Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1876-04-07
CrIrpling the Government.

II is now well understood that the DEM
ocraiic leaders in Congress are under the
supreme control of the Southern Democ-
racy; and for that reason the Forty fourth
Congress is called the Confederate Con-
gress. True TO their instincts of disloyal.
ty this Confederate Congress is deter
mined TO cripple the public service. None
know better than men like Mr.. 5. 5. Cox
and Mr. Sam Randall that the Govern
ment cannot be carried on IL the sweep
ing reductions made from the estimates
and in the departments should become
law. The public business of the country
does not decrease, but increases. The
Republic of to-day, as the creation of Re.
publican craftsmanship, is like new ma
tion compared with what 1t was before the
war. The Democracy were responsible
for the rebellion and for the enormous
debt contracted in putting 1t down. South
ern rebels had been assured by the Dem
ocratic leaders of the free States that the
North would not fight, that the old slave
States had only to show that they were in
earnest, and they might secede, in which.
indeed, every Bourbon Democrat would
render help Affairs did not turn out ex-
actly as the South expected, nor did the
Democrats find it so easy to fulfill their
promise. On the Republican party fell
the duty of raising and equipping the
armies and navy which put down the re-
bellion, and saved the Union. When the
Southern armies laid down their arms no
Southern man who had fought to destroy
the Union expected to come to Washing
ton to represent the cause which had been
lost in the field on the floor of the House
of Representatives And yet by the grace
of the Republican party Southern man
may now be as disloyal as he pleases in
the Capitol, over the dome of which floats
the flag of American freedom.
The soldiers OF the Republic who bat
tied with treason and disarmed II are pro-
foundly moved at the condition of the
House of Representatives. When they
left their homes TO put down rebellion
they meant it, aud more especially as half
million of their comrades fell with their
faces to the foe They were willing to
consider the war as over when they saw
men fleeing from the expected conse-
quence of their crimes, and others await
ing their doom with great anxiety This
had much to do with the protfer of am.
nesty, which was soswiftly accepted. But
when the Southern States were received
into the Union with constitutions in ac-
cord with the pledges given, and in ac-
cord with the amendments to the Consti-
tuition of the Republic, they thought that
surely the differences of the past were
swept away, and that the new class of citi-
zens which those amendments called into
existence would grow up side by side
with the forgiven white rebel whose citi-
zenship dated subsequently. 1t was new
er imagined that the meu concerned in the
rebellion would prolong the cause of the
rebellion after the war ceased. No one
dreamed that that cause would practically
prLlong the war, and that in the year 1876 it
should be represented on the floor of the
House bya disloyal element which domi-
na'es the Democratic leaders there. The
sympathy of the Bourbon Democracy is,
however, only bearing fruit now. They did
not have the courage to avow themselves
what they were until the amnestied ex-
Confederates entered the House, and be-
came as the Southern oak around which
such morning-glores as MIR. Cox, Mr.
Randall and MIR. Hester Clymer might
gracefully entwine. Before this gentle
trio trailed around the neck of Mr.. B. II.
Hill and his colleagues, they had cast
their arms over the neck of the Republi-
can party, and borrowed what political
responsibility they had from that party's
tolerance. Had they and their friends
not been discreetly silent on what they
have lately boasted, and thus come out in
their true colors, their constituents would
have known them better, and allowed
them to waste their sweetness on the des-
ert air of home. At all events these men
and the Confederate element in the House
combine to support each other and al
though the eX-COnfederates owe every
thing to the clemency Of the Republicans,
their base ingratitude is being shown to
the country. The leaders of the Bourbon
Democracy and the Southern Democrats
from the rebel armies have combined to
cripple the public service, not in the in
terests Of economy, but because they tenn
porarily have the power to defy the Re-
publican majority in the Nation--Repu6-
Tic Magazine.