Year: 1879

Not only has the Democratic party, in every
closely contested national election during the
past forty years, attempted to win by an Or
ganlzed course of fraud, but for at least
twenty years it has been concerned in habit
ual conspiracies to set aside the popular will
after due declaration of the judgment. De-
cent men generally regard it as the depth OF
baseness to submit case to arbitration and
| then refuse to abide by the decision because
it happens to be unfayOrable; but democratic
politicians, however respectable they may be
in private life, throw Iespectability to the
winds when they deal with public affairs. In
1860 the Democracy submitted a great ma
tlonal issue to the arbitration of the popular
vote The verdict being against them, they
promptly repudiated the arbitration, and dur
ing four terrible years of war they fought to
obtain by force what had been lawfully and
regularly denied them by the decision OF the
ballot.


At the election of 1876 they brought out
their last voter, and when it became apparent
that the country had again decided against
them there was hardly an imaginable scheme
of fraud or violence to which they did not
resort in order to Overturn the Judgment TO
which they had submitted themselves. They
! brihed an eectOr in Oregon to falsify the
final record of the vote of that State. They
barcained with the canvasscrs of Florida and
| South Carolina to change the figures after
the returns had been made up and counted.
When other plans failed they concerted a
villanous plot to put all the electors of
South Carolina in jail on fictitious charges,
so that the State might lose her vote entirely.
,hn do


when the last formal act that should make
effective the verdict of the popular vote was
about TO be performed, this revolutionary party
once more repudiated its cOmpacts and
threatened the country with a civil war. For
the sake of the public peace, the Republicans
yielded so faI as to submit to a new arbltra-
tion putting again in dispute the prize they
had fairly won. The Electoral Commission
was organized both parties solemnly agreeing
to abide by its Judgment. Men will not soon
forget what followed. The Commission pro-
nounced in favor of the Republican party, and
instantly the revolutionary Democracy was IN
arms, threatening chaos and the breaking up
of the Government, and paying no more re-
gard to laws than if they were so much waste
paper, or TO solemn promises and covenants
than If they were last years winds.


Now the Democracy have brought on an
other crisis. They are bent upon a certain act
of legislation from which they hope to reap a
political advantage. The people have refused
TO give them a sufficient majority to pass that
act. They take refuge at once in their old
plan-repudate the submission to the people,
and attempt to seize by violence what the
arbtratOrs of their own choice have decided
not to give them. In every emergency the
Republican party has double contest to
wage with these dangerous and cOnscicnceless
men. 1t has first to defeat them at the polls
and then, when the election is over, it has to
compel them to abide by the result. The sec
ond struggle is far the more important of the
two. The first only governs changes Of
policy upon the second depends the very
principle of free government We have al
ways won in this after-contest and while
the American people retain their common
sense, their love of justice, and their pride
in republican institutions, we always shall