Delaware gazette. [volume] (Delaware, Ohio) 1855-1886, 1866-06-08
RABleALIsM AND CONSERVATISM G0HTRAsTED


/ EDITOR GAZETTE:
You viii oblige me by publishing the
following extract from a speech of the
Hon. Henry WILSON, delivered a few
weeks since in the United States Senate
and have no doubt you will in so doing,
crafty large number of your patrons.
r.
! Sir politicians and presses are fippantIy
denOuncing the Congress of the United
/ States, and branding niue-tenths Of the
men who placed the present Administra-
F tiOn IN power as radicals. For more than
thirty years there has been a class of men
I IN our country who have instinctivelv
/ clung to every lingering wrong and walled
[ over every rotten institution as it fell
Have these political BourbOns vet to learn
that for the past thirty years the patriot
ism, freedom, justice, humanity, and the
progressive development of the Republic,
nave Deen represented by the radicals p
Have they forgotten that for thirty years
on every issue before the country the rad
icals have been vindicated by events and
by the verdict of history? Surely, gentle
men who prate OF their conservatism can
not have forgotten the glorious facts that
The radicals never plotted; never BETRAYED
the cause of freedom never fired upon the
flag of their country; never murdered the
country's defenders. Have these cOnser-
VatiVe gentlemen forgotten what the world
Will ever remember, that the radicals new
er imprisoned their women for teaching
little children to read Gods Holy Word
never lashed on the bare back laborineg
white men for expressing the opinion tha-
It would be better for wOrkingmeni if slaves
ry did not eXisGf never murdered editOrr
nor hung ministers of the living God for
questioning the divinity of slavery: nevee
seized and stuffed ballot-boxes to -oyerruIa
the viii Of the people; never Redeemed tn
midnight skies with the sacked and burn
5ar1r Il l1r,r-c yr,f1 E1ra aTr,1r
er gave halls for free discussion nor asv-
lums for orphan children to the flames.
Yes, sir, let it ever be remem bered that du-
ring the past generation the denounced
and branded radicals, moving in harmony
with the eternal forces of nature and. God
have achieved glorious victories and Won
endearing triumphs in all the struggles for
country, for the rights of man. for Justice
for humanity, and for Christian civiIiza-
ton. While timiG conservatism has ever
retreated from one lost battle for old
abuses to another, radicalism has met eve
ry demand of slavery, of injustice and of
treason with a prompt and emphatic ''1To, .
and moved right on to assured victories
victories that history viii record and com
ing generations will remember. In the /
struggles of the present and the <fufY7re /
wherever there is a wrong to be righted /
a grievance to be redressed, or a right to 4
be Ylndlcated, conservative presses and 4
politicians will find that the |
radicals viii 90 into the contest with the
light Of victories on their faces.
Sir, let conservative gentlemen who are /
ever bOastfuIIy vauuting their cOnserva-
tism remember that the crimes against
against liberty, against Justice
and against humanity that have marked
the past thirty years in America were
committed in the name of conservatism
Let conservative gentlemen remember
that conservatives trampled down for
years in Congress the sacred right of nett
ton and the freedom of speech /; arraiene1 !
before the bar of the House of Representa-
lives the illustriOus Adams, and ensured
the fearless Giddings; manaeIe q coIored
seamen on the decks of Massachusetts, shiDs /
and expelled their counsel, the aged Sam
1el HOar, from South Carolina: annexed
Texas to make slavery perpetual, and op-
posed the admission of free California: re-
ected the prohibition of slavery in New
Mexico and Utah, and enacted the fugitive
slave law; repealed the prohibition of
slavery III Kansas, enacted slave codes |
murdered free State settlers and framed
IecomptOn constitutions; struck down a
senator on the nOOr of the Senate and fired :
1pOn the flag covering bread for the star
zIng garrison of Sumter; organized treason
ind plunged the nation into civil war,
plotted insurrectiOn in the secret councils
II the Knights of the Golden Circle and / .
ired orphan asylums in the city of New
YORK; slaughtered the captured garrison
# Fort Pillow, and sacked and burned !
Lefenseless Lawrence; starved Union pris-
lnerS at AnderSOnVilie and assassinatad
he Chef Magistrate of the Republic. Fv-
ry crime for a generation against liberty ,
nd the rights of man in America has been
ommftted by men who vaunt their con 4
erVatism and denOunce the advocates of A
reedom, Justice and humanity as reckless [
gitatOrs and radicals. Conservatism hos 1
ONE to be q word in the political vocabl1- ( 2
lry Of America synonymous with coward c
3e, treaehery, baseness, and crime. 1t is c
word every man in America should 9
lush to use as descriptive of any decent q
OIltlcal organization. Ft \