American citizen. [volume] (Butler, Butler County, Pa.) 1863-1872, 1865-09-13

are properly suporuihateu 10 III anu eiae
State rights are purely local and seconda-
ry. Therefore they have been steadily
faithful in the great and successful strug-
gle. They have never tampered with
rebellion. They have never justified
treason nor excused traitors and in the
death -grapple with rebellion they have
wisely used every power af the Govern
ment, conscious that all extraordinary
powers were exercised by magistrates un-
der the immediate supervision of the
people, and whose acts merely recorded
the popular will, as the election of 1864
triumphantly proved
This is the faith, and these are tn men
who compose the great Union party
Have they forfeited the confidence of the
country?
On the other hand, the Democratic
party is composed of those who have al
ways excused the most appalling crime
against human nature, and the most fatal
treason to the American principle of
equal rights, under the pretenso of State
rights; who pprsistently eonnived at the
extension aud perpetuity of that inius-
tice which has soaked the land in blood
and necessitated the debt. They have
been the assailants offree speech and free
press, and have justified the murder and
maltreatment of citizens who claimed to
exercise those rights in the Southern
States Their influence has been adverse
to general education and wise progress
and reform and tn cir prcdominance has
been and is always most marked among the
debased part of the population, and in
the least intelligent portions of the coun-
try. Evcnnow their Conventions, vague
ly as in Maine, distinctly and openly as
in Ohio, reafIirm the principles Of the Vir-
ginia and Kentucky, resolutions Of '9S
which are and always have been pleaded
by the rbes as their Just ification, as they
were by South Carolina for notification
in 1888, and which will always afford an
ambush for treason until they are utterly
and expressly overthrown or, as in Penn
sylvania, their Conventions deliberately
declare that the practical recognition of
the truths of the Declaration of Indepen-
dence is high crime against the Consti-
tuition of the United States. They are
those from whose ranks came the chiefs
of the rebellion; who denounced the peo-
pie of the loyal States as really response
BILE for the war; who necessarily thwart-
ed the Government IN its efforts to sub
due it; who melted riots and directed
mobs for whose success at the polls the
rebel chiefs and editors openly prayed in
the midst of the war; who solicited thro'
a foreign Minister foreign interference in
our contest; who a year ago, in their Ma
tional Convention, declared the soldiers
conqured and the war a failure, and who
sneered at President Lincoln as helpless
ly weak, or denounced him as murder
er, tyrant, and harlequin.
These are they who compose the DEM
ocratic party. They are now busily en-
gagged in praisng the soldiers, whom last
year they slandered, and in celebrating the
establishment of the Union. They are
even engaged in the pleasant process of
eating the Chicago platform. But what
has this party, in whose Ohio Conyen-
ton Vallandigham was chief orator, in
whose Pennsylvania Convention Judge
Black was an applauded teacher, who
said. as Buchannau's Attorney-Gcneral,
that the war would legalize secession and
dissolve the Union--what has this party
done to be intrusted with power by the
American people who condemned it so
overwhelmingly last November? We
speak of party, not of individuals. We
do not forget with what absolute sacrifice,
with what blood and money, many Dem
ocfats stood by the country. But neith-
or do we forget as that party, that the
Democrats voted against emancipation,
and that in the States which they con-
trolled the amendment was defeated. We
do not forget that if the Democratic par
ty had retained power in 1860 they
would have compromised tho honor Of
the country without permanently avoid
ing the war; and We remember, nor will
the American people soon forget, that in
1864 they proposed acquiesccnce in ma
tional disgrace and ruin.
These are the two parties who now So
licit our votes. Let every man who loves
a Union unobscured by the resolution
of '98," who loves his country and be-
Iieves that equal rights for all men before
the law. are essential to her permanent
peace and prosperity, ask himself which
of thes parties ought to have his vote
Haypers Weekly.