The daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1863-1864, 1864-04-18
The Case of Mr.. Long.

The World says the Republicans in Con
gress have disgraced themselves irredeem
ably. They have fxad upon themselves
and their party, past all rubbing out, the
stigma of fanatical intolerance, impotent
to accomplish their purpose of expe!ling MIR
Long, they have only succeeded in brand.
ing themselves. The circuitous, illegal and
supplementary vote of censure upon him
does not accomplish their purpose of 81
lencing freedom of debate in the halls of
Congress, but it leaves the Speaker marked
a demagogue, and proves the Republican
majority who have acted with him willing,
in the fanaticism of its partisan intolerance,
to violate the very rules of the House, will.
ing to abolish the security and the freedom
Of representative government To the fact
that the Republicans are not quite two>
thirds majority in thel over House the ma
ton owes it that free debate in the council
halls Of the nation is not utterly destroyed.
1t owes nothing to their sense of or respect
for political liberty, nothing to their desire
for freedom and the essentials o, freedom,
nothing to their love of democracy and to
their hatred OF despotism, nothing to their
love for the most sacred principles of Amer
lean liberty.
To the impotence of the Republicans we
owe it that the Democrats of the North, no,
that all men of tho North are not to-day
excluded from honest representation in
Congress, that their representatives are not
obliged to speak such words, and declare
such doctrines, and advocate such measures,
and vote such votes, as are satisfactory and
pleasant and profitable to the dominant
Republican majority.
The venom was there. The votes alone
were lacking. That few more districts
were not carried by the Republicans at the
last Congressional elections, the American
people owe it that American liberty is not
to-day struck dead in the very Copitol and
Congress of the nation.
We have no sympathy whatever with the
tenor and purpose of Mr.. Longs speech 1t
does not represent the Democracy of the
North. We should repudiate the name of
Democrats if it did We recognize the
calmness and decorum Of his ulterance, its
strict accordance with every parliamentary
rule, but.sympathy with bis opinions we
have none. But what his opinions arc,
what the opinions of any member of Con.
gress are. is not the question. They belong
to him, he is responsible to his constituents
for them and no body else, and were they
ten times as obnoxious to the majority as
they are; were they as reasonable as the
opinions which that majority daily utters On
the same floor, we should vindicate him or
them in their perfect right to free, ia
trammeled, unhindered utterance.
Precisely that right, precisely that free
dom, the Republican majority have voted
t deny. Their opinions of TO-DAY thew
would have Sc. up as the measure of free
speech. Their doctrines OF to day. as trai-
torous to liberty as to the Constitution
which guards it, they would have made the
shibboleth offree men in free government.
They have failed Their censure donors
bin. who was censured, aud brands them for
traitors to American libe,t y, to constitu
tional liberty, to the liberty which is guar
ded as the most priceless possession of free
men wherever free constitutional govern.
ments stand. And that il the significance
of yesterdays vote.