Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1867-09-12

mand Of the Northern wing OF these
rebel armies. .-.tra- 4frf.g
The plans and preparations of these
conspirators included, not merely tie
joining with their forces Of tbree hun
dred thousand Sons Of Liberty the arm
les Of the rebellion. 1t included, also,
whatever the malice, revenge, cupidity
or lust of the conspirators might dictate.
And the theater of this bloody enact
ment was to extend from the st. Law
renee and Hudson to the sources of the
Mississippi and Missouri.
Such, my fellow-citizens, IL an allusion
to the mere outlines of conspiracy, the
unapproachable villainy Of which sinks
into absolute insignificance the worst
events of history. ...4'
9 THE GovERNMENT's DANGER.
Such was the state of the relations of
the Democratic party to the country in
the summer of 1864, when another scene
in the same fearful drama was enacted
And it is most proper to look at wsat
was the state of your country then
Was it at a time when your injured
government had become master In the
awful conflict, and when its foes were
defeated and Frustrated? Could your
Government then safely meet and defy
that accession to the moral forces Of the
rebellion to which we are about to al
lude?i Alas, no. 1t WAS at the very
climax of liberty's conflict with slavery
for life-a conflict, a climax which has
come but once on our continent, and
which, may Heaven grant, shall never
come again. 1t was when the scales of
battle hung doubtful and trembling i'm
the Heavens, whose turning was to decide
whether the souls of the poor, turned by
htrrn Clo M no tNyr nj 'c nh at nl
were to be thereafter and forever the
cornerstone" OF governments. And
at that awful moment it looked to men
as if one life thrown into the rebel end of
the scale might decide the issue of slavery
forever! 1t was when the Government
had already endured the bloody conflict
for its life for more than three years. A
million of the nations children had put
their lives into the scale for the Govern
ment, and near three hundred thousand
of them had been lost. Almost every
family in the land wore the vestments of
sorrow, for there was scarce 81 "house in
which there was not one dead" 1t was
Just when Sherman was going victorious
from Chattanooga, by Atlanta, down to
the sea, and was strewing the earth with
whole hecatombs of the nations sons
1t was when Grant pushed back the re-
bellion from the Rapidan toward Rich
mond, and was scattering along the line
nearly hundred thousand more of the
nations dead. 1t was at this crisis of the
dreadful conflict, when all the good men
of the world-all lovers of free govern
ment teverywhere--stoOds spectators of the
conflict, and breathless with fear that
liberty might lose. Of these spectators
not one ON earth was so much "A fool as
not to know that then the existence OF
the Republic and the cause of human
| freedom on the continent were staked on
the issues of the tight--that the battle
| stopped or the battle lost, the Union and
| Liberty were lost.
But it was hen-YEs, THEN-that this
Democratic party, having before, as
have told, organized and drilled theil
| hundreds of thousands of sworn traitors
armed to Join the rebellion, met in ma.
| tional convention at Chicago, remorse.
lessly threw the weight of its party's
power into the scale for the nations
death! 1t declared the nations conflict
for life unjust-a failure, and that it must
stop. 1t was the decree of the Demo
cratic party solemnly pronounced and
recorded for the Republics overthrow
! 1t was the Judgment of three hundred
| thousand conspiIators, banded for that
| Judgment nt'senforcement, that the treason
I I'm arms against the life of thenation and
| all free government should triumph
And from that tribunal, which made the
decree, went there out instantly to the
work of its execution the combined NOR
| al and physical forces of the Democratic
party, already secretly organized, armed
and drilled for their work of murderl
49, r'''. TiE GUILT. a ...
These allusions, my countrymen, are
| not exaggerations, but most feeble un-
derstaternents of that partys ineXpressi-
bic guilt. The magnitude of that guilt
will be never rightly portrayed until some
| future Dante shall come to the ghastly
theme with pencil lighted and darkened
in Internal fires, and shall sketch crime
! so dark as to add new terrors to the re-
cords of human guilt, and new horrors to
the Internal.
WHAT BY LAW THE CoNSPIRATORs DE-
,...... SERVE
only speak the plainest truisms OF
government, the unvarying experiences
| of all past nations, the most obvious and
! commonplace lessons of history, and the
| irresistible teachings of common sense,
when / say, as / do most deliberately
that by all the requirements OF justice, ol
law, of government, of safety to the ma
tion,s life, these men-the Thurmans
| NallanQlgnamS, BOWleS, anu MliilSdils
of this party, and authors of these at,
! tempts to destroy the nation, ought to be
justly, but sternly and resolutely tried
convicted, and put TO death. And Ue5
ought not to be made rulers Of the nation
I~1 CRUELTY OF OUR MERCY. II
And may say here and now that thu
crime of which our government has beeI
guilty, which, for bad eminence out
ranks all its other recent crimes agains
its great life, is found in those acts ant
practices by which she has practically
abolished all the distinctions between
| LOYALTY and rebellion-tre treason and pa
! triotisin- between ones dying for the
nations life and for its death; between
! Davis and Lincoln; between Vallandig
ham and Morton between Thurman
and Hayes, t... O.
What bitter fruits has that policy o
mercy .already borne which ignores the
criminality of crime; spares the traitor
so that he may consummate his treason
caresses the assassin so that he may com
plete his murder!
| here quit this part of my theme will
! the remark that people who were wise
enough and brave enough to defend ant
save the nations life from the united ant
stupendous treason of the Democratic
party South and North, will scarcely b'
so weak and cowardly now as to sur
render to their defeated enemies the