Last Saturday’s issue of the Democrat contains a leader on the Democratic party, in which our neighbor assumes that “devotees of Republican-Abolitionism,” as he terms them, “never promulged an idea more ridiculous” than when they asserted that the Democratic party is dead. The idea, in this locality, was first enunciated by a prominent member of the Democratic party. It will be remembered that Mr. Dow made a public declaration to that effect last spring from the steps of the Court House, before one of the largest crowds that has ever assembled in our city. In his patriotism the speaker lost sight entirely of partisan felling and boldly declared that the Democratic party was dead, that we of the North were all now one for the Union. The same sentiment has since been reiterated by many prominent men of our nation, who, laying aside all partisan feeling, have enlisted in the defence of our common country under the national flag, regardless of the fact that he who stood at the head of the nation had been placed in that position by the Republican party.
Reciprocating this feeling, the President threw aside all party predilections and looking only to the good of the country and the suppression of the rebellion, placed in chief command of the Federal forces a gentleman whose political principles had formerly been with the Democratic party. Further than that, he selected as a member of his own Cabinet and placed over the war department, another gentleman who had formerly entertained political views adverse to his own. In the patriotism of his heart, he merged political preference into love of country, and in all his appointments never allowed the narrow-minded question to intrude itself, whether the applicant formerly affiliated with the party to which he was attached. It was sufficient for him to know that the gentleman was now unwaveringly for the Union of the United States, and opposed to the nefarious rebellion that sought to divide them.
Last Monday night certain political demagogues in Congress, to the number of forty, met in secret caucus for the purpose of fanning into life the dying embers of pro-slaveryism in our country and re-christening them democracy. A committee was appointed to draft resolutions expressive of their views. The notorious Vallandigham was chosen the chairman of that committee, because, we presume, as is usually the case, he had resolutions all “cut and dried” in his pocket. The substance of these resolutions has not transpired in full, but as Vallandigham introduced them, and several members from the border slave states were present, and the meeting is said to have been harmonious, it is an easy matter to judge of their character. Beside it has leaked out from “positive information,” that they “agreed to oppose the presidents emancipation plan.”
The prominent idea with this little coterie of political wire-pullers, was to conciliate the border slave State men, and in order to do this they necessarily had to commit themselves to slavery. – It is avowed that they also “favored McClellan’s war policy, which is for a war short and desperate, and for our glorious Union as a whole.” The adoption of such a resolution is not only bad policy, but presents the appearance of burlesque. It is bad policy because it will have a tendency to array those opposed to this newly-organized party against Gen. McClellan, by identifying him so closely with its leading tenets. And it has the semblance of burlesque at the same time, from the fact that it was the policy of the President and Secretary Stanton to make the war short and desperate, while Gen. McClellan opposed to the very last the grand army of the Potomac leaving its quarters to attack the enemy. The president selected Mr. Stanton for the position of Secretary of War because he knew the energy of his disposition and that he favored a short and vigorous war. Mr. Stanton was scarcely inducted into office before he showed his mettle by the declaration, that our troops had now either to fight or run, signifying that they had too long led an inactive life.
From the above, which gives a faithful history so far as is publicly known of the organization of what is now termed the Democratic party, it will be seen that the platform on which it rests its hope of future success in our Government, is composed of one broad plank, black as the shades of night and rotten as a rope of sand, comprehended in the single word SLAVERY; a compound of everything that is iniquitous, and the cause of all the tears and groans, heart anguish and bereavement, that afflict our happy country from the pine regions of Maine to the orange groves of Louisiana. Yes, a party has been organized in the North, they have reared their banner, its insignia are a skull and cross-bones, underneath is inscribed the word Slavery, and with this rag flaunting in the breeze of a nation that has just been punished to the extent of human endurance by the same cursed institution, they expect to march to victory; and the Democrat of this city proclaims that the man who sets himself up in opposition to it, “has some other object in view than the best interests of the country and the people that compose it.”
– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Monday Morning, March 31, 1862, p. 2
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