Buchanan County bulletin. [volume] (Independence, Iowa) 1869-1891, 1870-10-07
Always ON the Wrong Side.

Vice President Colfax, in his
recent speech at South Bend, Ind,
ovcrhauled the bogus "Democracy''
most thoroughly. Among other
things, he argued and proved that
party is always on the wrong side
of every public question or issue.
s'For the past twenty years." he
said, sit has seemed impossible for
this Democratic organization, as
party, to get on the right side of
any issue, new or old. When bor-
der ruffians drove the people of
Kansas from their polls, and by
fraudulent votes elected a proslavery
Legislature, and finally sought to
impose a hateful Constitution cstab-
fishing slavery there on people
who almost unanimously denounced
it, the Democratic party champion
ed this wickedness. When the
bred Scott decision, intended to
make slavery national and all
powerful, was proclaimed, they
cordially indorsed it. All through
the war, every measure to streng-
then the nations arm and weaken
the enemy's, whether confiscation,
or emancipation, or colored soldiers,
etc, was, in their opinion, all wrong
or unconstitutional, aud fit only to
be denounced. When the war
closed, and the question came up
whether the insurgent States should
be restored to the rule of the very
men who had used their executive,
legislative and judicial powers to
organize the rebellion and to raise
its armies, or whether every affort
should be made, on the contrary,
to organize them on a basis loyal to
the Union, the Democratic party
instinctivcly insisted OH the former.
When tax bills and draft laws be-
came necessary to the preservation
of the national existence, they war
red upon all their details as wicked
and styrannical. When the inter
est on the national debt could only
be honestly lcssened by showing
the world that our national credit
would be sacredly maintained at
the highest point by all parties,
their speakers and presses denoun-
ced those who had lent us the mon
ey as if they were swindlers, and in
every way sought to poison the pub
lie mind against them.
"When our greenbacks, whose
ultimate value they had formerly
discrcdited, were rising in value
toward gold, they clamorcd for
issues of hundreds or thousands of
millions more, to verify their mful-
filled prophecies about them. When
President Grant commenced paying
off the debt, with the surplus rev
enucs that his honest and efficient
officers had collected, they denoun-
ced his buying the bonds at their
current value in the markets of the
world. When Republican Con
gress passed a bill reducing taxa
lion sS0,0o0,000 per year, they reg
istercd their votes, as Il party,
against it. When the same Con-
gress passed a bill to honestly re
ducc the interest on our bonds, by
a mutual arrangement with our
creditors, or by paying off old bonds
with the proceeds of the new, they
voted against it. When it passed
Il bill to enforce the Fourteenth and
and Fifteenth Amendments, with
penalties only against evil doors
and offenders, they resisted it with
yehemence and zeal. When ii pass
ed laws for the restoration Of rebel
States to representation in the Tn
ion, the Democracy condemned
their provisions and fought them to
the bitter end.
When Il law to guard the ballot
box at national elections was pass
ed, furnishing illegal voting, shame
less repeating, and fraudulent count
ing, they denounced it and its pen
altles, as if the acts it punished
were not the wickedest of crimes
against free government and repub-
lican institutions. And, finally,
when war broke out in Europe
that outraged the moral sentiment
of the world, and without provoca-
ton, Germany was compelled to
arm for the protection of the father
land from invasion and despoilment,
their leading organs, as inStlnctlvly
as in the other eases | have cited,
took the wrong side. 1t is this
party-a party Of reaction, OF mega
tions, Of partisan oppos!tion-whose
leaders seem to be determined that
it shall ever b6eon the side of wrong
which appeals to the people to-
day to clothe them with national
boypr,o