Des Arc weekly citizen., 1868-08-18
our Job Printing Departmep
Gen. Blair's Letter of Accep-
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 t0MCe.
 The following is the letter of accep- tance of Gen. Blair, which, like every thing which comes from him, is honest, frank and explicitsa
 Gen. Geo. Morgan, Chairman of Committee National Democratic Convention
 GENERAL: take the earliest cppor- tunity ofreplying to yoar letter notify sng me of my nomination for Vice President of the United States by tic National Democratic Convention, re- gently held in the city of New York. accept without hesitation, the nomi- nation rendered in manner so gratify- ing, and give you and the committee my thanks for the kind and compliment tary language in which you have con- veyed to me the declsion of the Con- yention, l have carefully read the resolutions adopted by the Convention, and most cordially concur in every principle and sentiment they announce. My opinion upon all the questions which discriminate the great contend ing parties have been freely expressed upon all suitable occasions, and do not deem it necessary at this time to reiterate them. The issues upon which the contest turns are clear, and cannot be obscured or distorted by thu sophis- tries of our adversaries. They all resolve themselves into the old and evcr-recurring struggle of a few men to absorb the political power of the nation. This effort, under every con- ceivahle name and disguise, has always characterized the opponents of the Democratic party, but at no time has the attempt assumed so open and dar- ing shape as in this contest. The adversaries of free constitutional government, in defiance of the express language of the Constitution, have erected military despotism in ten States of the Union, have taken from the President the power vested in him by the supreme law, and have deprived the Supreme Court of it's jurisdiction, and the right of trial by jury, and the great writ of right--the habeas corpus the shield of safety for every citizen, and which have descended to us from the earliest traditions of our ancestors, and which our revolutionary fathers fought to secure to their posterity for ever in the fundamental charter of our liberties, have been ruthlessly trampled under foot by fragment ofa Congress. Whole States aud communities of peo- pie of our race have been attainted, convicted, condemned and deprived of their rights as citizens, without present. ment, trial or witness, but by the Con- gressional enactment of expost facto laws, and in defiance of the constitu- tional prohibition, denying even full and loyal Congress the authority to pass any bill of attainder or expost facto law. The same usurping authori- ty has substituted as electors, in place of men of our own race, thus illegally attainted and disfranchised, host of ignorant negroes, who are supported
 
 combined together to strip the white race of their birth-right through the management of the Freedmen's Bureau and emissarics of conspirators in other States; and, to complete the oppression, the military power of the nation has been placed at their dispo- sal, in order to make this barbarism supreme. The military leader-under whose prestige this usurping Congress has taken refuge since the condemna- ton of their schemes by the free peo- ple of the North in the elections last year-aud whom they have selected as their candidate, to shield themselves from the result of their wickedness and crimc-has announced his acceptance of the nomination, and his willingness to maintain their usurpations over eight millions of white people at the South, fixed to the earth with his bavonets. He exclaims, "Let us have peace!" s'Peace reigns," was the an- nouncement which heralded the doom
 
 "The empire is peace," exclaimed Bonaparte, when freedom and its de- lenders expired under the sharp edge of the sword. The peace to which Grant invites us is the peace of despo- tism and death. Those who seek to restore the Constitutions by executing the will of the people, condeming the reconstruction acts, s,elready pronounced fin the elections of last year, and which will, I am convinced, be still more emphatically expressed by the electon of the Democratic candidate as Presi- dent of the United States, are dcnoun- ced as revolutionists by the partisans of this vindictive Congress.
 Negro suffrage, which the popular vote of New York, New Jersey, Penn sylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Con- necticut, and other States, has con- demned as expressly against the letter of the Constitution, must stand because their Senators and Representatives have willed it. If the people shall again condemn these measures by an election of Democratic candidate for the President, they must not be dis turbed, although decided to be uncon- stitutional hy the Supreme Court and although the President is sworn to maintain and support the Constitution.