Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1880-09-16
What Democratic Victory Means.

What Democratic Victory Means.
The election of Hancock to the Chief
Magistracy of the Nation signifies the
accomplishment by civil means of what
Lee and Jackson fought for. The as
sertion of this truth does not depend
upon the Affirmation of Wade Hampton
for its demonstration. 1t is in the air,
and any careful observer must appre-
ciate it.
1t was the policy of the Southern lead
ers, for may years before the war, to
keep in their hands the control of the
Government through the subserviency
of Northern men with Southern prin-
ciples." When they saw power about to
slip from their grasp in 1860, they deter
mined to destroy the Government they
could no longer control. They began
early to make preparations to fight, and
the firing upon Sumter was notice to all
the cOnspirators that the time had come
and that the actors were ready to begin
the play.
Ever since they began to recover from
the, to them, disastrous issue of the
contest they so recklessly entered upon,
they have been striving to regain cOur-
age and marshal their forces for another
attack upon the Nation. Next time,
they have said a thousand times over,
we will not repeat the mistake of 1860.
We will make our fight within the
Union, instead of seeking to go out, and
we will keep in position to use our
Northern allies, instead of putting them
where they cannot aid US.
They stand in 1880 where they stood
in 1860. fighting for the same principles
of State supremacy for which Lee and
Jackson fought, and determined to rule
the Nation for their own ends, and to
make the great industrial population of
the North subservient to their aggran-
dizement and their love of power and
rule.
The Democratic leaders of the North
stand upon the same slippery ground
they held in 1860. Shutting their eyes
to danger, they assert that there is none.
With the same trucking spirit which
characterized Fillmore and Buchanan in
upholding the Fugitive Slave law and
the Lecompton constitution, they hold
that the Southern bull-dozers are simply
good fellows who have been greatly
abused. They hold precisely the old
dough face" doctrine over again. In
the old ante-bellum days, although the
Southern wing of the Democratic party
was invariably in the minority, it still
used to run things to suit itself. 1t die
tated to the northern wing, and the two
together dictated to the country.
That was the day of wildcat, rag
money, State banking.
That was the day Of fugitive slave
chasing and fugitive slave catching.
That was the day of dwarfed manu-
factures.
That was the day when free labor had
to complete on a level with slave labor.
That was the day when Southern bull
ldozers ran West Point, and through that
controlled the army.
That was the day when free trade
threatened to make paupers of laboring
men.
That was the day of an aristooracy in
the South, supported by the labor of
slaves.
That was the day of bull-dozing and
duel challenging in the National Capital.
That was the day when the laboring
man earned from forty to fifty cents a
day for his labor.
That was the day when the Southern
slave drivers threatened to extend .heir
black scourge over the soil of the free,
liberty-loving North.
That was the day of Kansas and Mis-
sissippi border rutlianism and bloody
wars.
In case of the election of Hancock the
South does not expect to get it slaves
back again, but it does expect and will
demand that the great producing North
shall pay for them. In case of the elec-
tion of Hancock
1t would be the day of military man
in the Presidential chair.
1t would be the day of a man who
knows nothing, who has been taught
! nothing except to obey his superiorsI