Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1888-03-22
THECONSERvATIsM OFTHEDAY.

3 lucllllllIl I NollintTtlsil NIdktlle.
General Sheridan's platform that "thC
men who saved the country should run
it" would not seem to be extremely rad
ical, but there is an expression abroad
that such observations imply the pres
ence of a spirit of violence and rebellion.
Members of the Democratic party who
have never been able to regard them
selves bound by or to the support of any
government that was not administered
by their partisans, are numerous. They
held thirty years ago that it was the duty
of the people of the free States to sub
nit to the control of the minority class
that ruled the slave States; and they
hold now that the fraud of the solid
South is a sacred thing and has become
sovereign, and they feel in all their mar
row bones that it is to this fraud that
they owe allegiance-thatt the true high
er law of this country is that which dis
franchises the southern people who are
Republicans and conferS power upon the
Democratic party by the notification of
the Constitution of the United States
When thirty-twO years ago the Repub-
licans ran a candidate for the Presiden-
cy-John c. Fremont made the
fight on the simple proposition that
slavery should not be extended. it was
done under fire of threats that the de-
feat of the Democratic party would be
I equivalent to a declaration of civil war
Very few people thought this was in
earnest, but the menace of war was more
and more vehemently made, and became
Southern Outcry and Northern whine
! in 1860: and when Lincoln was elected
| the war broke out sure enough-the Sc
| ceSSioniStS insisting upon firing upon a
/ starving garrison Of L. \ troops in order
| to force hoStilitieS-aS there had been a
| demand from Virginia that blood should
! be shed in order to carry the border
slave States into the COnfederacy. Pres
/ id2nt Lincoln was not an Abolitionist
when elected. He was against the use
Of the National authority-judieial, leg
! islative and military - to make more
slave States. The Southern Democrats
/ had to have a war on that issue.
/ The war over, the Confederate States
conquered, reconstruction took place
/ upon the basis of manhood suffrage, and
| this was written in the Constitution of
| the United States. No measure, State
or National, was omitted that seemed to
promise security for the right of suffrage
in the emancipated blacks, and the
slave States gained an immense advan-
| tage in the enumeration of the cOlOred
/ people as ''citiZens" instead of persons"
! Especial precautions We're taken in the
establishment of Returning Boards and
the passage of laws so as to prevent the
| disfranchiSement of Republicans by
| Democratic violence. 1t was the use of
the Returning Boards to prevent muir
der from becoming the controlling fac
tor in Southern Republican States that
constituted the Democratic grief in 1876,
and the lamentatiOn ever since that the
Democratic party did not then take
second opportunity to open civil war.
That they would have done it if it had
not been that General Grant was Presi-
dent there is reason to believe. The
truth is Democratic murder and fraud
did not win in 1876, and there has been
wOlfish bowling of regret and resent
ment ever since. 4 chance for civil war
not improved seems to be regarded with
! a sense of loss.
In 1884 when the State of New York,
upon which the election turned, was in
doubt, the Democrats were in a desper-
ate state, insisting that there was no
question whatever of the election of
Cleveland by a plurality of many thOus-
ands, and circulating the incendiary lie
that there was a scheme to count Cleve-
land out, and that Jay Gould and the
Western Union Telegraph were in it,
and that murder and arson and all the
powers of civil strife should be turned
loose in case it was done. This was
simply the old Democratic threat that if
that party did not win there should be
an appeal to arms, and it was the more
WantOn, as the Democracy had the New
Y Ork counting in their own hands and
were supported by swarm of Republi-
can renegadeS in various shabby capaci-
ties. There is reason to believe that at
the very time the Democrats were rails
ing the cry of fraud they were prepar-
ing the scheme to count enough Butler
votes for Cleveland to win on. After
all, they succeeded in showing a margin
in their favor of one-eleVenth of one
per cent. only, which was proof that the
clamOrOus claim that they had certain
knowledge that the State was largely
theirs, with which they filed the air,
were lies contrived to offer an excuse
for an outbreak as reasonable and dew
ilish as the cannonade upon Fort Sumter
Now, the Democratic party, with the
MugWump faction, assume as the begin
ming of things, that the Solid South, as
it stands, is the basis of government, and
rests on the divine right of the white
Democrats to disregard the Constitution
OF the United States, so far as the Black
Republicans are concerned. The Con-
federate cause is championed throughout
the South as the patriotism that has the
highest flavor in the land, and the claim
on the part of the Republicans that the
National spirit should be exalted, and
National sentiments cultivated, and the
poor mans right of equal suffrage suS-
tained, is Sneered at, f1outed, ieered at.
as reviving sectional animosity and way
ing the bloody shirt; and already there
are mutterings that if "a South hating
party should carry the election there
would be trouble, and those who assert
the equal rights of the enumerated citi-
Zens of the Southern States are South
hating" sectionalists, and subjected to
hostility as disturbers of the peace. 1t
is the old story.
SINCE the beginning of the present
year the price of coffee in the specula-
tive markets has declined about seven
cents per pound. This is estimated to
amount to an aggregate of more than
$10,000,000 of difference in value on
coffee actually in existence and that
which has only a mythical being but