The Portland daily press., 1880-08-21
Republican or Democrat. \

This fair minded, practical and powerful
appeal to the judgment and patriotism of
| the voters of the United States, is especially
addressed to the young men who have at
tanned the age of twenty-one since the Pres
idential election of 1876, and whose first
vote for right or wrong principles may be
the starting-point of their usefulness or
their hindrance in the national affairs of
which each man must bear his part. Ac-
cording to the figures of the present census,
the writer of this little volume computes
the probable number of young men who are
able to vote this year for the first time at a
Presidential election at about 100000.
| 1t is to this two million of young men into
whose hands is given the ballot in its purity,
taking hold, for the first time, with full
grown strength upon the government of
their country, receiving such power as a
man can have only in republc-a share
in the direct and absolute control of the ma
tion-that this fine political tract is ad-
| dressed
And even though a man have exercised
his right of suffrage for many years-the
reading of such a treatise as this, will give
! him pause, to reflect whether he be right or
| wrong; it wrong to atone so far as the pres
ent may repair the past, by casting his vote
Tor the right: if already right to hold there
for all he is worth, and by intelligent COM
prehension of the party and principles which
| he represents, to be able to give reason
for the political faith which IS in him.
| The writer justly remarks that there are
| but two parties in the political field of
enough size and Importance to merit con-
sideration-the Republican and the Demo-
cratic.
If man neglects to vote, he takes away
from himself privilege, right upon
| which are founded his life, his liberty and
his pursuit of happiness. If he cast
scattering vote-he has not only lost the
| power of his own ballot, but taken away one
vote from the power of the great party to
| which he should belong. His vote, which
| ought to count one, counts minus two Let
every man choose his party. If he would
wear the mask of the Ku-Klux, if he would
re-rivet the chains that Abraham Lincoln
struck from the hands and feet of the col
ored people; if he have no liking for cur
rent history, but takes his place among the
tombs with the bats and the owls, if he
would rather be of the dead than the living
and return like vampire to drain the life
blood OF his living country-let him 60, let
him be Joined to his idols, let him be
Democrat Rnt if-and hoo,
is the natural instinct of apurehearted man
ly youth, who has hope and faith and the
love of right things that belong to his fresh
life-if he believes that his country has
future, that the freeing of the slaves, the
suppression of the rebellion, the course
OF the nation under the guild lance of
the government for the last twenty years
have proved the progress of the nation,
through shadows, errors, sorrows, toward
the triumphant showing that republic can
and will exist in power upon the earth; if he
have been told the story of the aspeakable
griefs OF Kansas, if his childhood heard the
Tar-off echoes of the rebellion, if he reads
to-day OF the masked riders, the stuffed bal
lot-boxes, the vote under shotgun fire in
the South-what can he be but Repub-
lican?
Let us follow the outlines of the tenden
ces of tho two partiess asi presented In thisI
treatise-for history balances the deeds of
men, and sets them forth for Judgment At
the time of the Civil War large portion of
the Democratic party was busy in encourag-
Ing its old ally, the South; in obstructing
the progress OF the war, carping at its sue
cesses, and endeavoring to Illustrate it's re-
suits. 1t formed the link between the past
and present organizations, and furnishes the
proof of their identity. 1t stood ready, the
war over, to call back into the old fold the
former elements. 1t reknit the alliance
between an embittered South and the sums
OF Northern cities. And, the writer wisely
remarks:
So long as the States recently in rebellion re-
main united presenting solid front, so long
are their late adversaries bound in patriotic
prudence to retain an opposing and watchful
organization. If the Southern States are not
seeking or hoping to obtain some sectional ad-
vantage for themselves, which they think the
rest OF the country would not willingly grant,
Y why 40 they an, without one single exception,
eS--N
up as they otherwise naturally would have
done in the course of the fifteen wears which
have elapsed since the war, into new combi-
nations on other issues?
And whether this solid South desire the
assumption by the United States of their
war debt, their soldiers pensioned, their
losses, under the 18th Amendment, repaid:
whether they wish for the political nullity
OF the negro; or for control of the govern
ment for assertion of their claims to State
Sovereignty, or for revenge on their con-
querors-who shall ever say, unless they are
allowed to control the nation which they
tried to destroy?
And what does the Northern Democracy
want? 1t hopes, by it's obsequious service
| ableness to the South, to take the place of
their released slaves. 1t belongs to its mas
ters; it is bought and soil on the block; it
waits and tends, it has no reward but the
| careless contempt of its masters and the
crack of their whips; il receives only enough
food to support it for the davis work: it
| garners in the crops and has no share in
the proceeds. And here is the difference
UCGNOCH UuC OluIilHc slave anu Tile SerVlle
Democrat-the black man had free soul,
he longed for liberty and risked his life TO
obtain it, he was true to the men who
helped him to be free. He earned his lib
efty, and is glad and ready to use it to the
best of his ability. The Democrat delights
in his slavery, he shakes his chains and is
| glad to hear them rattle. He willingly does
the lowest work, he will yoke himself in the
political plough to such cattle as the Green
hacker; he hugs his slavery and strikes at
the heart of the Union which would give
and secure to him his freedom.
Let the young voter withhold his ballot
from the Democratic party, until it has
ceased to be ghost, revisiting the grave
where the last gun of the Rebellion laid its
body.
Look at the Republican record of the last
| twenty years. For the war of emancipation
the North paid the sum of So, ,1S9, ,929, ,9OS5 5S
an average of more than $500, for each