The Portland Daily Press

The Bullet instead of the Ballot,

"Many law-abiding citizens would feel more like firing a bullet than casting a ballot," said Mr. Eldridge, the leader of the Democracy in the national House of Representatives on Wednesday, when the bill for the supervision of elections of Congressmen by the United States authorities was under consideration. Again he said, "it would lead to war and bloodshed." In the same debate Mr. Cox of New York made the remark that he would give notice that the Legislature of his State would enforce its own election laws, for the election of its own officers, by having a day for such elections different from that for the election of members of Congress, or it would meet the federal power fairly and squarely with the State power against the usurpation of Congress." Woodward of Pennsylvania and Voorhees of Indiana expressed similar views. The law against which they inveigh merely provides for two supervisors of elections, one from each party, in all cities containing over twenty thousand inhabitants. The United States Marshal is also empowered to employ special deputies to assist him on the occasion of elections and a general supervisor of elections is to be appointed in each judicial district. This is merely making general the provisions of that law under which at the last election in New York city the Democratic vote was diminished many thousands, while to this day not one man has been found who can say that he was intimidated by federal authority or was wrongfully deprived of his vote. The opposition to this bill from Democratic members arises from the fact that it is designed to prevent Democratic frauds. The party that repeals all registration laws is not to be counted on to support any other device for securing an honest ballot. In the bill under consideration a clause in which the Marshal is authorized to call upon posse comitatus was stricken out, leaving nothing of which any honest men sincerely desiring to promote the purity of elections can complain.

But what we wish particularly to call attention to is the readiness with which these Democratic leaders appeal from the pacific ballot to the hostile bullet. The lesson of the rebellion seems to be entirely lost on some of them. What kind of legislation is it probable we should have if these men and their Southern allies were restored to the political power they held in 1860? It is not difficult to foretell: Even now, when every consideration of prudence enforces upon them as a minority party, desiring a return to their old ascendency, the utmost circumspection, they show a decided and almost ungovernable predilection for legislation like the following:

First, the measures introduced in Congress by a Democratic Senator, and supported quite generally by his associates, restoring the Arlington estate to the heirs of Gen. Lee, and necessitating the removal of the bodies of the thousands of Union soldiers, slain by Gen. Lee's bullets, who sleep there.

Second, The case mentioned above would be only the beginning. All the Rebels whose estates had been confiscated would secure their return, and they would claim and receive compensation for damage done their property by Union armies.

Third, more serious than even the cases already mentioned, they would require the assumption of the United States government of the Rebel debt.

Fourth, the Democracy do not recognize the validity of the constitutional amendment that forbids the assumption of the rebel debt. The thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth amendments, constituting an important part of the reconstruction scheme, they regard as vitiated by duress and the exercise of unconstitutional powers by the general government. F.P. Blair, recently elected United States Senator from Missouri, has just reiterated the opinion, contained in his famous Broadhead letter, that the whole matter of reconstruction is "unconstitutional, revolutionary and void" -an opinion that the people very emphatically repudiated when Gen. Blair was a candidate for Vice President in 1868. That Democrats do not confine themselves to mere abstract speculation on this subject is abundantly proved by the course pursued by New York, Indiana and other Democratic States in withdrawing or attempting to withdraw the assent given under Republican auspices.

Fifth, the work of revolutionizing the South by violence, already begun, would be immediately consummated. Gen. Blair in the same speech to which we have already referred dwells with much gratification upon the spectacle of the exodus of carpet-baggers, negroes and scallawags that would ensue upon the return of the Democracy to power.

Sixth, we should see other Legislatures besides that of Virginia purchasing portraits of Gen. Lee for large sums of money, while they would as contemptuously reject propositions looking to the acknowledgment of the services of Union heroes like Gen. Thomas.

Seventh, we will not stop to consider the subject of the Democratic financial doctrines further than to say that under Democratic rule the only question would be whether repudiation should be partial or entire.