Weekly Trinity journal., 1867-06-01
From the Marysville Appeoll
Prophecy, Presumption and Reality.

~ predict" said Senator Wilson. speaking to
the negroes in the District of Columbia. July
4th, 1864, 81 predict that before FIVE wears have
rolled around you will be allowed to vote. and
right here in Washington, too Washington
didn't pin its faith to that prophecy, but on the
contrary, laughed it to scorn. ssYes, VOTE"
continued ne, 'go up to the polls and vote with
Mayor Wallach. They won't call you niggers,
then, particularly if you vote the Democratic
ticket There was good deal of chuckling
over that last shot, and not simply among the
blacks, either Scarcely more than half the
time named by Mr.. Wilson has passed, and the
negro stands in the District with the ballot, and
he is no more spoken of as g ngger, but rather,
as " one of our coored citizens" and farther
South, where they have more hope of his vote,
he IS addressed as "a colored gentleman" To
Drlng TINS matter nearer home, We find the San
francisco Examiner already boasting a
" Conservative victory" in Alabama won by the
votes of '' colored citizens p We have pre-
dicted many times that the Copperheads of this
State would yet claim to be the original Black
Republican party-that it was the pioneer Re-
publlcans W ho mobbed and rottened egged pub
Tic speakers and prevented free discussion, and
not Democrats That Buchanan, not Lincoln,
issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and set
the negro free ! That the Democrats prosecuted
the war to success, and it was the Republican
P"A - tH"l pbSSeu RESOLUTIONS declaring - tuc
war failure 7" Why not? Do not secession
sympathising Copperheads now impudenty in
suit US by claiming they are loyal and we dis
loyal! If this is true, the Copperheads have
rlghtiul claim to all the patriotic acts and sac
rlhces OF real Union men during the war. If
one of the Copperhead presumptions is true, it
was us who assassinated Lincoln, and it was
Republicans who rejoiced at the bloody deed.
and Republicans who were sent to Fort Alcatraz
T1a IL Il
desperate extremities by the failure of the war
and the unpopularity which attenh such dis
comfiture. The disloyal odum at (hed to the
party weighs it down. The leadeN Ire endeav-
oring to shake off the record, but it is indellible
so deeply engrafted upon individuals that it
cannot be rooted out only by new generation.
The leading Northern Copperhead, and the dis
franchised Rebel of the South, stand precisely
alike-public opinion disfranclrises the former,
and law, the result of public opinion, disfran
ches the latter. The next generation-the
young Democrats in their minority who escape
legal disfranchisement in the South, and the
edict of public opinion in the North, to great
extent will avoid the responsibilities and diSa-
billties OF their disloyal progentors. The Fed
eralists of 1872 were prosecuted politically, but
the Federal odium passed off in the next genera
ton; and before the Democratic party cleanses
itself of the infection and the political rot
brought upon itself by sympathetic treason, the
individuality of the party will have passed away.
Whether the party can revive with the rising
generation is question of little Importance to
those now occupying the political stage. A par
ty, assuming the name, may some day come out
of the different questions and policies which are
to be born under the great political changes now
taking shape. But the old principles of the
Democratic party are dead, dead, dead. They
lie buried side by side the Southern Confederacy
The Copperheads can say, in the language of the
brave and magnanimous General Longstreet
@ These issues expired upon the fields last oc-
cupied By the Confederate armies. There they
should have been buried. The political ques-
tions of the war should have been buried upon
the field that marked their end. Let deposit
i'll the same grave the agony of our grief, that
we may the better prepare ourselves for return
to the duties of life.