The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1870-07-09
The Position of the Democracy on
the constitutional Amendment"

the SOnsiAtutiOhai A"euuheht.
The Parkersburg Gazette, continuing
discussion under the above head,
says:
I'VE don't want to see either the
party, or the members OF the next
Legislature committed against the pro-
posed amendment.
The party certainly cannot become
committed against it, for the only au-
thority competeB; to make any com
initial on the subject-(the State Con
on)-has already been held and
has adjourned &inc die,
Perhaps no member OF the next Leg
stature will be disposed 10 commit HIM
self againstit; certainlynot until the
Legislature convenes and it is as
certained whether anything better can
be done
In the ~ ntime, each member of the
party will continue, as heretofore and
as the Convention intended he should,
10 entertain just such views ON this
question as his conscience and best
judgment dictate. The Convention
very wisely, we think, declined to make
the amendment test Of party fealty
and the newspapers and individuals who
now assume to erect it into a party test
in defiance OF the action ofthe Conven-
ton are subjecting themselves TO the
charge of being disorganizerS and
with working as efftctually for defeat
as if they desired to accomplish that
result. The Democratic party is in no
humor 10 lose the good it can accom-
plish in order 10 "vindicate' anybody
record. They will eventually censure
every demagogue who seeks his own
personal advancement by issues which
the party at large cannot espouse-tests
that the Convention refused to recog-
nize. The party feels it. duty to the
country and its responsibility for the
liberties and interests of the white man
far too keenly TO risk its forces in an
other hopeless battle.
We are justified by all that we hold
dear, in urging moderation and patience.
~ one Democratic candidate shall see
fit to mark out for himself one line of
conduct on the mode OF enfranchise-
ment, he should be allowed 10 do it.
If another should see fit to mark out a
different course, that also should be his
own affair. What we urge is, that no
question shall be made party test
which the Convention did not see fit to
declare should beAone
We are rs deeply in earnest on the
subject OF Acknowledgement rs is the
editor of the Gazette, and his inSinua-
ton to the contrary il beneath him as
a gentleman and much below the esti
mate we have uniformly held of his
character. We are Democratic from
conviction, and have been from our
earliest youth. We were taught 10 love
that good old party above all things for
its determined opposition to everything
like prescription. Equal rights and
impartial legislation. has always been
the solid corner stone Of that glorious
eiifce. Inits birth it combatted the pro-
scription OF the alien and sedition laws;
in its more sturdy manhood il crushed
the party that prescribed Catholics
and foreigners. Its whole history is
brilliant with its achievements in favor
of the principles of liberty and toler-
ance Under.its rule no man was ever
deprived of his rights. Bring that
party into power in West Virginia, and
a single sun will scarcely set until the
shackles would be stricken from every
limp. we have fought too long and
too determinedly for the abolition of all
proscriptive legislation in West Vir-
GINA to be told. now that victory is
about to crown our efforts, that we are
not in earnest.
We raise no party issues, and we de-
mand the abolition Of all petty tests.
The movement now in progress in this
State, is a movement Of the masses
against the monopolists, a movement of
ST good citizens, irrespective of by-gone
differences, a consolidation Of the whole
conservatism of the State under the
eagles Of restored and purified De-
mocracy, which has served its term of
bondage and moves once more onward |
20 victory and to power.
TIE Parkersburg Gazette says that