Clarksville chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 186?-1872, 1872-07-20
THE BALTIMORE CONVENTION.

The Baltimore Convention has given
a definite shape to the Presidential
canvass, and drawn a broad line ON
one side of which will be found the
friends of constitutional liberty and
honest government; on the other, the
advocate of consolidation and the up
holders of q corruption of which they
nre the beneficiaries. To these last,
IA allies, may be added few, with
indurated preiudices, whose habits of
thought and action have fixed the mar
row and pernic!ous conviction that
party is to be preferred before country
and to whom ruin, by other hands, is
preferable to triumph of political
Justice achieved by agencies not purely
democratic. The present is crisis
which appeals not to sordid selfshness
and partizan prejudices, but to the
lrcadest patriotism-the highest dcvo-
ton TO the cardinal doctrines of popu
lar governmental sovereignty OF
the States and the restriction Of the
powers of the general government
within the limits prescribed by the
Federal compact
The contest inaugurated at Cincin-
natl and Baltimore, is not for office,
or spoils, or party supremacy, but Tor
= -, - .Nt hn NnN
legacy bequcathed to us by the sagcs
of 70" and should partizan malcon-
tents decide the contest against liberty
and political integrity, after genera
tions will class them with Benedict
Arnold and, worse still, with the vii
famous usurpcrs against whose cor
rupt rule the patriotism anu integrity
OF the country are arraying themselves
in the approaching struggle for the
perpctuity of the republic. Posterity
will not accept AZ an apology for the
treason the contemplate plea, that
Greeley is not Democrat. The qucs-
ton the future historian will ask, is
could the Democrats, by united eff
fort, have overthrow the tyrants ?
The answer then, as now, must be i'll
the affirmative, and the judgment, pro
found contempt for their country :
botrayrrs, Honesty of intention may
palliate the offcnsc but cannot reverse
the Judgment nor will that plea avail
any parti2an who may vote for Grant
because Greeley is not a Democrat
Such an evasion of ones duty, in the
pending crisis, will serve only to dis
close the sinister motives by which
such voters are actuatcd.
The disastrous experiment of 1868
demonstrates the fact that no straight
ont Democrat could he elected to tn,
Presidency, for the reason, anon.
others, that a Democrat i, as odiou
in the North, n a Radical IL in IN,
South. Then a. compromise, coul,
Cincinnati aud Baltimore have don,
better? Every northern Democrat, u
the genuine stamp, is ms unavailable
ns Seymour was, and no war Democra
can show a better record than Gree
lcy'-, because betrayal Of party, as wei
Hs country, heads the list of his politi
cal Gins. Then it hchoovcS the South
not merely a. matter of sound poll
~, but Of true principle, to stand b
the, action of the Baltimore Conycn
ton Its sound policy because "
can do no better, aud genuine princi
Pile because it involves the entire stru,
iurc of the government, NJ original
fashioned, aud every elementary pril
rinlc of popular and S,atr sovereign,
Grant aud his party have sought, an
are seeking, the destruction of the,
elements OF popular liberty and it
mere suhtertucc TO say that those WI
directly, or indirectly uphold III,
party are not, equally, the enemies
their country and assistant architcc
of the contemplated despotism
al who have marked tho rol:,y
;as var parry Of ms H2r,h, uIs;