The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1871-07-22
The Democratic Departure. 90 Called


they were all right, and now, all at once, by
their "new departure" they confess that they
were all wrong. The comment of a wag on
the remark OF friend, II aM beside myself"
was, You can't be in worse company" The
democracy seem to have reached the cOnclu-
sion that the only way to restore the demo-
cratic party to responsibility and power is to
repudiate democratic principles.-Grundy Co.
Herald.
The above will serve as very small but
fair sample of the sort of comment with which
the republican papers are filled IN reference
to what they call the ''new deparsure' of the
democracy, in ignoring, by the resolut ions of
the Ohio, Pennsy vania, and one or two other
state conventions, the questions OF niger
equality and Niger voting as future issues to
be fought over at the polls. The matter
seems to fill the radicals with great uneasiness.
II is about time they should learn that the
democrats are not fools. In what the republi-
cans are pleased to call the new departure"
they should know that the democrats have
no idea af confessing ''that they were all
wrong" or of taking step backward. They
believe now as firmly as they ever did, that it
was extremely unwise to confer equality, and
the right of suffrage on the negro. They
dread now, as they always dreaded, the re-
suits which are likely to flow from the incor-
poration Of such mass ofignorance into the
body polite. They regard, also, with abhor-
renee AM will continue TO denounce, as the
Srossest possible outrage, the manner in which
the negro amendments were foisted into the
constitution. But putting the amendments
there and getting them out again, are two
very different things. The man who chops off
his ncighbOr's head is no less a scoundrel and
murderer, because the head can't be put on
again. The amendments were placed in the
constitution by means so high handed and un.
constitutional, that the men who did it, if
actual treason were always punished, would
have swung years ago. Yet the amendments
being placed there, and certain results thereby
secured, the question is very different one
whether the democracy shall vainly continue
to but their heads against stone walls to undo
o work which, though ineSpressibly infamous,
is past undoing. The constitutional amend.
ments, no matter by what infamous means
adopted, are declared by the highest judicial
authority to be the law of the land. Shall the
democrats new yainly attempt to undo that
work-iight to gam possession of three fOurths
of the states; or, as the radicals did, seize the
war power, and overslaugh by force and
fraud the honest sentiments of the people OF
three-fourths of the states, to repeal the con-
stitutional amendments? Though it Was in
expedient, wrong. and ineXpressibly infamous
to adopt them in the way indicated, would it
now be expedient torepeal them! Before the
negro was admitted to suffrage, it was in apt
time to insist that, before being thus endowed,
he should first be educated and fitted for such
an important prcrogative. But having con-
ferred it upon him, is the question oftaking it
away the same. To withhold an apple from
your child is one thing, but give it to him,
and you will find 1t a very difficult thing to
take it from HIM.
The democracy have fought this battle of
negro suffrage and negro equality for six years.
and, by fraud and violence have been de.
feated. They would be fools to presist in the
light after victory is both hopeless and no
longer desirable. The radicals have made the
niger our equal and a voter. We have no
desire nor would it lie possible, to undo their
work We shall hold the radicals responsible
for all the evils that attend it, and for the in.
famous manner OF its doing. But beyond