The Burlington weekly hawk-eye. [volume] (Burlington [Iowa]) 1860-1876, 1863-05-09
The New York COpperhead Lexis.
Native Address Denounced by the

The address of the Democratic members
of our late Legislature to their constituents.
is remarkable document. We pronounce
it an insolent appeal for public favor upon
false pretences. We denounce it as the
most impudent and arrogant production of
INSCRIPTIONS old party hacks and spoils-
men that ever enianated from that fruitful
source of corruption, their headquarters at
Albany. We consider it our duty to meet
this braZen-faced imposture upon the
Threshold, and to hold it UP, by the light
Of truth, to the public contempt and con-
demnation.
awe first arraign this Democratic address
as base perversion of that prevailing loyal
public sentiment of the State through which
these Democratic signers were elected to
the Legislature. They would have us be-
Heve, from the whole tenor of this address,
that the paramount issue of the day is not
between the General Government and the
rebellion, but between the Democrats and
Republicans of New York that the great
struggle in which we areinvolved is not for
the life of the nation, but for the spoils; and
that the restoration of the spoils to the De-
mOcratic party is more important than the
prosecution of the war. But what are the
plain facts of history regarding the Demo-
cratic party? Utterly corrupted and de-
moralized by the spoils, it was broken up,
dissolved and scattered to the four winds Of
heaven at the Charleston and Baltimore
Conventions of 1860. The previously con-
trolling elements of the party, uniting in a
grand conspiracy, lighted the fires Of this
Southern rebellion, while the Union ele-
ments of the old concern in theloyal States,
uniting with the party of President Lin
coins administration, left hardly the shad-
ow of an opposition party in the North.
r. Nor did the Northern elections of last
October and November signify resuscita-
ton of the old Democratic party, or any
such contemplate reaction Of public opin-
ion. They had much deeper and broader
Specification. Under the arguments of the
independent, conservative public press,
those elections were SO many warnings
from the people to the administration,
against the continuation of those follies,
blunders, imbecilities, corruptions and dis
asters which down to last autumn had
marked the process of the war. Selling
upon these general movements of public
opinion, the spoilsmen, ragmen, bagmen
and sordid hucksters of the defunct Demo-
cratic party rushed in, and making their
paltry bargains here and there for offices
and plumber, assumed to speak the verdict
OF the people. Thus these miserable Demo-
cratic impOsters, inflated with the delusive
idea that the day had come to play a holder
game, proceeded in the Indiana and Illinois
Legislatures, and to some extent in New
Jersey and elsewhere, to their movements
confederates, even to the extent of bloody
riots and civil war in the loyal States.
There was something of this violent rev.
dictionary spirit betrayed by the strikers
of Tammany and Mozart Hall in the late
contest for the Speaker at Albany, and we
know not what would have followed but
for the restraining influence of wiser men
in the legislative councils of the party. At
all events, the foolish excuses of the noisy
Democrats of the Copperhead faction, East
and West, during the last Winter resulted
in another popular reaction in the late New
Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut and
Western elections. In the single case OF
Seymour, of Connecticut, it is thus made
manifest that his Copperhead peace plat
form is as odious to the people as the stu.
pid war programme Of the Abolition fac
| ton. And yet the foremost and most
grievous offense complained of in this AL.
bany Democratic legislative address is thai
tone of the members from Kings County
elected as Democrat, was induced tt
abandon his party, and accept the Speak
Iership Of the House at the hands of his OPP
ponents, under circumstances involving Z
gross betrayal Of party faith. We may
boldly say, however, that if this Democratic
address embodies the ''party faith" Mr.
Callicot did well to betray it and abandon
1t, and ought to be honored for 1t by hi
constituents.
] With specification or two indicating
the revolutionary spirit of this address, w
shall drop the disagreeable subject. Ihes'
Democratic patriots declare that the Sub
ordination Of the rights and interests OF tn
State to the schemes of the consolidationist'
at Washington was evinced lin the Legisla
ture) not less painfully in the reluctance Il
provide for the military defence of tn
State, and the refusal to perfect the organ
4 ization OF the militia, while the Fedora
Government, at the same time, proposes Il
Substitute forced conservation FOR the ole