Bedford inquirer. [volume] (Bedford, Pa.) 1857-1884, 1868-10-09

aciatle party North and South, was a unit
in opposition to the war, and in favor of
peace on almost any terms. The emanci-
patton of the slaves was resented as deeply
by the Democrats of Vermont and Wiscon
sin as by the rebels of Georgia, both de-
nounclng 1t as an unconstitutional blow
directed against those engaged in armed
treason against the United States.
The Convention of September, 1864, oe
which Horatio Seymour was President aud
Vallandigham and Pendleton were members,
voted unanimously that the attempt to re-
duee the Southern Democracy, to obedience
to the laws and the constitution by four
years Of war, bad been failure; that Vicks-
burg was failure; that the opening of the
Mississippi river was failure; that Gettys-
burg was failure that the final campaigns
then commenced by Grant in Virginia and
Sherman in Tennessee were destined to be
failures; and, in short everything must be a
failure which had not been instituted by the
Democratic party, with a view to the
restoration Of national affairs to their con-
dition in 1860 and TO the abandonment by
the American people of any effort to wrest
the government of the United States from
the bands Of secessionists. No Rebel Gen
erals, publicly accredited as delegates, we're
at that conventions; but there were many
thousand rebel soldiers in Chicago at the
time sojourning at Camp Douglas, and
numerous rebel officers in disguise had
swarmed here from Canada to consult with
their brethren in Convention. The result
Of the election in November, 1864, was an
emphatic refusal by the American people
to put the public interests, directly, or in
directly, 10 the charge Of those who sym
pathized with the rebels in arms, and who
proposed any other policy than the uu-
conditional submission of all men, com
manities and States to national supremacy.
The people repudiated the Democratic party
and its candidates because of the thinly
disguised, but essential identity in political
sentiment, aud policy between the party and
those engaged in the rebellion.
In 1868 the fraternity with rebellion and
with rebels; the active sympathy with the
lost cause the confessed necessity of con-
ferrng upon the rebels the exclusive poIiti
cal power in their States in order to give
the Democratic party the faintest hope of
success; the onen promise to the rebels that
if the candidates were elected, the,results of
the war should be reversed, and 'the coun-
try be compelled to undo its usurpations,,
and that the old Constitutions and govern
meuts of the rebel States as they existed
during the war should be declared the
legitimate Constitutions and governments Of
those States, notwithstanding their disfran
chisement ifevery person whose liberty de-
pends upon the permanence Of the Ameri-
can Union; the open and frank declaration
that the acts Of Congress since 1865, provi-
ding for the establishment of peace and or
der, liberty and equal rights in all those
States, are "void, and therefore may be
lawfully violated and resisted; the promise
that a Democratic President and Cabinet
will employ the army 10 trample these
laws into the DUST the promise that the
president elect shall declare who are to sit
in the House of Representatives and com
pei the Senate TO submit to his action
these professions, declarations and promises,
amounting to the adoption of the recent
rebellion and its actors by the Democratic
party as its own-can leave no doubt in the
minds of reasonable men as to the conseq-
ucnces of the election of Seymour and Blair
Had Breckenridge been elected in 1860
thercbels would have seized the government
and forced the North either tosubmit to the
slave power and to the extension of slavery
as the supreme policy Of the government,
or to leave the Union. Had Mcclellan and
Pendeton been elected in 1864 there was
danger that the policy of the government at
Washington and at Richmond would have
been concluded These things the Ameri-
can people thoughly understood, and reso-
lutely forbade by the election and reelection
of Mr.. Lincoln. Ifin 1860 there was salts
factory evidence that the cause of the De
mocracy was the cause of the rebels, the
evidence in 1868 to the same effect is over
wheming- 1t is furnished by every line of
the platform; by the speeches of Hampton
Wise Vance, Forrest. Semmes Cobb, Hill
and Perry; aud all that has been said and
writtenby Frank Blair since the Convention,
The popular rebuke of Democratic rebellion
was a crushing one in 1864 Let 1868 wit
ness an even more overwhelming storm
against Seymour and Blair and the Wade
Hampton platform.
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