Knoxville weekly chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1875, 1875-02-24
signs of the Tirnes.
From Harper's weekly.l

! from the acts and deeds of the Demo.
cratic party since the victory in its
name at the polls that il is a party
with new spirit aud purpose, and not
the same old organization that sustain
ed slavery, plunged the country into
war, and resisted the guarantees oil
! equal rights in reconstruction. The
| first thing that is observable is the fact
of very general alarm at the pros
| pect OF Democratic victory in 1876,
and an alarm which is not in the least
relieved, but greatly increased, by
what are seen to be mistakes OF policy
upon the part of the Republicans. The
alarm springs from the perception
that while the Democratic party in
slsts upon Cancellation, it aims only to
conciliate the late disaffected class in
| the southern States; that while il
breaches the golden rule and brother
/ ly love, 1t sees the negro hunted and
harried without protest; and that it
| chiefly honors those who were known
during the war AS Copperheads or Con-
federates. The fact that they may be
its ablest men is not re-assuring in
| view of other facts.
The Democrats have returned one
hundred and twelve Confederate
soldiers to Congress. The Southern
States, with Maryland, Delaware, and
Kentucky, elect one hundred and
thirty-eight members. or these all
but twenty-six are from the late Con
federate army. This fact alone dis
poses of the Democratic assertion that
the Republican policy is one of hatred
and revenge, and that the party re-
Jects Cancellation aud insists upon ty-
ranny. When the war ended it was
left in absolute control of the govern
ment. 1t could have dictated any
terms, and the country would have &C
qulesced. But not IA drop of blood did
1t shed IN vengeance. 1t established
no system of confiscation. 1t merely
made every man free and citizen,
and embodied his rights in the funda-
mental law.
This was not very iniquitous. 1t
was magnanimity unparalleled in
history aud had it been met in the
same spirit by the Democratic party,
the peace and happiness of the country
would have been assured.
But that party, bent upon its own
interest and not upon the welfare OF
the country, sought in every way to
perpleX reconstruction and bring it to
naught. The recent story of the South
ern states Is familiar. If the Republic
cans have committed great errors, If
frauds and military coercion can be
urged against them, equal frauds, with
political murder and terrurism-the
ku-klux, the White League, massa-
cres, and open bloody revolution in
New Orleans last September-can be
truthfully alleged against the Demo-
cratic party. That under absolute
Democrotic domination in the South
ern States a Republican would be no
safer now than an abolitionist before
the war is asserted in a private letter
printed in the New York Times, and
in the state of Southern society such as
a late number of the Nation described,
nothing is more probable. Meanwhile,
In other parts of the country the Dem
ocratic party sends typical Copper
heads, like Mr.. Eaton, of Connecticut.
to the Senate, and supersedes Mr..
Schurz, the apostle of the Democracy
as 1t pretends to be, by gentleman of
whom nothing is known but that he
was an uncompromising Confederate
general. We do not recall such facts
eprOachfully. The more sincere We're
the convictions of these gentlemen,
the less should they be intrusted with
the control of the government.
simultaneously events in Louisiana
have elected from the press and orators
OF the Democratic party avituperation
OF the Administration, and especially
OF General Sheridan, the ferocious tone
OF which shows that it is the outburst
OF long-pent hatred of that officer,
who owes all his distinction to his il
lustrious service in the war. We have
HartQInlN mt ingtiEaI ~
dispatch. But we have never doubted
that it was the indignant outburst of
an honest soldier plainly unit for civil
administration. But never by anv
Democratic newspaper or orator were
the treachery of Davis and Lee and the
wretched Twiggs, or the unspeakable
lutamles OF Andersonville and Belle
Isle, or the massacres of innocent men
at New Orleans in 1905, at Coushatta,
ana at Colfax, so denounced as the
dispatch of General Sheridan. Mr..
Bayard, OF Delaware, declared in the
senate that this gallant soldier, who
has done more than the whole Demo-
cratic party to keep this republic free,
was unit to breathe the free air of
the republic" as reported in the pa
pers, but according to the Record.
VINO shall say whether lie is even fit
to breathe the air of Republican gov
ernment?" Who is Mr. Bayard. of
Delaware, who thus denounces Sheri-
dan and eXtols freedom He is the Sena-
tor of State in which he and his po-
ltlcal friends maintained human sla-
very as long as they could, and lead
er OF the party whose sole policy for
more than generation was to make
tLls a slave republic.
Meanwhile, in the session of Con-
gress now closing, the conduct of the
Democrats, who have "a majority in
the nextHouse, shows the old tone-the
tone which Democratic success would
restore to the Government. The cpl !
sode of Mr., John Young Browns per-
forpance, for which he received the
censure Of the House through the
Speaker and the earnest efforts of the
Democratic party To shield him from
that censure after his plain prevarica-
ton, show the fire of the old feeling
still burning-a fire which is not like !
ly to ripen concord and tranquility |
should 1t by success extend and obtain |
the mastery. Where i'm all the ora
tons and resolutions and leading ar
ticles of the Democratic marty for the