Wyoming democrat. [volume] (Tunkhannock, Wyoming Co., Pa.) 1867-1940, 1868-03-25
The Buckshot War

AAS ouCSSI1Ob wal
The condition of things at the National
Capitol to-day, very forcibly reminds the
spectator of the scenes enacted nearly
thirty years ago at the Capital of the State of
Pennsylvania not only because it Is by
the same political party, and because the
object is the same but also the leading
actor in the present drama is the indentl-
cal individual who led the revolutionary
forces in the attempt to subvert the gov
ernment of this State The whole histor-
ical parallel is suggestive and curious,
and we cannot resist the temptation of
celebrating it somewhat, for the informa.
| ton of our younger readers, and as a re-
memhrancer to the older ones.
As in 1860, the Republicans came into
power by a most unfortunate and fatal di-
vision in the Democratic party so in 1886,
Joseph Ritner, became Governor of the
State of Pennsylvania, because the Demo
| Gratis divided their strength between Wolf
and Muhlenberg. Thus in both instances,
the party Of the minority came into power,
and in both, the same party sought to pro-
long, its lease by trampling upon the
rights of the people. by carrying elections
at the point of the bayonet, or by treating
them as if they had never been held. In
! both cases weak aud Inefficient and unex-
perienced men came into power, and in
both they were attended, wrought upon
and controlled by the same unscrupulous
demagogue. So, too, in Pennsy lvania,
the Radicals attempted to inaugurate a
civil war, through the action of the House
of Representatives, but failed while on the
grander arena of the House of Congress
at Washington, their success was per-
| feet.
In the one case they attempted to pre-
vent Governor Porter from taking bis
seat, and in the other they are now at
tempting to deprive President Andrew
| ohnson of his. In the one case they in
voked the aid Of Judge Houston of the
State Supreme Court, and in the other
they tamper with Judge Chase, ofthe SD
preme Courts of the United Slatcs. In
the one case they sought to defeat the
adoption of the Constitution in Penn =
sylvania, and in the other, to do away with
and destroy the Constitution Of the Uni
ted States.
Grown older in wickedness and bolder
in iniquity, the man who fled from the
| righteous Indignation Of the aroused peo-
pie of Pennsylvania, through the back
window Of the Senate chamber, in 1888 ;
now, in 1868, lords it over the people of
the whole Union, having on a grandeur
and more magnificent scale, accomplished
the setting mp of that despotism, which
the people OF Pennsylvania defeated him
in, thirty years ago. Then Thaddeus
Stevens and his radical conlreres proposed
only to dlsfranchise the county Of Phila-
delphia, and prevent the regularly elected
members Of the Legislature from that place
from taking their seats, and he failed 3;
now, he boldly and successfully depr,ves
Ten S0vereign States of this Union, OF
their legal and constitutional representa-
ton in Congress!
Oh that there existed now, the love OF
virtue, of law, and OF liberty, which made
itself felt in all its majesty, but one genera
tiOn ago instead OF seeing the defeated
hero Of the Buckshot war leading in an
other crusade against the rights and liber-
ties of the whole nation we should find
seeking some obscure hiding place, in the
shelter of which he could escape the right
eous indignation of an insulted, an out
ragged and betrayed people, Columbian.