The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1872-07-19
VOL. XVI.---NO. 80.


lowed Three ndidates-Breckinrid
Douglas and Lincoln. AS might easily
have been toresecn, Lincoln, the minority
candidate, was elected Put three candi-
dates in the field tomorrow, and q similar
result would follow. Grant, the minority
candidate, would be elected.
The principles of the Democratic party,
founded as they are, upon the eternal basis
of truth, are necessarily indestructible; vet
a specious, plausible, menacing argument
about the dissolution of the Democratic
party performs a commanding part, and is
made productive of fruitful results. l do
not hesitate to affirm that to this tallacious
argument we are in a great measure indebt-
ed for the fratricidal war through which we
have passed. in which millions of lives were
sacrificed and millions ofthieves generated.
If common sense and .judicious forecast had
governed the hour, we should not now have
to mourn country disgraced by the tyr
amy ofnondescript governments, ignorant
servile rulers, thieving carpet baggers, bru
tai military tyrants, midnight arrests, sus-
pension of habeas corpus, trials far from
the scene of the alleged crime, punishment
in distant penitentiaries, and other heart
rending distresses In fact, no conceivable
form of despotism could create more in
tense suffering than has prevailed for a con-
siderable time past in our Southern States.
The monarchical records of tyranny furnish
few parallels to the miseries of this cruelty
prosecuted people.
Instances have occurred, as in the case
of Poland and Ireland, and Siberia, or Van
Dieman's Land, alike bear record of the
riofp Of I'll I,,I
land nor Ireland was placed by their con-
querors under the dominion of servilc,
uneducated race, formerly their slaves. The
fact is disgrace to Christendom, and will
stand as warning to future ages, stamped
into our annals in letters ofburning infamy.
1t is but few days ago that no less than
twentythree South Carolinians were incar-
cerated in the penitentiary at Albany,
among whom were gray-haired men and
beardless boys, their terms of Imprisonment
varying from one to ten years, with added
fines of from ten to five hundred dollars.
Is it not amazing that in this age and in
this country political prisoners may thus
quietly be transported from one State to
another, to languish out their wretched
lives in dungeons constructed for felons?
Can tyranny go further9 Could Louis XIV,
aided by lettres de cachet, and the bastile, do
more? But the days of this miserable tyr
amy are numbered. The people have at
length become sensible Of the cruel wrongs
practiced in their name In vindication
of themselves they will tolerate these out
RACES no longer. AS predicted by Leslie
Coombs there will be an uprising of the
people. They will no longer submit to
system in which revengeful passions are fed
by cruelty, and inordinate avarice by OPP
pressive taxation. Political wire workers
those Machiavelian managers of conven-
tions and committees, may do as they please;
they cannot thwart the manifest destiny of
events.
1t is as certain as that the sun now shines,
that the people have determined to cut
loose from the forms and shackles of mere
party rules. Their principles they will be
true to, but they will be no longer hood
winked by political contrivances, too fire.
quently exercised merely to carry out the
selfish purposes of ring or clique, having
no interest for them and not beneficial to
the country. Experience dear bought
experience-an experience paid for in blood
and toll, has taught the people that in
time profound peace, to carry on the
Government of great country like the
United States upon war principles is as
wicked as it is wasteful They know, and
the fact cannot be concealed from them,
that the vast expenses of a Government,
conducted according to military ideas must
necessarily be paid out of taxes which they
have to pay-taXes upon all they eat, upon
all they wear, and upon their very labor.
They have now borne it for over ten years,
but will bear it no longer. They know
that the peaceful pursuits of life, undistur-
bed by the rancorous animosities engender-
ed by military rivalry, can alone secure
their happiness and therefore they have
determined to acknowledge as their leader
a man whose life has been devoted to
peace; a man who, when the country stood
upon the verge of a devastating bloody
war, much as he loved the Union, said,
in the agony of his spirit, "Let our erring
sisters depart in peace man who, du-
ring the war, endeavored by every means
in his power to bring it to a peaceful ter
mination, and who, if he had been success
full, would have prevented the sea of blood
which was afterwards shcd man who,
as soon as the war was over, declared him
self and has been ever since, the steadfast
advocate of general amnesty; man who,
when the former President of the Southern
Confederacy was unjustly accused of foul
crime, and cast in prison, had the moral
courage and noble magnanimity to become
his bail; man who appears to have been
born with an innate hatred of oppression,
to whom God has given magnificent in
tellect, who, throughout his life has indus
triously improved that intellect, who, in
the true sense of the word, is philosopher
and statesman, and who, if any man can
do it, will prove to the satisfaction of the
world "that the pen is mightier than the
sword, and that States can be saved with
out it." That man is Horace Greeley, the
printer philosopher of the nineteenth cen
fury, and who, ifindorsed by the Democrat
ic Convention, about to assemble, will I'M
questionably be the next President of the
United States. That he may be I most
earnestly pray, for feel convinced that he
will save his country from serious peril
the peril of despotism more pregnant
with danger to the Republic than was the
Catalina conspiracy to the liberties ofRome.
WILLIAM P. PRESTON.
UlnIEpVI,S