Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1865-09-28
Political Prospects.


How shallwe vote in the autumn electionsp
Every honest man will ask himself this
question, and he will answer it by determin-
ing to which party, in SO important ma
tional crisis as this, political power ought to
be intrusted. For although no issue is as
yet distinctly made, very grave issue soon
will be, that of re-organizatien-and he
must look to the anteccdebts and composition
Of parties to infer what their probable action
will be.
The Union party comprises the great body
of enlightened American citizens who havs
always faithfully striven for greater justice
for universal liberty regulated by law, and
for freedom of speech and the press every
where in the country. They have un-
falteringly asserted the rights Of the whole
people against privilege and aristocracy in
every form, and have claimed fair play for
all men, rich or poor, foreigner or native,
whatever their complexion and condition,
and to that end have been constantly zeal
Gus for popular education and every method
of enlightenment. They hold that the
Constitution is not compact between
sovereign governments, but is fundament-
al national law established by the people of
the United States and that the Union is
not a confederacy but nation. They be-
lieve that this National Government is
supreme, that the States are properly
subordinated TO it, and that State rights
are purely local and secondary. Therefore
they have been steadily faithful in the great
and successful struggle. 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 of the government,
conscious that all extraordinary powers we're
exercised by magistrates under the i'm
mediate supervision Of the people, and
whose acts merely recorded the popular will,
as the election of 1864 trumphantly proved.
This is the faith, and these are the 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 always ex.
cused the most appalling CRIME against hu-
man nature, and the most fatal treason to
the American principle of equal rights. un.
der the pretense Of State rights; who
persistently connived at the extension and
perpetuity of that injustice which has
soaked the land in blood and necessitated
the debt. They have been the assailants oil
free speech and free press, and have
justified the murder and maltreatment ol
citizens who climed to exercise those rights
in the Southern States. Their influence
has been adverse to general education and
wise progress and reform; and their pre-
dominance has been and is always mos,
marked among the most debased part of the
population, and in the least intelligent
portions of the country. Even now theil
Conventions, vaguely as in Maine, distinctly
and openly as in Ohio, reafirm the princi
Piles OF the Virginia and Kentucky resolu
tions of '9S, which are and always have beer
pleaded by the rebels as their justification
as they were By South Carolina for nulifica
tion in 1888, and which will always afford al
ambush for treason until they are utterl,
and expressly overtbrewn or, as in Pennsyl
vania, their Conventions deliberately declar,
that the practical recognition of the truth
Of the Declaration of Independence is higl
crime against the Constitution of the Unite(
States. They are those from whose ranks
came the chiefs OF the rebellion who de
nounced the people of the loyal States as re
ally responsible for the war who incessantl.
thwarted the Government in its efforts tt
subdue it {; who melted riots and directed
mobs; tor whose success at the polls thu
rebel chiefs and editors openly prayed in th'
midst of the war; who solicited through {
foreign Minister foreign interference in ou
contest who year ago, in their Nationa
Convention, declared the soldiers conquered
and the war failure, and who sneered a
President Lincoln as heplessly weak, or de
nouDced him as o murderer, tyrant, ant
harlequin.
These are they who compose the Demo
cratic party. They are now busily engage,
in praising the soldiers, whom last year the
slandered, and in celebrating the re-establsh
ment of the Union. They are even engage
in the pleasing process ofeating the Chicag
platform. But what has this party, i
whose Ohio Convention Vallandigham wa
chief orator, in whose Pennsylvania Cor
vention Judge Black was an applaude
teacher, who said, as Buchanan's Attorney
General, that the war would legalize secel
sion and dissolve the Union-what has thi
party done to be intrusted with power b
the American people who condemned ii s
overwhelmingly last November? We spea
of party, not of individuls. We do nj
,, forget with what absolute sacrifice, wit
what blood and money, many Democra
stood by the country. Bat neither do "
|, ,Nrget that as party the Democrats vote
al2ipst emancipation, and tnat in the Stat
\ which they controlled the amendment vi
defeated. We do not forget that if Il
: Democratic party had retained power
J 1860 they would have compromised Il
: honor of the country without permanent
! avoiding the war; and we remember, n
!, . will the American people soon forget, tn
|, !, in 1854 they solemnly proposed acquiescen
:, = in national disgrace and ruin.
These are the two parties who now soli(
;, our votes. Let every man who loves
. Union unobscured by the resolutions
= '9S," who loves his country and believ
y that equal rights for all men before the Ia
are essential to her permanent peace al
i prosperity, ask himself which of the
" " parties ought to have his vote.
a. @-S-