The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1896-11-17
HISTORY REPEATING ITSELF,
Clevelands SacriIegious Thanksgiving
Proclamation Paralleled.

4 AbNAAAAhdtAph Il dA&AiACAN0s
| The Detroit News thus refers to the
| Presidents thanksgiving proclamation;
THAT the President of the United
| States should have the audacity to put a
| partisan victory that has brought forth
/ as many tears as Tuesdays victory has
| caused into a proclamation and refer it
all to the endorsement of heaven would
| have been an impossibility before the
| days Of Grover Cleveland, the civil service
reformer. Never was thanksgiving proc
/ lamation in more faultless form than
| this one; never did one breathe the spirit
/ Of piety in more general terms than this
one; and never in reality did human hand
| fling defiance and partisan exultation into
| the faces Of the vanquished out Of so sol
| emn an occasion"
Our Detroit contemporary forgets the
| history of a period in American history
which supplies an almost inexhaustible
storehouse Of warning illustration to the
| political student of the present day. The
chief issues in the contest which resulted
in Mr.. Jefferson's election to the Presi-
dency and in the establishment OF the
Democratic party, but four years short Of
a century ago, were the principles involv-
ed in the Alien and Sedition Acts, for
which President Adams and the centrai-
zationists Of that day stood. These acts
were repealed, but 1t will be recalled that.
less than q year ago, Mr.. Cleveland
threatened to enforce one Of them, which
had accidentally escaped repeal, but had
become obsolete, against the freedom of
the press. The President was forced to
retreat from his position by the popular
cutlery, but the tone of his present
Thanksgiving ,proves how ineradicable
is the difference between his own so
called Democracy and that of Mr. Jeffer-
son, whose opponent had made the same
use Of the worship of the Deity that Pres
ident Adams political heir, the present
occupant of the White House, has done.
History tells us that under the Sediti0n
Act of 1897, several persons Of high
character and known integrity were pros
ecuted, condemned and punished. Among
them was Matthew Lyon, Of Vermont.
who had given offense to the Federalist
members of Congress by sarcastically
terming President Adams's annual mes
sage "the Kings speech" and who was
condemned under that law as a criminal
because he had published, among other
things, the declaration that with the
Federal Executive, EVERY consideration
Of the public welfare was swallowed mp
in a continual grasp for power" and that
the sacred name of religion had been used
Fin President Adams's Fast Day procla
mation] as a State engine to make man
kind hate and prosecute each other
Lyon, who was a member of Congress,
was imprisoned under this vile law, but
was again triumphantly elected to Con
gross while still in prison; Jefferson was
elected President over his centralization-
list opponent; the Alien and Sedition laws
were repealed: and the country entered
upon its career of unexampled prosperity
for the masses, which was continued until
the success Of the Federal armies in the
late war re-instated, as in control Of the
Federal government, the hateful doctrine
which Mr.. Jefferson created the Demo
cratic party to uppress.-Fayetteyill
Observer.