The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1880-08-13
BURNING WORDS.
A New York Soldier ON the Demo-
cratic Record.


New York Soldier ON the Demo-
cratic RecOrd.A
The veteran Union soldiers in Utica,
n. Z, lately formed a Garfield and Ar
thur club. Among the speakers was
Col. Arson s. Wood, OF Albany. We
quote one paragraph from his remarks,
as follows:
Roll back the black curtain of the past twen-
ty-five years and ask the keeper of the records
what the Democratic party has done. It tried
10 extend and strengthen human slavery by
opening to its desolating influences the gate
ways of the free and fertile Northwest. It
tried to bride Kansas into adopting slave con-
stltutioii under which the tyratit might live and
drive his horrid trade in human fiesh and chief
among the bride givers was the man whose
name has taken the place Of reform" upon
the Democratic ticket It tried in the very out
set to aid rebellion by an official declarationthat
the constitution gave no power to preserve the
nation. Its last President stood cowardly by
and saw, one by one, the strongholds of the ma
ton pass into traitors hands, and made no eff
fort to stem the rising tide of rebellion From
1861 to 1864 it was In sympathy with traitors,
and gave Its whole 1hfueBce as a party to
schemes to embarrass and cripple the Govern
emboldened by Union losses that
at the very turning point in the war it
declared that war a failure and proposed
truce with rebels in. arms. Happily for the
country, its dismal notes were drowned amid
the shouts of victory that went up from Atlanta
and the Shenandoah. And when the war was
over, and the question came whether Union
men or traitors should control or govern in the
South, it promptly arrayed itself upon the side
- 41,o Tor re xx-l,o or1
was put against any reconstruction that did not
give the rens of Cox ernment into the hands of
the men who sought to destroy the Govern
ment. 1t hindered and obstructed reconstruc-
tion opposed and denounced resumption,
struck hands with every enemy of sound and
honest currency, condemned every effort to re-
store confidence and establish permanent value
and healthy business. For quarter of cent
ury it has been steady brake upon the wheels
Of progress and vigilant and active enemy of
honest reform. Ever since Lees surrender at
APP omattox it has sought to surrender the
fruits of that great victory, and at all times it
has been ready and anxious to betray the lib
critics of the freedman. Go further back and
look at the state in which it found the country
in March, 1858, when it placed Franklin Pierce
in the Presidential chair and took upon Itself
the administration of the Government Look
at the state in which it left it
eight years later, when James Buchanan stepped
down and out forever. In its eight years of
power it had bankrupted the treasury, nursed
and fostered rebellion, and forged the shaclles
to bind the nation. And this old party, with
all the rottenness of years upon it, comes to
the loyal, patriotic people of this goodly land
and demands that it be 7intrusted with the adj
ministration of affairs, that it may be put in
every Federal office, from President down to
the hnnblest postoffice in the land, either rene
gade Republicans OF boisterous Democrats, who
will owe their places to the solid vote of a
solid South controlled and run by the men who
to-day. 81 ry as much as ever in the justice of
the lost cause" Are you, my fellow--citizens,
are you my fellow-soldiers, prepared to give
votes to accomplish this? The Confederate
flag must disappear forever. The "lost cause
must be decently buried out of sight; the
Union must be the god of our craftsmanship,
and the blue the color of our uniform, every
where, from Maine to California, from the
lakes to the Gulf, in Mississippi as well as in
New York, before it will do for the Republican
party to loosen its grip or surrender control of
the nation.