Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1868-08-04
General Frank Blair's Letter Accepting
the Nomination for Vice President.
OMAHA, NEBRASKA, July Is, l

Lne N0m1naCl0n 10r vice freS1uenC
OMAHA, NEBRASKA, July Is, 1868.
General George W. Morgan, Chairman Com
mittee National Democratic.C Contention
GENERAL: l take the earliest opportunity Of
replying to your letter, notifying me of my
nomination for Vice President of the United
States by the National Democratic Convention,
recently held in the city of New York =,
L accept without hesitation the nomination
rendered in manner so gratifying, and give
you and the committee my thanks for the very
kind and complimentary language in which you
have conveyed to me the decision of the con-
vention.
| 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 dis
crlminate the great contending parties have
been freely expressed on all suitable occasions,
and L 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
the sophistries of our adversaries They all
resolve themselves into the old and eyer-renew-
ing struggle of few men to absorb the politi-
cal power of the nation. This effort, under
every conceivable name and disguise, has al
ways characterized the opponents of the Dem
ocratlc party, but at no time has the attempt
assumed a shape so open and daring as in this
contest
The adversaries of free and constitutional
government, in defiance of the express language
of the Constitution, have erected military
despotism in ten of the States of the Union
have taken from the President the powers
vested in him by the supreme law, and have
deprived the Supreme Court of its Jurisdiction
The right OF trial by jury and the great writ
of right the habeas corpus-shields of safety
for every citizen, and which have descended to
us from the earliest traditions of our ancestors
and which our Revolutionary fathers sought to
secure to their posterity forever in the funda-
mental character Of our liberties-have been
trampled under foot by the fragment
of Congress. Whole States and communi-
ties OF people OF our own race have been at
tainted, convicted, condemned, deprived of
their rights as citizens, without presentment,
or trial, or Witnesses but by Congressional
enactment of ec post Jacto laws, and in defiance
OF the constitutional prohibition denying even
to full and legal Congress the authority to
pass any bill Of attainder or ex post tacto law
The same usurping authority has substituted
as electors in the place of the men of our own
race, thus Illegally attainted and disfranchised.
o host Of ignorant negroes, who are supported
ln ideness with the public money, and COM
blned together to strip the white race of their
blrthrlght, through the management of Freed
men S Bureaus and the emissaries of conspira-
tors In other States and, to complete the op-
preston, the military power of the nation has
been placed at their disposal, in order to make
this barbarism supreme.
The military leader under whose prestige this
usurping Congress has taken refuge since the
Of their schemes by the free peo
pie Of the North in the elections of the last
year, and whom they have selected as their
candidate to shield themselves from the result
of their own wickedness and crime, has an
his willingness to maintain their usurpations
over eight millions of white people at the
South, fixed to the earth with his bayonets.-
He eycaims, "Let us have peace" 'Peace
reigns in Warsaw" was the announcement
which heralded the doom of the liberties of
nation. 1.-The Empire is peace" exclaimed
when freedom and its defenders ex-
pired under the sharp edge Of his sword The
peace to which Grant invites US is the peace Of
despotism and death.
Those who seek to restore the Constitution
by executing the will of the people condemning
the reconstruction acts, already pronounced in
the elections Of last year, and which WILL am
be still more emphatically expressed
BY the election of the Democratic candidate as
the President of the United States, are de-
nounced as revolutionists by the partizans of
this vlndictive Congress. Negro suffrage,
which the popular vote Of New York, New
Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Con-
necticut and other States have condemned as
expressly against the letter of the Constitution,
must stand, because their Senators and Repre-
sentatives have willed it. IF the people shall
again condemn these atrocfous measures by the
election Of the Democratic candidate for Presi-
dent, they must not be disturbed, although de-
clded to be unconstitutional by the Supreme
Court, and although the President is sworn to
will Of fraction of a Congress, reinforced with
its partisan emissaries sent to the South and
there by the soldiery, must stand
against the will of the people and the decision
OF the Supreme Court, and the solemn oath of
the President to maintain and support the Con-
stitution
1t is revolutionary to execute the will of the
people! 1t is revolutionary to execute the
Judgment Of the Supreme Oourt 1t is revo-
lutlonary In the President to keep invioate his
oath to sustain the Constitution This false
of the vital principle of our Gov
is the last resort of those who would
have their arbitrary re construction sway and
our time honored institutions. The
stored, and the will of the people again pre-
vail. The appeal to the peaceful ballot to at
tain this end is not war, is not revolution. They
make war and revolution who attempt to arrest
this quiet mode of putting aside military des-
potism and usurpations of fragment of
Congress, asserting absolute power over that
benign system Of regulated liberty left us by
our fathers. This must be allowed to take its
course. This is the only road to peace 1t
will come with the election of the Democratic
and not with the election of that
mailed warrior, whose bayonets are now at the
throats of eight millions of people in the South,
to compel them to support him as a candidate
for the Presidency, and to submit to the domi-
nation of an alien race of semi barbarous men,
No perverson Of truth or audacity of misrep-
resentation can exceed that which halls this
in arms as an angel of peace
am, very respectfully, your most obedient
servant, FRANK P. BLAIR.
The Canary Bird and the Mirror.
A pretty incident is related of canary bird
The door of the birds cage was occasionally
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