Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1872-05-20
A MAN OF SHORT MEMORY.

When consistency means merely per-
sistency, right or wrong, we do not think
a great deal of consistency, though the
proverb does pronounce it jewell
Progression is also jewel, and of
purer water When man says: | used
to think thus and so, but now | think
so and so, his present opinion, if honest
ly arrived at. may be worth vastly more
than his former one. But when he de-
clares that he always thought so and
his record proves the contrary, it is not
so commendable Hon. B. Gratz Brown,
the Cincinnati Conventions candidate
for Vice President, asks the votes of
Democrats and ex-rebels, on the ground
that he was an original advocate of am
nesty. Let US see if he was. On the
9th of August, 1868, he made speech
at st. Louis, which was published in his
own paper from his own manuscript.
We quote the following passage from it
But this is not ALL 1t is not within
the thought of this nation and this peo-
pie that they who have engaged in this
resistance and rebellion, whether openly
in arms or stealthily by device or false
hood, shall EVER in the future have
the means of controlling our institutions
or shaping our politics. Franchise
IS not toa. such-cmaaot be for such-aOtN
not be for such. Power and position
belong of right to the loyal, for self
preservation knows no higher law In
the revolted States this is peculiarly the
case-but the limit will not be terrific
rial it will go wherever rebellion has
gone or shall go, or shall enkindle kin
dred sympathy to manifest itself Gods
providence has not so ordered it hereto
fore in this world, and there is no reason
to believe otherwise than that, as it has
been in other annals and like progress
sions from the people, so will it be in
ours to the fullest measure of RETAIL
ALTON. Escape will be the exception,
visitation the rule, for the evidences of
treason, rebellion, sympathy is too
plain to escape detection.
Five days later, he drew up the reso-
lutions for mass convention at Jeffer-
son City. One of them read as follows
We are in favor of a constitutional
enactment for the disfranchisement of
all those who have taken up arms or
made war against the government, or
adhered to the enemies thereof in the
present rebellion ; that to allow them the
free and unrestricted use of the ballot
box would be making them more danger
Gus than they were in the field, and
would tend directly to the subversion
and destruction of the government
On the Goth of April, 1865, he wrote
letter to Mr. J. R. Winchell, of Han.
nibal, No., in which he said:
My remark about eternizing our hos
tilities was an epitome of the idea that
oaths had failed to exclude rebels, and
only keep alive their identity and irrita-
ton in our midst, and if the constitu-
ton intended hereafter to rely on oaths
alone. it would be failure l neeo
scarcely sag that I am one of those achc
haze from the beginmi,eg believed thai
the loyal and the disloyal can NEVEE
hve an Missouri together, and the latte,
must be FORCED to depart, and I BE-
here that registration IS the only modt
that aoiN accomplish It,
A man who aspires to be presiding
officer of the United States Senate should
have better memory than Mr. Brown