Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1871-03-17
Honest Elections.

HONEST elections are the concern of no
party, but Of the people; and there Ia no
subject upon which all citizens should 40
heartily agree as upon q stringent law 10
secure the purity of the polls. The duty
OF Congress TO pass such a law, that the
fundamental authority in the government
may be beyond question, is imperative.
when experience has shown that in anv
part OF the country the electoral frauds are
80 enormous as to throw suspicion upon
the result of the elections, 1t would be
criminal neglect of duty IL Congress should
fail to protect the rights of the citizen,
The cries of "usurpation," "despotism,"
bayonet elections" are simply silly II
is the right of every American citizen to
demand, and the duty of Congress to give,
the amplest defense against dishonest
national elections and every man who
opposes the most decisive legislation upon
the subject is justly liable to the most
damaging suspicion
Ever since the Republican party OBJ
tained tae ascendency in this country
rebels, Copperheads, and traitors of every
kind have raised loud shout of uncon.
stitutlonality, Capitalization, and tyranny.
1t might be supposed that they really
thought the people of the United States
would believe that the only people who
respected the Constitution were those who
tried to destroy the Union of which it is
the bond, AMI that the only enemies of
tyranny were those who plunged us into
civil war because they could not extend
aud perpetuate the most inhuman system
OF slavery And now, in the Senate, Gen
eral Frank Blair expounds the constitu
tions, and denounces despotism to Senators
Trumbull and Sumner; wilhelm the House
Mr. Voorhees,, whose sympathies in the
rebellion were not concealed, stigmatizes
General Grant as man to be watched y
and Mr.. Cox, who was the chief champion
of Vallandigham as Governor of Ohio
after he had been sent for treason within
the enemy's lines, and who declared at
Chicago that Lincoln and Davis should be
brought to the same block, threatens the
resistance of New York to the United
States if Congress undertakes to secure its
own honest election
The Republican party in Congress and
in the country has weathered stormier
blasts than these in its defense of popular
liberty. The same men who hiss and curl
around it now, because it proposes to deal
with the most fragrant frauds at the polls,
struck at 1t fiercely when it was dealing
with armed rebellion in the field Let
Congress remember that the Republican
policy of equal liberty, and of honest elec.
tions as its guarantee, is entrenched in the
profoundest convictions of the intelligent
American people. The attitude of the
Democratic party is one of caTping and
malignant misrepresentation, while it ques
tions the validity of the amendments, anC
in every way honors and laments the cause
and the soldiers of rebellion 1t unques
tionably carried the State of New York
by fraud in 1868, and it hopes to carry the
United States by the same means in 1872
The methods which it pursues lead as di
rectly and surely to civil commotion as it,
ruthless policy of slavery extension twenty
years ago. The people of the United
States would hardly submit to a govern
ment which they believed to be the resul
of fraud, and consequently the worst kinC
of usurpation; and the first duty of gooC
citizens, therefore, of every party, is t.
demand laws which shall secure, as far a
practicable, that rightful votes only shal
be honestly cast and honestly counted
Hdrper's Weekly.