New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1880-08-12


fought and shed their blood, knew the his
tory of that struggle and what part in 1t had
been taken by the Democratic party. They
knew how perfectly true it was that the
Democratic party had made the rebellion, AMI
kept it alive. They knew how the cry
that the war was failure and the
hope that Mcclellan would be elected
nerved the rebels to fight on for more
than year after the military success OF
the rebellion had become impossible. Know
ing these things, the grown men of that day
knew how to vote, for or against the party
by which the war caused and prolonged,
and its losses and its costs vastly increased.
But the new voters of later day have no
such personal knowledge. The Democratic
party appeals to them as if it had never been
guilty of treason. Naturally, it wants to have
the past forgotten BY nominating General
Hancock it seeks to create the impression
that 1t never was dsloyal, or that. If dsloyai
once. it has become loyal now. Unhappily Tor
Democrats. their own nomination brings
sharply before new voters that very part OF
Democratic history which it is fatal to have
recalled. If Hancock is nominated, at
this late day. because of his services
to ask what party it was that caused and
defended and upheld the rebellion, and for
what reason those who fought against Han
cock are now supporting him. Then rivers or
blood are brought to view, and mounds OF
dead. and hundreds of hospitals filled with
wounded men, and priSOn-pcns with all their
horrors and infamies. The old story must be
told again, in every workshop, by every fire.
side, on every farm, until the new voters can
fully understand why it is that the Demo-
cratic party needed certificate OF loyalty
and why it is that certificate bearing
the name of Hancock is worthless. They must
be made to understand why it is that no nom
nations whatever. no promises whatever, no
acts whatever can ever enttle the Deinoc-
racy 10 be considered a loyal party; why 1t Is
that an indignant people spurned that party,
even when it crOucbed behind late COM
mander of the Army of the Potomac, and
would have spurned it just the same If 1t had
been possible for that party to nominate
Abraham Lincoln himself in 1864, or General
Grant III 1868.
The loyal men of this country are not ready
to surrender all that they fought for. That is
the lesson which the nomination of General
hancock VIII CAUSE IDc new NOlcIo w ltdlH'
The Democratic party could not have made
any more fatal nomination for itself, in that
respect. 1t needed to get rid of its war
record. But it has dragged that foul and
bloody record before the country once more,
by the very act of trying to hide it under
Generals sash and epaulets. Everybody wants
to know why such man was set up by the
men who fought against him. The answer is
fatal to Democracy.
Republicans must be missionaries in this
campaign. From this time to the close of the
contest every Republican who knows what
the Democratic party was and is, ought TO
make it his business to see that all new vOt-
ers shall also know. The main duty this year
is to seek out all the voters who do not know
what the Democratic party really Is, and to
tell them. Not with epithes not with wordy
denunciation but with simple and honest re-
cital of facts, which the loyal men of 1861
know full well. Let it be known that DemOc-
racy is the party of slavery, of rebellion, of
treason and base surrender TO treason and
that If does not change its nature or spirit
when il puts on Mcclellan or Hancock as mask.
Then, if any voter wants 10 east his first vote
for such party, let him do so with his eyes
open.