The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Stroudsburg, Pa.) 1853-1911, 1864-08-11
The Soldiers Vote,

people have decided in favor of the SOL
diers right to vote by majority ranging !
between eighty and one hundred thousand.
The returns come in very slow, but such
is the indication. One thing is we'll es-
tablished, and that is that the Copper
head leaders of the Democracy did their
utmost to defeat the measure, and have
been badly whipped at it. They thought
by villainous lying to accomplish their
ends, and for this purpose they industri-
ously promulgated the story, that if the
amendment allowing the soldiers to vote
received the sanction of the people, un-
der the same provision all the "niggers'
would be entitled to vote. They knew
we'll enough that none but "white free
men," citizens of the United States, and
of the State, above the age of twenty y-one
years, were qualified voters of Pennsylva
MIA, and that it was only for such as these
that the amendment provided but they
we're bound that nothing should be left
undone to prevent the soldier from be-
coming a white freemeu under the Con-
stitution, nothing that would tend to de-
grade him to the level of the "ni gger."
Indeed their whole course through this
war proves conclusively that they hold no
ill-will against the ''nigger," but that they
do, because of his true patriotism which
prompts him to oppose, at the ballot, the
political Vaccinations of the Copperhead
leaders, hold in utter detestation the
white soldier. They, in fact, love the for
mer, from the bottom of their hearts, for
the capital which it is presumed he will
furnish them in the coming campaign
and we should not be surprizcd this fall,
as an object of worship, to see him substi
tuted on their banners for the American
Eagle-a bird which, for some years, they
have been loosing their pretended respect
for.
This opposition Of the Copperheads to
the soldiers exercise of suffrage, has not
always existed. During the Mexican
war, when our troops we're fighting in a
foreign country, when fancy lying of the
tallest kind could travel far before stern
truth could overtake it, and when men
and parties at home could learn to be ha-
ted, and be made the victims of prejudice,
words were hardly competent to the lau-
dation which these leaders of the democ-
racy then heaped upon it. BY means of
Misrepresentation they had induced the
soldiers to believe that the opposition to a
war based upon questionable causes was
opposition to them personally, and as they
expected to reap the harvest at the polls,
they looked upon tie law authorizing the
soldier to vote as the very pinacle of Dem
ocratic righteousness. The vote was had
and the Democratic party was benefited
by it to the tune of some 800 MAORI
ty. Did the then Wings object to IT,
Did they pamper up a Judge, wise in his
own couceit, to the denouncing Of that
vote as unconstitutional ? Far from it.
To man that party stood by the vote,
believing as they did that it was a right
peculiarly fitted to be exercised by tie
patriots who were Drawing the dangers of
war, that they might secure the blessings
of peace.
| Why then this opposition now? The
soldiers are now fighting on their own soil
for the preservation of liberty, and of gov
erument itself! Why should the leaders
of a once powerful and long dominant
party-a party whose corner stone has
hitherto been ga free exercise of the elec-
tive franchise by free people," oppose
the rectifying of glaring wrong of omis-
sion perpetrated by the trainers of the
Constitution There is but one answer
to these questions. In the Mexican war
they counted safely on carrying the SOL
dier vote with them. In the present
war the signs indicate that the soldier
vote will be against them, and on the side
of the country; and in this we must
look for the moving spring of their oppo-
Fsition on Tuesday the End inst. Because
they feared that the soldier would dare to
exercise the right as freeman should,
they would, by refusal of their assent to
the adoption of the amendment, do their
utmost to degrade him to the position Of