The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1880-06-25

"The deliverance of the Republican ma
tional convention in Chicago in the shape Of
a platform" says the Harrisburg Patriot, ais
| certainly a curiosity. 1t is extremely verbose
abounds in shifts and evasions, and deliber.
ately falsifies the facts of history in a num-
ber of instances.
"1ts first declaration is naked and shame
less falsehood. The republican party "sup-
pressed the rebellion" is the assertion. The
eilrontery and impudence Of this preposter-
Gus claim are beyond conception. The
Democratic party does not pretend to have
suppressed the rebellion, but the Democrats
OF the northern states do claim that if they
had not given as freely of their blood and
their treasure as the members of the repub.
lican party the federal government could not
have conquered the armies of the confed.
eracy.
"The next assertion is that the Repub-
licans reconstructed the Union with free
dom instead of slavery as the cornerstone
and transformed 100000 human beings
from the Likeness of things to the rank of
citizenship" Aye, the republican party re-
constructed the Union with extraordinary
political privileges to the ignorant ex-slaves
freed by the accident OF war, but sent its
hordes of INSCRIPTIONS and desperate sd.
ventures to the states in process of recon-
struction to make political slaves of both
blacks and whites and to plunder and bank
rupt the subjugated section. For eleven
years after the cival war had ended the re-
publican party used the army of the United
States for the purpose of preventing the
overthrow of the rlundering knsves whom
its reconstruction ! olicy had placed in
power in the southern states, and it was on
ly when the negros themselves finally learn.
ed to understand the true character of the
political tutelage to which they had been
committed and the more intelligent among
them began to revolt against the rules of
cafpet-bag thieves that political serfdom in
the south came to an end. The corner
stone" of republican reconstruction was the
political carpet bagger and he disappeared
as soon as free and intelligent suffrage re-
sumed its sway.
The platform went on to assert that the
republican party raised the value of paper
currency fiom 3S per cent, to the par of
gold" The republican party lost control of
congress at the elections of 1874. Five years
elapsed after the republicans were voted out
of power in the law-making branch of the
government before the currency came to
par. The party brought upon the country
the financial panic of 1873, and since then
1t has utterly failed to regain the confidence
of the people, and has been beaten at three
successive congressional elections. 1t also
failed to poll a majority of the popular vote
at the only presidential election that has
occurred since that period. 1t remained for
the Democratic congress to lift the country
out of the financial Slough of Despond into
which the republican party had plunged it.
The lavish expenditures of the republican
administration were cut down, taxation was
reduced, corruptions in the government
were rooted out, frauds upon the government
were stopped, the rate Of interest upon the
public debt was greatly reduced when the
failure of specie resumption wis imminent,
silver was made legal tender to enable the
government to keep its pledge of payment
IN coin. All this was accomplished by Demo
ocratic legislation, not one whit of it by an
act OF the republican party. This last as
sertion of the new Chicsgo platform is
therefore baseless as the fabric of vision.
As to the remainder of this remarkable
piece of political pettifoggng, we leave :.
for future criticism. Suffice it to say for the
present that it is chiefly a repetition of the
cheap professions of patriotism which usually
enter into all political platforms tricked out
with some very ordinary trumpery for the
special use OF demagogues and other politi-
cal vampires"