Why don't they denounce?Cleveland, Ohio, Plain Dealer [Democratic](28 May 1856)
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.
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