Why don't they denounce?

Newspaper Title

Cleveland Plain Dealer

Publication Date

5-28-1856

Publication Place

Cleveland, Ohio

Event Topic

Sumner Caning

Political Party

Democratic

Region

free state

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Quote

Why don't the Democrats denounce the ruffian Brooks?

Document Type

Article (Journal or Newsletter)

Full Text Transcription

Why don't the Democrats denounce the ruffian Brooks? So ask our Fusion friends at every corner of the street. We answer, that so far as we have heard Individual Democrats express themselves on the subject, they are quite as indignant as the case demands. It was an outrage entirely unjustifiable from the facts so far reported, and Democrats, like other men, feel it deeply and sincerely. But it does not follow that they must mix with the Fusionists, ring bells, and drum on old tin pans, to get up indignation meetings, for the purposes of expressing their sentiments on each individual outrage of the kind. That is a scheme of professional agitators, whose sympathy on such occasions go no farther than a particular political object.

Democrats have always contended for freedom of speech and opinion and the universal right of suffrage. They have opposed, in accordance with this principle, the political organization known as "Know Nothings," who, by secret oaths, have sworn to "pertermit and put down" such sentiments. These same Know Nothings are now the avowed champions of free speech, and are the first to speak and spout at those Sumner indignation meetings. Where was their indignation when Douglas and others were hung and burned in effigy, for words spoken in debate. Where was their sympathy for free speech when the Senator from Illinois was hooted down by a mob in the streets of Chicago? Where were their shrieks for freedom of opinion when the Germans and Irish of Cincinnati and Louisville were slaughtered by Know Nothing bandits for desiring to vote as they politically believed? There was no such free soil agony then over said murderous doings and political desecration of these sacred rights. Why? Because it was the Democrats who were hung in effigy. It was a Democrat who was howled down by Black Republicans in Chicago, and that too in a Democratic meeting. They were Democrats who were murdered in the streets of Louisville and Cincinnati. Now, the Democratic party knows no difference in time, nor place, nor persons in the application of these long established principles of its creed. It condemned Know Nothingism from the start, and in all its guises, whether under the name of Americanism, Black Republicanism, or Fusionism. It equally condemns ruffianism everywhere, whether on the boundary of Missouri, in the territory of Kansas, or in the Beecher churches of New England. It is no new principle or policy of the Democratic party, waked up for a particular purpose. It has ever formed the embodiment of the Democratic creed, and will ever distinguish its political policy. Not so with our Fusion opponents, who are just now making a great ado because one of their champions has tasted the bitter fruits of their own example and teaching. Fresh from their lodges and midnight orgies, where oaths have been administered binding them to proscription for opinion's sake, and to vote as a majority in secret conclave shall dictate; they are not the ones to lead the public mind in a crisis like this. The position of the Democracy is known, and they will take their own time, and choose their own way to express their dissent of Ruffianism in Kansas or Ruffianism in Congress.

Edited/Proofed by

Entered by Lloyd Benson. Proofed by Katie DeLong

Identifier

ohpdsu560528a

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Why don't they denounce?

Why don't the Democrats denounce the ruffian Brooks?