Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1867-09-12
The Crimes Of the Demo
,., "sS-, ,.,i cratic Party, ,aa
A Terrible, Indictment
Great Speech by Mr.. shellabarger

Hon. Samuel Sheliabarger made an
elaborate speech. in Columbus, on the
Goth uit. His indictment of the Demo
cratic party Is terrible. We COPY that
part of his speech in full: ~ ~ '''
,... PAST OF DEMOCRACY. ..
There are two considerations which
make IL q crime in the citizen not to
scrutinize the past of political parties,
before he unites i'm action with either.-
One of these considerations Is that mo
man lives who can afford to infiict on
himself and child the consequences of
being one of that band who contriyed the
plot, and set the guns, and brewed the
poisons, and whet and struck. the knife
which were meant to take away. the ma
tion's life. Since the Christian seiyiliza-
tion began to be the controlling moral
force of the world, there has not been a
man who could afford to have been party
TO such crime any more than he can
afford to he Arnold in the betrayal at
West Point, or Booth in the plot for
Lincoln's murder, or Iscariot in that
scene at Gethsemane.i ii u. .-l5. t,i...
"d These moral pOllutiOns kill, and kill
down through the ages. Who can afford
now to be the descendant of a Tory of
the Revolutiono The man who has be-
COIne I'LL eItiIiy lilo Cohttiy.
or of human liberty, taints his own and
taints his child's blood with virus, ter
rible as the mark of Gains the ileprosyl of
Naaman, and the worms of HerOd. ~,
Nav say to YOU, men and women of the
Republic, that neitherone ofyou can afford
to belong, or approach neafto, ,eithert that
oand of men who planned and wrought
for your country's murder, or that other
and meaner, because more cowardly, one
at the North who held their garments
who did the murder. Already the scorn
of the natiOns-a scorn which the CEN
turies shall augment forever as they go
slowly by-has traced the black, deep,
ineffaceable DEAD LINE around these
bands of criminals, whose meant guilt
was to perpetually overthrow Liberty
bamOngst men, and to found governments
upon the enslavement and chattelization
of the souls of Gods poor. Guided by
the common conscience of the civilized
world, and cut by that ineXorable pen of
| iron and point of diamond with which
History engraves the imperishable de-
crees of the ages, that fatal DEAD LINE
has been drawn to stand forever. Out
| from its fearful enclosure none will ever
| 90 and be alive, and into it none will
ever pass and not be dead. Young men
of America! may i pray you by your
of nhiid9nf seIfHof God do neither mass
within, or approach that dead LINE?"
| In employing these figures Of speech,
and in so praying you, indulge in none
| of the heextravaganceso of inflamed rhetoric,
hut on the other hand utter the coldest,
plainest teachings of most familiar His
tory. That they who We're parts. aids
of the recent and stupendous crime are
consigned to infamy, would no more
4 4 4.
crime of Judas. the bloodiness of Calig-
MA or the infamy of Jeffreys. 80,
u The other reason why it is logical and
damanded that we now inuuire what
hare been the relations of political parties
TO their country's attempted destruction,
is that we learn the future by the past
hest know what men,s;and parties prin-
,cipIes-purposes--a will be in the near
| future. by knowing What these were in
4 tlie near past. 1 am, then, neitharilog-
| ical nor censorious when refuse to com
! 'nlv with the request these recent allies OF
treason now beseechingly make of us all
I over the Republic, to ignore the past and
! FORGET the awful events of our most re-
cent history. Did I, in this argument
or should nv countrymen, in their future
care of the government, forget the pasl
of these state criminals. or permit such
"bve gonesn to be "bye gones,U then
would NV logic be huge with vice, and
nv counfrymen will have first BETRAYED
and then losttheir country. What! In
SELECTING voiIr' companions or your party
or yollr rulers. are yoti to ignore theil
1 liyesp DO men select the known THE
for custodian of their Jewels? s?ncDo they
I commit their child's purity to the con
I virtej nrofiirate? Do YOU give YOU,
lambs to the wolves to keep? Or do you
make the snakes bedfellows to your chill
dreno IT UT M .."s g lfia..4 ,
l. r shall therefore. ask who, of them now
demandinp vo,Ir nolitical companionshir
and wonr sIlffTages. were authors or part.
ners i'm vour country's ATTEMPTED over.
throwq 49, - - ''''.IF 1000
First of all remember now. as History
will forever that It was inside of the
| Da,nocrotic marty. and by the brains and
hamdS Of its known and recognized lead
orc wbo CENTRALIZED the Marty that thi,
bmge crime was contriyed in ali its parts
an5 tbat it's bloody work was begun
Thara in the Tbirfy.sixth Congress- onf
at the Capital of the nation, and at othel
asrasd npints dav nv dav night bV
night the whole nation and the worlS
saSS tbe arch consnirators, I'm the name
and in the bowels of this party. complete
tha nian and begin the work. Of the ma.
HMM dostrncti0ni AND note n my