Delaware gazette. [volume] (Delaware, Ohio) 1855-1886, 1868-01-10
Elfty-Elghth aeaeEaI Assembly:

The Bourbon Democracy learn moth
ing by experience. Placed again by
one OF the singular misehances of Ohio
politics in control of our State Iegisla-
tion, they set themselves about the bu-
siness of law making (and unmalzing,)
in accordance with the ancient notions,
contrary to which runneth not the Dem
ocratic memory.
It is related that once a Siberian sol
der, suffering from the intense cold,
attempted an exclamation, but got no
farther than to say sit is ex-" when he
was frozen stiff and stark. Several
hundred years. having elapsed, he was
dug out of the snow, and upon being
thawed back to consciousness his first
demonstration of vitality was to ex-
claim, ''ceedingly cold" which was the
balance ofwhat he eintendedtosay when
paralyzed by the frost.
So with Democracy. While its voice
was resounding in favor of slavery ex-
tension in the National Government, it
was abruptly silenced by the echoes Of
Union guns. Its bright and shining
lights were, metaphoricaIly speaking,
snuffed out of our halls Of legislation,
and have since burned under bushel.
With the syllable ''nig'' on its lips, the
guns Of Sumter broke forth and SPELL
bound its utteranee. Measured by the
| lapse of time, years, or, estimated by
the course of events, ages have since
passed away. A political tornado has
rolled over the land sweeping before it
] the artificial forms of slavery and leav-
ing bare tie substantial ground work
of liberty. The old Rip Van Wrinkle
Democracy, thawed out by the new dawn
which begins to break through our po-
liticaI darkness, rubs its eyes and ap-
parentiy unconscious that aught has
happened resumes, precisely where it
left of, its shout of 'tgerl bigger! mig
ger I"
The first day of the Fifty-Eig ighth Gen
eraI Assembly, and not late in the day
either, finds the recusitated Bourbons
induIging in their old African war cry.
| The American individual of Ethiopian
! ancestry, is supposed to be deserted
lurking in the amendment to the Con-
stitution of the United States, ratified
4 by the last General Assembly, and
straightway it is proposed that such
ratification shall be revoked. It is all
a scheme to force negro suffrage, say
the Democracy, and in the name of the
everlasting nigger, down with it. For
/ didn't we come here to put down the
niger
The amendment we are speaking of,
it will be borne in mined, does not en-
! franchise a single negro. It provisions
are contained in four sections, which
may be briefly summed up as follows:
! /. All persons born and naturaIized
in the United States shall be equally
j protected in their life, liberty and prop
erty, and no State shall enact laws de-
nying such protection.
2. Each State shall have a number of
Representatives in Congress proportion
ed to its population, but if State shall
withhold the right of voting from any
class Of its citizens for other reason than
crime, its representation in Congress
shall be reduced in proportion as the
right of voting is thus restricted.
8. Persons who held Office under the
State or National Government and took
an oath of Office to support the Consti-
tuition of the United States, but after
wards engaged in the rebellion shall
not again hold office until authorized by
Congress.
4. The validity of the national debt
shall not be questioned, and the Rebel
debt and all claims OF compensation
for emancipated slaves are illegal and
void.
This measure, 1t will be we'll remem-
bered, was submitted by the Thirty
ninth Congress as a basis of reconstruC-
ton, having been adopted by that body
Il by a vote of 80 to II in the Senate, and
4 18e to SO in the House. 1t was offered
I IN good faith as a basis OF restoration of
the insurgent States tn their normal re-
lations to the Union, md upon accept