of my party name while
robbing orphan asylums and roasting ne
groes in New York.
On this point, (if the newspapers report
him accurately l have the misfortune to
differ with the Honorable Fernando Wood.
a war against South Carolina in rebel
| lion. Mr.. Calhoun thought so too. Gen.
jackson, on the contrary, intended to hang
Mr.. Calhoun the moment he attempted to
put Mr.. Woods thought into practice
| The Generals intention to execute rebel
may yet be carried out by some of his par
ty, though upon different person-in
corpore Uiti, as they say. And if Mr..
Wood should happen to be that person, his
efforts to overtake the hangman have been
SO strenuous, so indefatigable, and so meri-
torious, that it is impossible not to wish him
the fullest success.
These gentlemen deserve no favors, and
in the convention they got very few. But
they are entitled to justice, and justice re-
quires that we should not charge them with
treason, or with any other Otfense until
they commit it. What they do can he ac-
counted for much more accurately by at
| tributing ii to the force of their two great
characteristics: I mean to stupidity and
to cupidity. Stupidity is the normal con-
dition to which small office-holding speed
lily reduces the small ofice-seeking mind.
Cupidity is the impulse which sets it in
motion. But for the first they would have
had knowledge of means; but for the Sc
cond they would have had will to use
them. By means Of both they have nearly
| ruined US, and have, it is to be hoped,
finally extinguished themselves.
Where we gain immensely is in our de-
liberate selection of gentlemen for candi-
dates instead of politicians. We clear by
| that one transaction the whole difference
between men who exhaust their ability in
obtaining office and men who are qualified
to fill it. Even the bar-room and the cor
ner grocery will have no objection to
that. Even the bar-room and the cor
ner grocery prefer the language of gentle
man expressing his opinions to the verbi-
age of politician straining his small wits
in pursuit of an "issue.' And it will be
our interest, as well as our pleasure, to
crafty that proper and natural taste by
selecting no candidate unworthy to be as
sociated with Theodore H. Sweetser or
Henry w. Paine. a#af5
In view of the great and unhoped for
change from politicians to gentlemen, and
from senseless servility to decent self-re-
spect, there are some opinions which we
can now weed out of the party. And first,
as to the opinion that slavery can be re-
stored or defended by US. This opinion is
often concealed under the phrase of the
Union as it aOas'-a phrase which has the
disadvantage of acknowledging by impli-
| cation the fact, if not the right, Of secession
M. Guizot, in his Embassy" remarks
with his usual wisdom how hard it is even
for men of powerful and cultivated intel
| lect to communicate their thoughts fully to
each other. Each man is intensity occupi-
| ed with his own. For the average of man
kind this difficulty is enormously increas-
ed. But the shock of war electrifies the
whole nation, fires the heart, kindles the
tains Of absurdity IN its deluge Of blood blood
and tears. Slavery, for example, long
maintained because people would not hear
each other, is now adrift on the torrent of
war, tumbiing and melting like an iceberg