Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1866-08-01
Kentucky Politics

In Kentucky they are at length discovering
that there are but two roads open before the
people and voters Of the State. One leads
back into secession and the other leads for
ward into the future which the earnest Re
publicans propose for the country. The
Unionsts of that State find that Democracy
means secession, and they accordingly unite
to defeat the Democracy of that State ut the
ballot-box. Gov. Bramlette has not always
been quite earnest enough in his opposition
to the sympathizers with treason, bat in the
ollowing extracts from recent address he
speaks to the point. He says
Union men have differed-sometimes bit
terly-upon questions of policy IN conduct
| ing the war, and upon policies modes of
restoration but these differences being tenn
porary in character, necessarily pass away
upon the adjustment of the question But
| the difference between Union and secession is
the difference between life and death-it is
irreconciliable and perpetual.
Union men may differ among themselves as
| TO best modes of maintaining or conducting
the government, but they viii always differ
far more widely with those who desire its de
structiOn.
DtbWttu tuC anu cuRtoilOlS Va bllS
government of the Union, and him whose
sympathies were with those who sought to
destroy the Union there can be but one choice
! for Union men.
If it be meritorious TO have toug ght on the
CORY field of Shiloh, and many other hard
bought fields of blood to maintain an un-
broken Union, and to be for the entire resto-
| ration of the government, then Gen. Edward
III. Hobson meets the full measure of merit.
If it be meritorious to have stood in sym
pathy with those in arms to overthrow the
government and divide the Union, then Judge
Duvall, as the representative of the lst of
May convention, fills the measure of merit
i speak for myself, that while can forgive
and forget the wrongs of rebellion, j never
can declare by my vote that it was meritori-
GUS. l am willing to ignore but not reward
it. might be willing to support a man who
fought in good faith against us, but came
back in good faith and manifested himself to
| be true and loyal to the Union, and who stood
| for office upon his own merits but not for
any man who may run upon the merit of his
| wrong
| If Judge Duvall were an independent can
didate, resting his claims upon his own per-
sonal merits, he would occupy very differ
ent attitude in my estimation /; but being the
representative of the LIST of May convention,
and therefore of the organized disloyalty of
the state, which seeks to keep alive the en-
bers of rebllious sentiment he must be
Judged accordingly.
The name Democrat assumed by the
convention, has neither length nor breadth
enough to cover up or hide from the public
gaze the patent fact that those who composed
that body were not Union men--were not
democrats, but were men whose sympathies
and acts were adverse to the Union. The
candidate of a party that has no word Of
thanks for the Union soldier-nO word OF
condemnation for secession and rebellion
| throughout nineteen resolutions, can have nC
| personal merits sufficient to abate one
title of my opposition. OF OF
'' L am for my country first, and for its
defenders next. Yours truly,
THos. E. BRAMLETTE. -