Wyandot County Republican. [volume] (Upper Sandusky, Ohio) 1869-1903, 1871-08-17

without distinction of race, colo
or condition." it exceeded its author
ity and simply asserted what wa
known to be a falsehood.
Frank Hurd represented on tn,
floor of the Convention the true sen
timents of the Democracy of Ohio
They were expressed first in his res
olution of instructions: That tn,
committee on Resolutions be instruct
ed to make no allusions in their re
port. to the so-called Fourteenth ane
Fifteenth Amendments to the Con
stitution of the United States" AM
afterward in his minority report. stat
ing "that it was inexpedient to max,
any expression of'oppinion as to the
Fourteenth md Fifteenth Amend
ments. Yet. if any expression bt
deemed necessary that the following
be adopted as substitute to the frs
and second resolutions proposed &c
this Convention:
RESOLVED, That the Fourteenth an6
Fifteedth Amendments have beer
made parts of the Federal Constitu
ton by fraud and violence, and are
revolutionary and void"
If the Democratic party is mori
bund. then its political priests may be
allowed to dictate to it confessions
of sins of their defining. But they
have certainly made the party to ap
pear like the dying African, who,
when asked by bis preacher if he was
ready to die. and whether he had for
given his enimies, and especially his
colored neighbor between whom an
himself there had long been a feud,
answered: "If Use gwiue to die, j
forgived him, but if l gets well, dat
darkic had better look out for his
self"
Worse than the Misrepresentation
of the party IN its views of the right
and validity of the Fourteenth and
Fifteenth Amendments, is the con
fession of previous errors and false
opinions, implied in the language OF
the first and second resolutions.
They recorded the party as nc
knowledging and acquiescing in the
validity of the reconstruction and
force laws CT the Radical Congress ;
an6 thus are made to admit that Con
gress could take away the life of ten
free States, deny their existence, an-
nul their constitutions and reduce
them to the condition of territories,
without sovereignty and without gov
ernment, AID that by an act or reso-
luton of Congress they could be de-
clared out of the Unicn and without
any but such governments as Con-
gress might order over them.
They make US acknowledge the
right of Congress to deprive native
white men of full age of the right to
vote, at its will, and TO compel these
white native citizens,
without representation in their Gov
ernmcnt, to obey laws and submit to
authorities imposed upon them
against their wills, either by Congress
or by the votes of crowds of dumb,
ignorant negroes, brutalized by their
former condition in slavery, know
ing none of the duties of the citizen
and obeying the single instinct to
vote as their new masters, the Radi-
cal leaders. may dictate.
In recognizing the validity or these
amendments, and in pledging our par
ty to the execution and enforcement
of them, We acknowledge Congress
ional reconstruction fully, against
which we have contended with brave
and hopeful hearts, as party, for five
years. We give up the old Constitu-
ito nal, the reserved rights of the
State, the dearest right of the native
white man-his sutfrage-and surren-
der absolute power to Congress, to
destroy States, to take away their
to nullify their Constit-
utions, to deny to them and their
people the right of self government,
to put over them foreign rulers, to
control them by swarns of newly
maue uaroarIan voters to abolish their
courts and annual their laws, substit
uting therefor the arbitration will of
Congress and of its military satraps.
Resistance to all of these laws dur
ing their accomplishment, which are
now acknowledged to be right or re-
NEEDLESS, IN our party platform,
brought into the Democratic party,
or in full accord with it, such men as
Groesbeck, Ewing, Campbell, Ward
and host of others, who may we'll
cxclaim, "Where now shall we go?'.
Why use the cant, senseless phrase,
''dead political issues ?" No eonven-
ton of men ever were able by words
to bury a political question so long
as it touched the hearts of the people,
or agitated the minds of men. An
like slavery might cease to
exist, but principle Of government
or political action never ceases to be
of interest to free people-and to-
day, although slavery, the institution,
is dead, one of its consequences, re-
bellion, is as much tine right of an op-
pressed people as when Moses rebell-
ed against Pharaoh, or our fathers
against the British crown.
If it be true that the Fourteenth
and Fifteenth Amendments were
made uarts of the Constitution by
fraud and violence, and are, therefore,
revolutionary and void, as the great
body of the Democratic party believe,
it is not certain that if that party
came into power so as to control leg
islative bodies of the State and nation
it would choose no man to a legisla-
tive office who would not be true to
this idea and in exercising his right
to Judge of the election and qualifica-
tions OF members of the body he be
longed to, would lie not be bound to
any claiming election or
qualification under these void amend
ments?
Equally unpopular is the rhetorical
of our eloquent leader,
Mr.. Groesbeck, that "war legislates"
II