The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1868-11-21
The Progress of Monarchy in America.
FRAUDULENT VOTING IT'S AGENT.
from Wilkes Spirit of the Times. ]

FRAUDULENT NOT1NG lis aUENl.
from Wilkes Spirit of the Times.l
The highest crime known in a monarchy
is the murder of the king the deadliest
felony which can be perpetrated under
republic is the corruption of suffrage. In
each case the attempt is to assassinate the
sovereignty, and in both the contrivers OF
the deed deserve the gibbet. tt. ~
In the latter case the crime is greatest,
for it not only strikes down the sovereignty
but taints the very source from which al
future sovereignty must spring. In the
first case new kings may rise superior to
the monarch slain in the second it is the
State itself is poisoned, and it must rot
down to the root and be overturned for
some more healthful system.
1t may be said that the corruption of the
suffrage is limited evil which the COM
pensatiOns of our system can resist but
who shall say, that if fraud shall become
chronic, and SO extend itself as to always
represent success, the good features of our
institutions will not permanently succumb
under vice, SO that even the most patriotic
citizens may be brought to prefer a life and
law-preserving monarchy? Who can doubt,
if such brigand elections as these of Geor-
gia and Louisiana can have official recogni-
frightful frauds recently perpetrated in
New York shall go unchallenged to the
same endorsement that we are not upon
the very brink of that dark fall, which the
rebellion planned for us seven years ago =?
A republic can only exist upon majority
of honest votes subvert that majority by
fraudulent incision and villanous des-
potism is already in EXISTENCE despotism
which, being born of hell and run by per-
jury and money, will take any form its ar
istocratic leaders please.
There are a thousand signs in the air of
the tendency of the Democratic leaders to-
ward monarchy. In the South it covers
the whole land, and exhibits its despotic
instincts by denying to labor the right OF
employment except upon surrender of
political opinions and in the North the
once proud Democratic party is SO broken
by the Southern rod that it adopts the
cowardly system, and enforces it with un-
scrupulous barefacedness..
Twenty years ago, an attempt to impose
such infamous coercion upon the high
spirited working man of the North would
have led to public hue and-cry, and pos
sibly riot and some political miscreant
who had most palpably. applied the out
rage, would doubtless have been driven
out of town. Now, however, the lords of
Tar,many make the practical disfranchise-
ment of the masses the firstcondltion of their
system, and require every employer in their
ranks to dragon his wOrkmen to vote the
Democratic ticket upon pain of immediate
discharge. To this shameful servitude
have these misnamed Democrats reduced
the masses under their CONTROL and it is no
wonder, therefore, that the gaudy aristoc-
racy which f1utters SO shiningly over the
rough plaster cast of this touchdown sub
stratum should nestle luxuriously in the
velvet alcoves of the Manhattan Club, or
give bounties for the encouragement of
liveries, as at the nobby meetings of the
Jerome Park. All that we paint is true,
and it is a scene for the cogitation of a
philosopher to behold the United States
passing gradually backward under the disk
of monarchy, just as Spain is bursting
through the gloom of centuries-her beau
tiful face jocund with the morning rays of
liberty, is beaming toward us for bene-
diction.
The dark side of this picture is truly told
against the South, and the Democratic
leaders of the North. 1t is contrast
against us, which should bow the head of
every American with shame. Nay, more,
it should rouse every man who loves his
country to take instant action to investi-
gate the late election frauds, and hold the
detestable indicators who have thus
swindled the public of its voice, as guilty
of the highest form of treason. This, we
say, is the duty Of evey man, ofevery party
who retains any love Of country, and espe-
cially the duty of that party which had the
custody of the principles that have been
thus villainously overwhelmed. Unless
this be done now, when a budget ofat least
eighty thousand frauds in this State alone
, are shaken insolently in our faces, we are
Oh the very brink of monarchy, or some
thing worse and the Republican organiza-
ton, whose duty it was to guard against
such doings, should at once dissolve as inca
pable of administration. The people are
tired of hearing them charge fraud and of
quietly sitting down under it and unless
they now take it by the throat, and make
a bold effort to prevent its seizure of the
State, and its deflement of the electoral
record, the public will hold it to be guilty.
though imbecility, with the villains who
have engineered full forty thousand fraud
ulent votes into the ballot-boxes of this
city,
We believe, however, that vigilant eff
fort is to be made by powerful committee
in this city to upturn those frauds, to re-
verse their effect before the State and ma
tional canvassers, and to punish all, with
out respect to their condition, who put the
infamous machinery in force. There can be
but little difficulty in accomplishing the
first of these results. Evidence can easily
be had that there has been an issue of more
than forty thousand fraudulent naturaliza-
ton certificates in this city, and it can
probably be shown that thirteen thousand
of those were voted upon by the employees
of the Erie Railroad, in the division of
three thousand to New Jersey and ten
thousand to New York-thus carrying both
States handsomely for Seymour.
In this city alone, it has been claimed
that twenty thousand of these false papers
were voted on, and that twenty thousand
more would have got ballots into the box
es, if it had not been for the terrific scare
inflicted upon the tradesmen connected
with this particular branch of Democratic
/" Industry by the arrest of Roseberg &
Co., through the United States Court Of
"repeaters in the city, there could not
have been less than twenty thousand votes,
and these, it is admitted, were largely re-
duced in numbers and efficiency by the in
dictments obtained against many of them
in Philadelphia, by the New York City
Central Committee, for previous offenses
at the October Pennsylvania election.
Here is mass of fraud SO frightful in it's
bulk, and so shameless and open in its
character, as cannot be contemplated with
a shudder. Let us add, that it cannot be
left to the unchallenged possession of its
engineers, without an acquiesence in its
system, and a consequent abandonment of
the suffrage, nay, of the very form of our
Government altogether. 1t remains for
the Republican party to solve this problem.
1t will have many patriotic Democrats,
who have now thought the matter through
for the first time, to heartily assist it in its
task, and the only enemies which it will
have, to resist the due performance of their
duty, will be the most corrupt and guilty
of the Copperheads and those rich Repub-
licans who, either through feebleness of
heart or to avoid the risk Of being called
upon for money, shall pooh-pooh the efforts
of the committee, by saying that the thing
cannot be done These latter are the
most dangerous enemies of all, for they dis
courage the hearts of their friends, only to
betray them to their foes This kind of
advisers usually counsel mild and careful
measures, when the only safe course is to
0nf{ wi tIp0 L =