The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-10-15

Niagara, how would you with the same
weapon set IL running baokwardi The
Southern States are reconstructed on the
basis Of universal suffrage. Some OF them are
restored to the Union. More than two-thirds
oil Congress passed and will maintain this
policy, whoever may be President. This ma
Jority cannot be overcome in less than four
years. After the blacks have voted four wears.
do yoa hope then to disfranohise them ? Ssy.
mour as President, therefore, could do nothing
towards white mans government" which
Johnson has not already done unless, az indi-
Gated by General Blair, he should use the
army in defiance OF Congress and its laws
This would be revolution and rebellion. You
tried those remedies under Jefferson Davis
DO you need to try them again to recall their
effects 7 Seymour, therefore, could avail you
nothing whatever in the matter of recon
structou.
II. "You would like" you say, "to see
taxes diminished" No tax is so disastrous
as the depreciation of the currency. Yet your
Democratic party proposes to convert the
entire national debt into currency by paying
it in greenbacks. This would reduce its value
to nominal figure or destroy IL altogether,
so deranging the business of the country as to
bring ruin on millions of people. Your Demo-
cratic party would have q President assume
the rod of dictator, prop himself up by
standing army, and defy the laws which he is
sworn to enforce. Such a course would call
your sons or yourselves again into the field
to fight, willing or unwilling, aud would drain
the country of countless millions of treasure
to be destroyed in civil wars. Can you
afford it2
Ill. "You adhere" you say, ''to the ancient
principles of the Democratic party" II so,
that forms the most conclusive reason why
you ought not to support its present platform
and candidates. The Democratic party be-
lieved snciently in specie currency. Now,
it would flood the country with irredeemabe
paper money. II believed anciently in free
trade. Now its platform contains an insncere
and bypocritical clause advocating protec-
tive tariff, put in to catch gudgeons in Penn
sylvania. 1t was jealous anoiently Of des-
potic Executive, and labored to maintain the
liberties of the people and the power of their
representatives. Now it indorses one Presi-
dent for attempting to override Congress, and
nominates another on his promise to repeat
the effort.
The Democratic party was formerly Jealous
to preserve the rights of States. But If that
question is in any way involved in this con-
test, the Democratic party is on the Federal
ist side OF the controversy. II acknowledges
the power of President of the United States
to apnul and destroy ten State governments,
some of which existed from the formation Of
the Union, and to substitute for them new
governments dictated by himself without any
ouehOAlbJ VI laws w uab pOWoI cdu U6
Federalistic, more subversive of State rights,
or more autocratic and despotic 1t then
denies the power of Congress to enable by law
the whole people of these States to form State
governments of their own, based on universal
suffrage. What doctrine can be more isgrant
Federalism or more subversive of State rights
than that President may create ten new
States without consulting the representatives
of the other twepty.seven, or any portion of
the people?
Finally, the Democratic party was anciently
the party of universal suffrage. Noah Web
ster, himself Democrat, forty years age de-
fined Democrat to be Zone who advocates
the extension of the elective franchise to all
conditions of men, But the Democracy of
to-day rests solely on the hobby of the exclu-
sion of whole race of native-born citizens of
America from the franchise. What principle
of democracy can inhere in a party which,
abandoning State rights and popular sove-
reignty, sustains the most despotic usurpa-
tiops by the Executive of legislative powers i?
What in a party that abhors universal suf-
frage and olings to caste What in party
that advocates protective tariffs in Pennsylva-
mia and free trade in Maine That substitutes
for the will of the majority the threat of revo-
luton Every Democrat who believes in the
essence of time-honored Democratic principles
should vote for Grant and Colfsx.