Year: 1867

From the Cincinnati Gazette.
The Democratic Riot at Mobile


The murderous attack upon Mr.. Kel-
ley and the meeting at Mobile, has CIV
en- the country reminder not only of
southern nature, but of the nature of
the whole Democratic party, north and
south. 1t is no new illustration, for the
country did not need that, but it is re-
minder that whatever the vicissitudes
through which the country has gone,
the nature of the Democratic party is
unchanged.


The course Of the Democratic journals
in the North has been uniform and Sim
ultaneous as if they were, as supersti-
ton holds there is among some other
reptiles, a mysterious connection by
which the venom Of all is moved in
sympathy. The course in all is first to
fully justify the attack, then to partly
deny it, and then to open upon Mr..
Kelley a general fire of the abuse which
democracy uses against men to incite or
justify murder. In the Democratic pa
per Of this city, which never allows it
self to be outrun in advancing the logic
Of murder and of all barbarity, we had
an exhibition of these three aspects in a
single number, together with indubita-
Bile proof that the account of the riot
did not exaggerate its murderous pur-
pose and character.


This is not an outbreak of the evil
passions aroused by war and familiarity
with bloodshed. When was the Dem
ocratic party any dif'erent7 Was it
when it justified the massacre and pill
lage of settlers in Kansas for no other
crime than emigrating from free State
to territory Of the United States, and
when the northern democratic press
scofed at the accounts of these bloody
barbarities, and jeered at bleeding
Kansas?" The gigantic dwarf, the in
ventor of the trick OF squatter sover-
eighty, regarded this with complacency
as the appointed working Of his contri-
vance, and all the Democratic journals
justified every murder by the epithet of
abolitionist.


Was it in the palmy days, which the
democracy looks back upon rs the times
Of peace and harmony, when the sus-
picion Or the pretended suspicion that
northern citizen in the South, was in
principle opposed to slavery, was fatal
10 his life, and when Democratic jour-
nails, like the Cincinnati Enquirer, were
ever ready to justify the murder of any
Ohio citizen in the South by the epithet
of abolitionist? Was it when Senator
George E. Pugh justified, in a territory
where his party had pretended to es-
tablish popular sovereignty upon the
slavery question, q code of territorial
acts which declared the death penalty
upon any who said that slavery did not
legally exist in the territory, because,
he said, wherever slavery existed such
laws were necessaryi


The spirit of the Democratic party
did not grow more savage by war 1t
could not. The customs of war to
which they in some respects conformcd
in the South actually ameliorated the
barbarities of peace. Their worst mas
sacres of surrendered soldiers, and their
tortures of prisoners, although on
greater scale, were no more cruel than
they had done in what they called peace
And as to freedom OF speech or of the
press, Democracy has always recognized
these as its deadly enemies, and has al
ways met them with murder when it
had the power.


The whole confederate Democratic
press has howled in unison the viest
epithets upon Mr.. Kelley. Ifhe were
traitor to his country, violater of his
oath of office, a murderer of thousands
OF innocent men, a starver of prisoners
of. war, an assassin of officers of govern
ment, a pirate, poisoner, robber and
thief sallying out from neutral territory
upon peaceful villages and passenger
steamers, a plotter Of murder in secret
dens, in short if he were confederate
Democrat, he could not be the object of
more hate and condemnation from hon
est men, than he has received from the
confederate Democratic journals north
and south, for the offense of remaining
loyal to the nation, and for declaiming
in the South the sentiments of the patri-
otic people who have saved the nation.


This is the Democratic spirit Itwas
always so War which to the mass of
mankind is brutalizing, could not make
the confederate Democratic party any
more malignant or cruel. The spirit of
the Mobile papers before Mr.. Kelley
arrived there was calculated to stir up
violence against him, and their attacks
upon him since the riot justify it. Some
of the citizens would like to wipe out
the failure of their attempt at murder,
since it failed, by an empty invitation to
Mr.. Kelley to speak again, with the as
surance that he should not be harmed.


This is as much as to say, we failed to
kill you that time, let us have another
fire. Who is there of their citizens that
can guarantee that the gang of murder
ers is satiated2 If they can control
them now, they are responsible for
what they did. Mr.. Kelley is not going
about the South to see if after murder