The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1880-07-15
Why Pennsylvania is Safe.
philadelphia Press.l


is disposition to class the Common
wealth of Wilmot and Stevens with
the wayward members of the Union
who do not know their own minds or
keep their political consciences the
year in and out. The Press has re-
ferred to this claim before, but it re-
appears so often and in so many |
months that it will be little time be-
fore it is finally laid to rest.
Never was a graver injustice done
an intelligent and thoughtful COM
munity with moral and patriotic con.
victions than that implied in the ac-
ceptance of the inference drawn from
the boasts of Senator Wallace and the
threats of Squire McMullin. General
Hancock not only will not receive a
majority of the votes of Pennsylvania
next November but, unless the ex
perience of the past and the we'll
settled judgment of the State are be-
lied, he will be defeated by larger
majority than would be cast against
any other Presidential candidate of his
party, who was not put forward, as he
has been, as the representative of
sentiment of mock patriotism and
honest desire for sectional reconcilia-
tion at variance with the twentyyear-
old record of the Pennsylvania Demo-
cracy, and upon which the people of
tbn Stota boNa onna hoforo COT tbo oool
of their emphatic condemnation.
The vital fact is that Pennsylvania
is and has been ever since the lines
were clearly drawn between freedom
on the one side and slavery on the
other-between the Union and seces-
sion-and before a gun was fired on
Fort Sumter-radically opposed both
to the theories and practices of the
Democratic party aud identified by
faith and action with the opposition to
that party. In other words, Pennsyl-
vania is and has been a stalwart Re-
publican State for more than twenty
years. There has not been time
since 1856 when the heart and con-
science, the moral. political and physi
cal forces of the State, have not been
given to the Republican party. There
has not been time since, when, on
full and fair test, the majority of the
votes of the State has not been with
that party. 1t was so certainly in
1860, when Lincoln had 10000 ma
jority over the combined opposition.
1t was so during the war, when thous-
ands of her sons were on the battle
field, and the men she has since made
her military heroes, and to whom,
like Meade and Reynolds, she has
reared monuments of brass and marble
were no more or less than the privates
who died unknown and now fill un-
marked graves; and when, too An
drew Gregg Curtin, her martial Gov
ernor, was the incarnation of the war
spirit and the embodiment of her pa
triotic hopes, and she rejected her
greatest jurist, by the votes Of her old
men and returned cripples, for Curtin,
because she saw in him her own stern
relentless purpose TO crush the rebel
lion and save the Union. 1t was 50
in the troublous period that followed
the war, when the veterans of that
struggle had returned home, many to
strike hands with the political foes
whose maledictions had followed them
to The field; when treachery ruled in
the Capital, and public place was the
bribe fora betrayal of the cause for
which these men had risked their
lives. Pennsylvania had felt the
shock of battle herself Her soil had
quivered beneath the rebel tread her
fairest towns had fallen prey to the
torch of the incendiary raider, and
her richest fields had been ravaged by
the ruthless invader. Her judgment
rose superior to her gratitude, and the
bravest soldiers the Democrats could
seduce into accepting the gift of their
nominations were defeated with no
more cOmpunction or pain than the
stay -at-home Democrats would have
been, who, in 1868, had to hide them
selves before the fury of an indignant
public sentiment. The grand and the
final test of Pennsylvania Republican
ism was yet to come, however. The
campaign of 1872 will long last on
public memory as the most momen-
tous of any that succeeded the white
heat of actual conflict, where bullets
had taken the place of ballots. Had
the Repubiicanism of Pennsylvania
been aught else than moral convict
ton and patriotic purpose, it would
not have survived that year. 1t had
sustained the most grevous wounds in
its own household. 1t had suffered
from the arrogance of despotic leaders
and had seen its cause made the pre-
text for grave public wrongs. In the
nation, too, it it had witnessed the
spectacle of revered Republican lead
ers degraded without adequate cause
and noble champion, who had felt
the bludgeon of the common enemy
without fiinching, fall beneath the
blows of his own associates. 1t saw
nominations ruthlessly forced in op-
position to a strong sentiment, and