Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1871-05-19

National Convention after the war was
controlled by the same old spirit of hatred
OF equal popular rights. Even the earth
quake had not shaken off the dominance
of the slave holding aristocracy. So
abject had been the submission of
the party to a spirit utterly antago-
nistic to American principles that
it was helpless in the grasp of Wade
Hampton and his Southern friends, and
the Democratic party, therefore, W snt into
the last Presidential election, as u had en-
tered upon the elections of g 1neration,
as the party of hostility to equal rights and
aristocratic distrust of the people.
But in the State of New York, where
the party is thoroughly organized under
the Tammany leadership, the contempt for
the people is most manifest. Without
permitting even the reading of their edicts
in the Legislature, and, of course, without
tolerating debate, the Democratic leaders
have applied the usurpation of the Erie
bill to municipal government. Officers
whom the people had elected for year
or for two years are retained in Office for
two and three years more than their
elected term The leaders have also
decreed that four officers in the city, two
of whom only were elected by the people,
and one of whom has had his term ex-
tended after election for two years more,
shall levy and disburse all the city taxes !
The details OF this imperial system we
have heretofore exposed. 1t is so in
geniously constructed that while, as in
Louis Napoleon's in France, there is the
form of a popular election, the authority
and terms of subsequent appointment are
such that the whole power resides in Off
GERS who are not elected by the people,
and whose terms are more than double
that of the appointing officer who, by the
enormous concentration of patronage in
their hands, is necessarily their puppet and
tool. Executive responsibility is thus an
initiated; and such is the total disregard
of the ordinary safeguards of free popu-
lar system in party which has for more
than generation despised equal rights,
and defended slavery as the foundation of
| free institutions, that if the Democratic
leaders had decided that the terms of the
appointed-which are the real-offices in
the system should be twenty years instead
of five, the decision would have been rati-
| fed with the same swifIness and with the
same utter disregard of the ordinary
forms of legislation.
In presence of such facts party heat is
impertinent. The question is of the practi-
cability and permanence of American in.
stitutions. Here is party which has al
ways opposed equal liberty, which in
stinctively afflliatcs abroad with the most
absolute and reactionary policy, which in
cludes the Ku.Kl and every enemy of
the Union, and which now, in the State OF
! New York, strikes with the Erie bill at
the right Of property holders to elect their
agents, and by its amended charter abol-
ishes popular government in the
city. This party is strong, rich,
organized, INSCRIPTIONS. 1t is the serv-
ant of the combined capital of enormous
corporations, and its corrupt methods are
so notorious that of themselves they justly
excite anxiety for the future of the coun-
try. 1t is supported by ignorance, by class
jealousy, by hatred of race, by disatfection
to the government. Is this party which
administration
1t is a patriotic, not a party question
1t appeals to every intelligent Democrat
and it appeals especially to those Republi
cans who, in presence of such peril, ar
IDENTIFY engage in the quarrel of their party
in New York. 1t appeals no less to the
Republicans of Ohio and Missouri who
seek to raise the party standard-an effor
in which we cordially sympathize-tha
they do 1t in a mannerth will strengthen
our own party, and not the enemy. i
appeals to the American faith in the people
and in free popular institutions, that i
shall defeat those who despise and distrus
both, and who are leagued fast with thu
foes of intelligence and liberty. Indeed
the only doubt of the issue in 1879 springs
from indifference or blindness 10 the fac
that the paramount question is whether
whatever the faults of Republican meas
ures and men-the party that we havt
described, whatever its professions may
be, san safely be intrusted with the gov
ernment-Hdrper's Weekly.