New-York tribune., 1871-04-22
TIE DEMOCRATIC ADDRESS.

That one should not speak when he has
nothing to say, was long since established ; it
seems not so well understood that he should
keep silence, even when he has somewhat to
say, unless he dare say it. Hence such blum
ders as the Address of the Democratic Mem
bers of Congress.
The country was already thoroughly aware
that these gentlemen held Its ruin inevitable
unless they should be allowed to run it. They
told us in 1860 that, if we should elect Lincoln,
the Union would be destroyed they pro-
claimed in '61 that we must buy off Rebel
lion by new concessions and guarantees to
Slavery, or all was lost; they shrieked in '62
that if we should dare to strike a blow at the
arch-rebel Slavery, we would thereby prove
ourselves as arrant SecessiOnists as jeff Davis
and Slidell they resolved in ga that the Union
could only be saved by an immediate cessa-
ton of hostilities and the election of McClel-
Ian as President; they clamOred in 65 for the
instant restoration of the Southern States
to every right and power of loyal
States under the rule of their Rebel
chiefs and with a complete surrender of
the Freedmen to their uncovenanted mer-
cies in '6s, they resolved that the National
Debt should be paid off in Greenbacks, and the
reconstructed State Governments of the South
treated as unconstitutional revolutionary and
void" so as to let Toombs, Ben. Hill g. Co..
follow up their expulsion of the Colored men,
bers of their Legislature by depriving them Of
all political rights whatever if not, the Con-
stitution would be subverted, State Rights
abolished, and Chaos come again. In every
instance, the American People listened to their
doleful prophecies, then went exactly as Sham
Democracy warned them not to go, and all
came out right We hold it advisable that
they should eschew Prophecy for time, after
such public and pitiable failures, and try some
other role wherein their past discOmitures have
not been so signal and so damaging.
One question is paramount in our current
politics" the Democratic party accept
and regard the XIVth and XVIII Amend
"ments as part of the Federal Constitution
or will it, if restored to power, treat them
=" as null and void, and allow the Whites of
" of every State to deal with the Blacks and
Z" their Right of Suffrage as they shall see
" itf" A frank, candid, explicit answer to
this question is anxiously awaited, since that
answer must give shape and character to our
next contest No one wants to waste powder
on hoiuess WHICH tne garrison mas defnl-
lively abandoned. We shall cheerfully accord
to the gentlemen opposite much greater
space than is filed by their late Address,
if they will plainly state in it whether
they do or do not propose henceforth
to treat the reconstructed State Govern
ments of the South as usurpations and null
ties and their Blacks as subject to disfranchise
ment by their Whites Failing this, their
reiteratiOn that the Republicans are bad LOT.
and are running the country to perdition, ia
dull reading. There is not boy of fifteen in
the land who has not heard it till his ears
call for cotton to relieve them of the dread,
monotonous din. There is not penny whistle
in the republic that cannot utter as pleasing
and forcible variation on it as that of the
Democratic Members Of Congress.
Every one knows that these gentlemen have
vehemently resisted Negro Suffrage hitherto
as a fraud and usurpation by the Republicans,
designed to uphold and perpetuate their i'll
gotten power. DO Messrs. Garret Davis, +. r.
Blair, Salisbury a. Co. still maintain that po-
sitionq If not, why not state the ground on
which they have resolved tostand henceforth !
What sense in vague fulminatiOns while tho