Fremont journal. [volume] (Fremont, Sandusky County [Ohio]) 1853-1866, 1865-09-22
DEMOCRATIC HISTORY

The Democratic party relies great deal
upon its ancient name, and early history
for strength of character. ''The time-hon-
ored party" Forty years ago." "The days
of Jefferson" ''Old Jackson" (ahem J are
the terms to which our ears are familariz-
ed; and the name ON which they call
whenever their present character is at a
discount (which we may add by way of
parenthesis is all the time Like the er
ring and degenerate son of some illustri-
GUS sire, who has violated his early teach
ings, and abandoned his parental roof,
calling from the debts of deprsvity and
ruin upon his ancestral name, and the
commendable conduct of his boyhood for
present strength. But even this cOmpari-
son does not hold good in every particular.
The Confederate Democracy are not wor-
thy even of it Such man from whatev-
er hight, and however low he may have
fallen, is nevertheless entitled to his name
and early history. They are his although
unavailing; and he asserts no falsehOod
in asserting the claim. But the Democrat
ic party has no title to the name it wears,
except such as it acquired by occupancy,
or by theft. 1t matters not however, now
since the name has lost its ancient charac-
ter and force. 1t was invested in Confed-
crate stock now worth about as much.
And as to its early history we have only
time to remark that from the Jetfersonian
to the Buchanan age, the patient was slow
ly dying under Democratic treatment In
fact, some of the doctors desired its death
and prescribed according; and the Gov
ernment only lived that long by reason of
a natural strong by constitution, and con-
tinual reinforcement of vigor and vitality
from abroad.
Its forms of government the richness
and rarity of soil, that morality, intelligence
and industry of its people, and the con-
slant ascessions to its population from the
vigorous blood of Europe! These are the
elements which in spite of Democratic
mismanagement and crime, kept it alive,
and with these forces any bungling states
man ought to be able to stumble along
with the Government for awhile.
1t lived not from any fostering act of the
Democratic party, for a portion of it had
always been laboring to destroy it; it had
been guilty of commissive as well as per-
missive waste; but it lived from the orig
inal and native strength of the country.
But even were its early history COM
mendable, what will that avail now! What
of its later history? 1t is true we Judge
the future by the past, but it is the recent,
not the remote past. The lost and aban-
doned Cybrian may have been the pure
and innocent child of virtue, rocked by the
throbbings of a hopeful mothers heart,
and clothed with charms and attributes
truly but little lower than the angles
The scoundrel who would defraud you o.
your property; the red-handed highway
man who would take your life for YOU
money; the slave to malice who would
dance upon the graves and revel among
the tombstones of his victims, in minister
ing to the cravings ofan evil heart may
one day have possessed a good character,
may have been the blue-eyed boy of inno-
cence kneeling in devotion at mothers
side, and still later an exemplary man Of
hope and promise, with noble deeds and
high resolves. So much for early history.
What may be said of modern Democratic
history will fill the darkest page in the
book Of time.-E<