Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1874-09-17

III the country are watching these re
suits with an eye to the financial effect.
they are TO have upon our diversified
internal and commercial interests
Statesmen are regarding them with
anxious reference to the life, the com.
plexion, and working of the National
Constitution, now practically on trial
for the great future of our country
Our commerce, our credit, our financial
relations to the nations now looking
nom all lands upon us, are concerned.
Ihe interests of the emancipated mil.
lions, just ushered into the body polite,
hang anxiously quivering in the scale.
The repOse of the sections, East and
! West, Mort and South, the security OF
home and property and citizenship,
the social order, In a word, the whole
diversified interests of society, as now
existing, are deeply concerned.
The parties engaged are the Republi-
can, on the one side, and the Demo-
cratic on the other. The Republican
proffers a continuance of its admins
tration of the Government. 1t does
not come with new overtures of policy.
Its record is before the people. 1t has
guided the ship of State for the fourteen
years past, and the manuer of it is
known and read of all. These years
have been the great historic years of
the nation. Well or i'll, the work that
has been done speaks for itself. 1t must
stand or fall by the testimony it gives.
1t certainly has been tried with all the
severity necessary, both in war and in
peace. No party ever had such tests
of its moral and physical capabilities,
its fidelity, its courage, its energy, its
endurance, its wisdom, its magnanimi-
ty, and its devotion, not only to the
national life, but to humanity, as those
precipitated upon II by the war of the
Shareholders rebellion. Nor had party
ever such trial of its tirmness. its dis
cretion, its moderation, its comprehea-
sion of the national, the sectional, and
industrial interests concerned, as that
furnished by the peace that followed
Fourteen years have passed, and the
record made is before the country.
The Democratic party was tried by
the same fires. 1t made its record uu-
der the ordeal of war, and under the
peace that succeeded. Standing upon
its o,oa. record, the Republican party
proposes to continue its work. Wrapped
in its mantle of history, the Democratic
party steps forW ard and demands the
removal Of the Republican rule, and
reaches forth Its hands to take the
Government and the national interests
and administer them in its stead. We
are called upon 70 make an Immediate
decision between the two. T It deci-
sion is not to be hosed upon what either
party proposes to do, but on sober in
telligent conviction of what is best,
not for one or lhe other of the parties
concerned-but for the country, for its
institutions, for society, for humanity.
10 decide wisely, the people are COM
PEELED to consider, not so much party
professions, and proffers of policy, as
the life, the histary, the animus of the
two. Not so much their words as their
works. If the Republican party has
been unfaithful to its trust, if the coun-
try has suffered. has retrograded under
its rule, if social interests have been
imperiled or unprotected, if humanity
has lifted lis hands in vain for help
and ameliOration, If the industrial and
financial interests of the nation have
been neglected or retarded, and if an
archy instead of peace, social order,
and prosperityhas prevailed, it should
not be continued in power. Consider
'atjons of gratitude should not weigh;
hopes for reformation, proffered or
promised, should not beguile the peo-
pie into prolonging its lease of power.
If, on the other hand, the Democratic
organization has been faithful through
all its displacement and adversely; if it
has stood for the right, and battIed for
the right, while its rival has been false
and faithless; if it has held out. the
"Balm of Gilead" to the wounds Of So
ciety, while distracted and desolated by
war; if it has FASTENED with oil and /
wine to bleeding and PROSTATE human
ity, while its pampered rival, flushed
with plenty and with power, has pass
ed heartlessly by on the other side, the
country should rise at once and consult
its safety and its veal by taking the
sacred trusts from the hands of the un-
faithful stewards and committing
them, without delay to the party found
so true, so faithful, and still so willing
to accept them.
But, what says the record of each p
We shall not recount them. The public
memory is fresh and strong. All can
look back to the terrible days of the
War, and all know who stood at the
gates when the citadel was assailed.-
The national life was the objective
point. To disrupt the Union was the
war cry. To tear down the national
fabric was the sentiment that stirred
the surging waves of the rebellion
surge met surge, and wave met wave,
but tchichthe party that drove the bill
lows ON until the ocean slept? Was 1t
the Democratic party? In the dark
hours thst came with the sh,+ - of war
the agency that counterworked the
deeds and designs of treason was not
Democratic. The Republican party
was the nations bulwark. When the
clouds grew black, and reverses in bat