The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1871-05-06
Stta'ua frss GRADER g
Ottawa. H.. saturday. May @, 1871.
Weak Specimen of Special Pleading.

The Ottawa R,pH''ir1n, after quoting the
article we copied IN our last from the New
York Free Trade organ, showing how, under
eur present infamous tariff laws. the farmer is
robbed, appends these remarks;
II the sons OF farmers buried beneath the
load OF taxation. should inquire "why Is this
thus We answer. II i the result OF the
teachings OF the Dempcratic party and the In
evitablc consequence of carrying those teach
ings into practical operation.
Under the time honored principles of the
Constitution, that the majority should rule,
the Democratic party was beaten. The Dem
ocratc leaders, conCCdlng that they were in
the minority, Appealed from the ballot to the
bullet. and, with the ucqulesccnCv, /! not Issis-
tance. al a Democratic administration them in
power, 50 fortified the rebellion, ny Surrcn-
dering all forts, arsenaiS and arms 0t the
Government into the hands of the rebels, that
a civil war of vast proportions was the result.
A national debt was created III the defence OF
the national existence, to pay which, and the
interest thereon, taxation is necessary, how
ever burdeHseme it may seem. We ask the
farmer, then, in looking over the list of the
taxes he pays directly and indirectly to the
Government to remember that they are the e-
Illilldlt lIulI>bt duu uclil-
ocratiC teachings and practice, whose authors
would now teign sic add reputation to their
already long catalogue Of offences and crimes
If the Republican, aggregates all who voted
for Breckenridge with al who voted for
Douglas in 1860, and calls the sum total the
Democratic parry, then it is not true, that
'under the tin e honOred principles . that
the majority should rule, the Democratic party
was beaten" On the contrary, the republican
party was beaten, for Abraham Lincoln lacked
halt ii million OF votes OF having "A majority of
the popular vote over his opponents. Nor has
1t been true, at any time, from 1860 to this
day, that the republican party has been in a
majority III this nation, or the democratic
party in minority, ifoH who are opposed to
the republican party, and who would have
cast their votes against it if they had been al
lowed to do SO, are to be counted as democrats.
On the time honored principle that the ma
jorlty shall rule" purely and simply, the re-
publican party has been tyranny and usur-
patton from 1860 down, for at no time in its
history has it been able to command clean
majority vote of all the male population over
q years Of age in this nation
Bat the Rpubjiwn is knowingly and inten-
tionally guilty of talsehood in the statement
that the southern people who in 1860 voted
for Breckenridge, and afterwards raised the
standard of rebellion were democrats"
The democratic party in 1850 nominated
Judge Douglas AS lheir candidate for the
Presidency, and he was voted for by every
democrat both north and south, and every
vote cast for him north and south was
that of y true union mnu- Il ''unon saver"
as the party was dcrsiyely called by both
disunion republicans at the north and sccess-
lsnists Mt the south. The party that supper.
ted breckenridge WAS made up IN part of A
fragment that had sloughed off from the dem
ocratic party, and fragments Of the old whiy
party. 1t was = new party, based on the one
idea OF the right Of secession, an idea the
democratic party had always secuted, and can
with no more justice be called part of the
democratic party than the Labor Union party
can be called part of the republican party
to-day.
The Republican is again guilty of falsehood
in the statement that the rebellion, in its IN
ception, 'was fortified by 'the acquiescence
ii not assistance 0! a democratic administra
ton" Whatever may have been the failures
and shortcomings of the administration of
James Buchanan, he made an honest and
earnest appeal to congress, in which the re-
publican party were in the ma jority, for aid
to crush the rebellion in Its inception, but they
refused him man or a dollar, pretcrring to
let the rebellion get under good Roadway, so
that the Lincoln administration, then on the
eve of coming into power, should have the
glory and proft of its suppression, of which
(parhcuhrilythe pr0ft,) no one will deny the
party subsequently avaiIed itself with Il greed
the nation will never cease to have occasion to
lament
But granting that the hcllon, for which
the democratic leaders were infinitely less re.
sponsible than the republican leaders, like
Banks, who was for ''letting the Union slide, -
and Chandler, who wanted "blood.letting, y
or Greeley, who was for Getting the south
"go in peace" &c, Nc,,)-has compelled the
levy Of increased taxation, is that any iusti-
tcation OF such taxation as the article the
EePwlican comments on, shows to have been
LEVIED. Of about 60 articles mentioned in
that extract, rs taxed from 40 to 200 per cent.