Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1868-09-04
The Plain Peril.

1T is little more than month since
the Democratic nominations were made.
The Convention declared for reputation,
and asserted that the Reconstruction acts
were revolutionary and void. 1t nomi-
mated for President bitter opponent of
the war, and for Eice-P President a man
who held that it was the duty of the Elk
ecutive to promote union by trampling
into dust the usurpations of Congress" 1t
then adjourned. Its leading members in
stantly took the stump, and explained the
purposes of the party, and the Demo-
cratic newspapers everywhere swelled the
chorus. Those who had hoped that
time and events would have taught the
party caution at least, if not wisdom,
found that their only hope of party favor
lay in the promptest submission to the
party will and with ridiculous haste they
ate their words, sneered at their own argu-
ments, and, by showing that they were
contemptibly 1nsincere before, proved that
they were only the more contemplate and
false now. A month ago the Convention
adjourned Meanwhile the land has rung
with the declarations of the party, and the
country has seen and sees, that there is
really but single issue in the election,
and that is the renewal of the rebellion
AS in 1864, the sole and overshadowing
question was, shall the Government sur.
render to the rebellion, so now all other
interests necessarily disappear in the fun
damental inquiry whether the rebellion
shall regain at the polls what it lost in the
| field.
Mr. Seymour and his supporters strug-
gle in vain to hide the issue. His orators
| and his papers attempt to make the finan-
cial question paramount, and to Brighten
| and disgust the country by he grossest
Misrepresentation of the expenses of the
Government, and by magnifying corrup-
ton. The public expenses, no one denies,
| are large, and the Democratic party, from
which the rebellion and its support pro-
ceeded, is responsible for the burden. The
Administration is. at some points, tainted
with corruption-a fault to be admitted
and deplored. but not a fault likely to be
| remedied by intrusting it to the party of
Floyd Cobb, the New York municipality,
and the Tammany ring. But these
questions although ordinarily of the
highest importance, are, in the
nature of things, secondary to the recon
struction of the Union. So long as the
integrity of the nation is in debate, so
long as the problem is, whether the friends
VI buG CUCulcS Vi JuC I'll snail COltl vi
the Government, all economical questions
within the Union are inevitably postponed
The public burden can be lightened-that
is, taxation can be Enthusiastically as the
wealth of the country increases. Wealth
increases only by production, and industry
and enterprise are essential to production.
But confidence is the cardinal condition
of steady industry; and until confidence
is established there will be neither move
ment of capital into the disordered States,
nor continuous and sufficient labor The
Republican party has taken the great pri-
mary steps toward the pacification upon
which peace and consequent confidence
depend. The Democratic party proposes
to undo everything that has been done !;
to exasperate the hostility of race. and to
give, by force, the disordered States into
the hands of those who hate the Union,
and burn with the desire of revenge.
The Democratic policy is necessarily
one of civil war 1t does not propose a
peaceful solution of any difficulty. And
that this is distinctly understood is evident.
Just before the Democratic Convention
assembled Mr.. c. c.. Langdon, delegate
from Alabama, wrote, with an instructive
knowledge of his party: 1.-THE Demo-
cratic doctrine is, that the reconstruction
measures of the present Congress, and
everything done under them, are uncon-
stitutional, and, of course, absolutely null
and void. This declaration, / take it, will
constitute the main plank in the Demo,