Litchfield enquirer., 1869-04-01
WHOLE NO. 233o
MIR! BARNUM AND HIS RECORD.

l. Mh! bAhNUM AND HIS RECOkD. I There is no fact connected with our re- Eeent political history in this state, more notorious than that Wnl. H. 7Barnum, the l present. democratic candidate for Congress in' the Fourth district, carried his election two years ago by the most open and un- blushing bribery. We have never heard a democrat from that district deny it. Any one who should go through Litchfeld coun- ! ty, doubting it, would be laughed at by the very boys in the streets. The people of that county-Democrats as we'll as Re- publicans-and particularly of Salisbury, MT. Barnum's own town--can cite you day and date, circumstances and sum, in any number of cases, and Mr. Barnum himself will hardly deny the facts, for certainly some of them were within his own positive l knowledge. His only excuse was that his oppqnent was using the same means.
 l Adverting to this fact some days since,
 we pronounced his re-nomination an en-
 dorsement by the party in that district of
 the course he pursued and the means he
 used to secure an election. The Bridge
 port Farmer replies in column and half
 of queer stuff, the pith of which is, that
 MT. Barnum was not found guilty of the
 charges by the last closely partisan Con-
 gress. Consequently he is innocent. The
 Farmer goes on to say great many things
 which might be proper were that paper
 simply the attorney for it's candidate, and
 Ihe Eoening Post simply the organ of MT.
 Beardsley; but as We hope the former, and
 know the latter is not true, they have no
 bearing whatever upon the merits of the
 question. t......,.....
 The Farmer has a good deal to say about
 MT. 4. I. Barnum's management of his
 campaign two years ago. As we do not
 defend MT. r. '. Barnum's conduct, and
 have not undertaken to palliate or excuse
 bribery, in any party, its remarks on that
 head are uncalIed for. We condemn Mir. William H. Barnum, not because he was
 guilty of greater or less corruption than
 his cousin, but because he was simply i guilty of 1t himself. If P. T. Barnun was guilty of the same offenses with William | H., it is a sufficient answer to that, that the Republicans did not not renominate him. We do not have him to defend. If lLoth candidates were equally guilty of cor ruption two years ago, it only shows that one party did itself credit by repudiating the ofense and the offender, while the oth- CT disgraced itself by approving the off, fense and renominating the offender.
 This is not question between the Bar nums, by any means The choice of tbe people lies between William H. Barnum and Sidney B. Beardsley, and we say that, as between these two, Mr. Beardsley comes before the people with clean record, as an honest, upright man, while the record of William H. Barnum is that of a man who has once corrupted the ballot-box, ,and | bought in open market his election. And
 we are considering the question as citizens interested in preserving the purity of the 1 al
 bound to defend the acts of one, and con- denln. those of the other party. We should regret to do Mr. Barnum an act of injus-
 tice. We had much rather see him elected
 than to contribute by any unfair or ques- tionahle means to his defeat, however de- sirable we might deem 1t. But the things
 we have stated are of public notoriety; they cannot safely be denied.o And as they.
 have a proper, and we think an important bearing upon the canvass, we. have taken l pains to set them forth. N}tu J atUt l q And now we pay our respects to the
 threats with which IHe Ftume,' was weak
 enough to close it's defence of Mir. Bar
 mum, which runs thus:-
 '' We much prefer to conduct this can. vass on questions of principle rather than ] those of personal habits, and therefore.
 have thus far studiously refrained from writing word refecting in any way per-
 sonally upon MT. Beardsley, the Repubh- can candidate, yet we beg to remind these
 radical editors that they must be more
 chary of their gross and wanton assaults upon the integrity of Mr. Barnum, or we
 shall feel absolved from all obligations to
 respect the frail tenement with which
 their candidate resides, and which is we'll
 known in this section to be of the most transparent and brittle species of glass;" 'i' To. which we have only to say, that it is
 not for 1he Farmer itself, and not for us
 to say how it will conduct the canvass. We
 are more interested to have our good state Frepresented, honestly, ably, andcreditably,
 than ln any one man s or one party's suc- cess. If The Fdymer knows any good req
 son why MT. Beardsly cannot creditably' represent his district in Congress, it is not doing itself, its party, or rthe people justice,
 in withholding the information. If there is any such reason, we beg Ihe F}nmse, to
 make 1t known. It will not be honest to
 do do otherwise. But if this !" frail tene- Ment threat means throwing mud-why, 4 Ibe Farmer must suit its own and it's read l ers tastes in that regard, and do just ex- actly as best pleases it. Whether he can do better service for his party and candid ate in that line than, in the line of reason and argument, the editor must judge for himself. HarBord Post. 29ollsH m 3osl5 T. q tft Ff, q. s-ff