The Albany register. [volume] (Albany, Or.) 1868-18??, 1871-12-09
Jeirersonian Democracy.

lacy of to-day is the pure Jefferson
ian type. If it is, all right, we will
not dispute the claim. If so, how
ever, Thomas Jefferson must have
been very eccentric sort Of cod
ger, to speak familiarly. Wonder if
he did take Ssnew departure" every
time his ticket was beaten at the
polls? That's the way the Democ-
racy do nowadays, and he must
have been just such an unbalanced
old coot, if what these journals say
is true. Wonder if he thought the
country was drifting into despotism
every time the Federal party or
Whig party elected their Presiden-
tial candidate If he did, and we
will not pretend to say that he
didn't, his children in the faith have
Inherited the eccentric propensity
very strong. The larger the ma
jorities and the more numerous the
Republican victories, the louder and
longer the Democratic wall arises,
these days, that the country is drift
ing-drifting, slowly, but surely
drifting into despotism- Thomas
Jefferson talked that way, we sup
pose, as a Acvnier resort after ar
gument had failed to reach the
fears ofthe timid and ignorant. His
illustrious children, in these trying
times, seem to ignore the argument
part; and in this, there seems to be
n slight departure" from Jef1el-
sonian Democracy. A person, an
outsider, we mean, would naturally
infer from their numerous editorials
on ''drifting-slowly drifting into
despotism," that their readers We're
largely, it not entirely, made up of
the weak, and timid, and ignorant
classes. OF course they are notl
No, no. One would infer that, we
say, from these oft-repeated editori-
ais. Intelligent Democrats under
derstand them to be nothing more
nor less than S'buncomb.'' These
drifting into despotis1n" editors,
certainly do not expect to deceive
any number of the Republican par
ty by such bait ? Possibly that
may be their intention. Strange, if
it is; and still stranger if any Re
publican should be gudgeon enough
to bite at it. Did not the Repub-
lican party put down by force of
arms the only attempt that ever
was made by political party in this
government to establish a despot-
ism? The Democratic party of
this nation, actively in the South,
and sympathetically in the North,
attempted in the late rebellion to
found a Southern oligarchy, whose
cornerstone was to be human
slavery but the Republican party
prevented such wicked consum-
nation. 1t not only crushed the
rebellion, and thus prevented the
establishment of a Southern des-
potisnn, but it has reconstructed the
Government OH basis of auaicersd2
freedom. BY the Republican par
ty, four millions of colored men,
whom the Democratic party were
holding in the bonds of slavery,
were elevated to the rights Of free
men and citizens. Did that act in
dicate that the Republican party
was in favor of despotisln ? But,
say these journals: Grant has sus-
pended the writ of h0beas corpus
in South Carolina, and is using the
military to arrest the Ku KIux.
True, he is; but the Ku Klux has
been proven by Congressional In
yestigation to be a band of cruelty
perpetrating robbers and thieves,
which the civil law could not sup
press. The venom of their fendish
hate and cruelty, was directed
against those, principally, whom the
Republican party had liberated from
Democratic despotism. In the Ku
klux order, the spirit of. the late
rebellion still exists. It proposes
rs