The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1876-09-28

which all parties were more or less re'
sponsible.
All the,> questions are past. They
belong to history. Let us speak the
truth of history.
For more than forty years the press.
pulpit and rostrum of the South taugh,
two fatal hercsies. First, that slavery
was divine institution, based upon tie
Bible. and that slavery was the cor
nerstone of the Republic and, second,
that every State had the right to peace
fully secede, that the Union had no
right to enforce it's authority in any
State against it's will. These heresies
were taught in the schools and univer-
sites, in all their public reviews and
journals, by their statesmen, Legisla-
tors and Judges, and by their great
preachers. Two generations of men
and women were taught this, and they
came to believe it. Ideas rule man in
the end. Ideas are those great spirit.
ual forces which will have their way,
or rcnd anything to pieces which cross
es their track. True or false, angel or
demon, ideas once in possession of
human soul will control it, and lead OF
drive it on; the braver, greater, and
more earnest that soul may be, the
greater the power and momentum oi
its movement, thoug it be through
and danger, fire and blood
These two false ideas, earnestly be-
Iievcd In by the mass of the people oil
the South, were the primal causes, and
the foliies and blunders of churches
and political parties were the direct
causes which brought on the civil war
for which, as have said, churches and
political parties were responsible,
more or less, in Inciting,and still more.
for not preventing those measures
which directly caused it. AS u mat
ter OF history,you remember the Meth
odist Church and the Baptist Church
were divided into hostile churches,
to commune with each other
long before the Democratic party was
divided.
You remember with what sorrow
and profound alarm the greatest minds
of our statesmen, like Clay, Webster
and Benton saw that division of the
churches, and looked upon it as ON
inous of terrible, and it might be "a
bloody, contest, whenever the great
political organization should be divid
ed also,
With all its faults, the truth of his
tory shows that the Democratic party
was the last to divide its organization
betw cen the North and the South up
on these questions. In 1860, at its
at Charleston, Benjamin
h. Butler, in that party from Massa-
voted fifty-seven times for
Jeff. Davis for President to prevent
the nomination of Stephen a Doug
las, and to prevent a disruption Of the
Democratic party. That Convention
dissolved without a nomination, and
The Democratic party was then bro
k en- i'm twain. Douglas was nominated
as Union Democrat, ,Breckinridge as a
Douglas was for the
Union and peace, Breckinridge for Sc
cession and war. The Southern De-
mocracy favored secession and that
brought on war.
You all remember when, at last, war
came, the advice of that great leader
Of the Democracy North, Stephen A.
Douglas, that during the rdr for the
Union there should be but one party!
Let me tell Mr.. Morton and others
who charge this war to be Demo-
cratic war, that the charge ia only half
rue and half false. 1t is true so. far
asthat party South, but it is not true
IS to that party North. The truth
half told is always lie, and the lie
which wrongs most is one that is half
true and half false. Ii bites like sci :
pent and stings like an adder. 1t is
no more true than that the Methodist
Church brought on the war, or the
Baptist Church, or the Presby yterian
Church brought on the war. '-at
The Churches which divided long
before the political parties divided,
were uot reunited until long after the
war was over until after the Union was
unit! long after the political
parties were reorganiZed on IL national
basis. Indeed, thcre is as much sem
blance of reason in charging the wal
upon the Methodist, or the Baptist, OF
the Presbyterian Churches as upon The
Democratic party, and there is no just
for either charge to be
III ide by honorable men. That tho
Democratic party North made great
mistake in not following the advice oil
Douglas in uniting as one party with
Mr.. Lincoln during the war, have
always maintained. lfthey had unan
done so, the whole weight
and influence of the Democratic being
in the same party with Lincoln and
Johnson, after Lincoln's death, would
have, in . great measure, been felt
and they would have greatly modified
the reconstruction measures and poll
cy which Thaddeus Stevens, Wade anf
others forced upon the Republican
party But | do not intend To dwell
100 long on this subject. Indeed,
should not have dwelt SO long as
have but for the reason that this is th'
only charge which is used by Morton
Chandler, and other Republican lead
ers in this canvass to alarm the Repub
licans who in their hearts believe tn,
time has come for change OF parties
measures and men, but if their preju
diccs against the Democratic party
can be reused again to the white hca
Or by fisuutiuv the bloody shirt tht ,