The Fremont weekly journal. [volume] (Fremont, Sandusky County, Ohio) 1867-1877, 1871-08-18
TIE NEW DEPARTURE REJHC-
TED.

A Leading Democrat refuses to take
the Stump and Gives his Reasons
Falsehoods in the Democratic Plat
form.-McCook not Nominated
The Democratic Party in False
Position.
LANCASTER, o., August 2, 1871.
Hon. A. G. Thurman, Chairman Democratic
State Executive Committee:
I have received what appears to be a circu-
lar letter, signed by you as Chairman of the
Democratic State Executive Committee, invit-
ing me to enter the pending State canvass as
speaker, to assist in the full discussion In the
questions at issue between the two parties
and after mature and careful deliberation, am
impelled 10 answer that 1 can not give an hon
est consent to do so, and I desire to express
my reasons for declining.
No one has greater desire than 1 for the
overthrow of the dangerous and powerful par
ty now controlling the Government, and had
hoped that such wise counsels would have pre-
vailed at our State Convention, as to have al
most ensured our success-in which event,
would have given all of labor, influence and
strength l have to noble cause for which
have heretofore labored.
But Sin the house of Its friends" at that
convention, were dealt the deadliest blows to
the Democracy it has yet received.
The action there, the blunders or worse in
the nomination for Governor, the witchery
which stole away the reason of delegates, and
in some mysterious way caused them to for
swear their faith, and by public recantation
confess that the mission and the creed of the
party since the war were
FALSE, HERETIoAL AND WRONG,
have sickened the hearts of the honest, quiet,
thinking voters of our party to an extent not
yet fully recognized by our leaders, who then
voluntarily walked up and sat on the equity
stool"
The voters of our party are not uninformed
of the false position the party is placed in
TlHy know we are going before the people this
fall with at least two untruths glarngly con-
spicuous on our front. First, they know that
COLONEL Mo'oooK WAS NOT NOMINATED FOR
GOVERNOR,
and that his principal competitor led him on
the first bollot, when the unaccountable mis-
take or fraud occurred in the announcement
of the vote which scores of delegates knew to
be false; and they will soon learn how shocked
were the friends Of our de factO candidate for
Governor, who believed him to be too high
toned and sensitive to stand In his present dis
agreeable position, when they discovered that
he permitted his immediate partisans to simply
say in regard to the fraud or mistake in the
nomination, that they could only
"HoPE THAT IT WOULD NOT GET QUIZ
This, however, is a small matter compared
to the falsehoods expressed in the party plat
form. When the convention took upon itself
to declare that the Democracy of this State or
cognized as accomplished facts the two latest
(socalled) amendments 20 the Constitution, and
regarded them as no longer political issues be-
fore the country.
IT STATED AN UNTRUTH
Nothing In politics, then or now, has more
affected the hearts and minds of Democratic
voters than these, there denominated dead is
sues. And when, in the second resolution, the
convention undertook to say that "the Demo
cratic party pledges itself to the full, faithful
and absolute execution and enforcement of the
Constitution as It noa0 Is, SO as to secure equal
rights to all persons under it, without distlnc-
ton OF race, color or condition" it exceeded
It's authority and simply asserted what was
KNOWN TO BE FALsEHooD.
Frank Hurd represented on the floor of the
convention the true sentiments of the Democ-
racy of Ohio. They were expressed first in
his resolution of Instructions: ''That the Com
mittee on Resolutions be instructed to make
no allusion in their report to the so-called XIV
and XIVth Amendments to the Constitution
of the United States" And afterwards in his
minority report, stating ''that it was inexpe-
dent to make any expression of opinion as to
the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.
Yet if an expression be deemed necessary that
the following be adopted as a substitute 10 the
first and second resolutions proposed to this
convention:
"ResOIUed' That the Fourteenth and Fif-
teenth Amendments have been made parts of the
Federal Constitution by fraud and violence, and
are revolutionary and void.''
If the Democratic party is moribund, then
its political priests may be allowed to dictate
to it.
CONFESSIONS OF SINS
of their own defining. But they have certain
ly made the party to appear like the diving
African, who, when asked by his preacher if
be was ready to die, and whether he had for
given his enemies, and especially his colored
neighbor between whom and himself there
had long been feud, answered: "If Isl,
gwine to die, forgive him, but if | gets Wele
dat darkie had better look out for hisself."
Worse than the misrepresentation OF the par
ty in Tts views of the right and validity of the
Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, is the
confession of previous errors and false opinions
implied in the language of the first and second
resolutions.
aequiescing in the validity of the reconstruc-
tion and force laws of the Radical Congress;
and thus are made to admit that Congress
could take away the life of ten free States,
and deny their existence annul their constitu-
hons and reduce them to the condition of ter
utories, without sovereignty or without gov
ernment, and that by an act of resolution of
Congress they could be declared out of the
Union and without any such governments
as Congress 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 COM
pei these disfranchised white native citizens,
to obey laws and submit to authorities imposed
upon them against their wills, either by Con-
gress or by the votes of
CROWDS OF DUMB, IGNORANT NEGROES,
brutalized by their former condition in slavery
knowing none of the duties of the citizen and
obeying the single instinct to vote as their new
masters, the Radical leaders, may dictate.
In recognizing the validity of the amend
ments, and In pledging our party to the execu-
ton and enforcement of them we
ACKNOWLEDGE CONGRESSIONAL REcoNsTRUC-
TIoN.
fully against which we have contended with |
brave and hopeful hearts as aparty for fveyears
We give up the old constitution, the reserved |
rights Of the States, the dearest right of the |
native white man-his suffrage-and surren-
der absolute power to Congress, to destroy /
States, to take away their sovereignty, to null