The Star Of The North

The Administration are very much exercised about the army vote. They naturally enough think it is not very probable that they will receive the suffrages of those whom they are at first attempted to impoverish, and finally determined to degrade. The party which at first refused to pay the miserable pittance of the white soldier in gold, or raise it to an equivalent, and then only increased his salary on condition of placing him on an equality with the negro, can hardly expect to find much favor in his eyes. It is not likely that the foot sore and ill-clad private can forget the contractor who has put shoddy on his back and straw paper on his feet, and vote for that party which sustains and encourages this race of harpies. It is only reasonable to believe that the soldier would prefer all of the wasteful expenditure for his commissarial to go into his own stomach, and not into the pockets of the purveyor; that he should not starve on hard tack and beans, whilst his provider is enjoying the food which ought to be his, in Champagne and terrapins. Besides this, soldiering, under the best of circumstances, is not the life that the American citizen prefers. He would rather be tending his paternal acres, driving his plow in his own soil, and enjoying the comforts of his own fireside. And he cannot therefore, but feel indignation at a party which has so conducted the war as to make his presence necessary in the field now, after three years of inefficient bloodshed. He cannot but see that had it not been for them, he would have been enjoying all those home delights which are so dear to the American heart, and would have been by his labor adding to the wealth and glory of the nation. All of these things have put the soldier out of humor with the Republican party, And this that party knows. and we know. It is therefore their business to cover up this ugly scar in their chances for success, and to endeavor to make the world believe that they feel confident of the army vote. The way this is managed is ingenious. They do not dare affirm this or deny outright the soldiers' dislike to them. Such a course might excite disagreeable replies. So they insinuate that the Democratic party fear that it will not receive the vote. And this insinuation is created by asserting that the Democracy are endeavoring to prevent the soldiers from voting. They thus indirectly argue that the Democracy, suspecting the sentiment of the soldiers to be against them, fear such a vote. To this end the Abolition Central Committee of this State has delivered itself of a long pronunciamento, the object of which is to show to the soldiers how sincerely the Abolitionists are their friends—how they alone desire that the soldier shall vote, and how everybody else is striving tooth and nail, with might and main, to deny to him that inestimable privilege. By pretending that the Democracy dreads the soldier's vote they hope to inculcate the opinion that the Abolitionists do not. To most people it would have seemed proper to have restrained all this virtuous indignation at the denial of these rights to the soldier until somebody had proposed to deny them. But so long as no single voice, Democratic or otherwise, in any official manner has, so far as we know, made the slightest objection to the military vote, (the only refusal to give the soldier his right being the objection of the Republicans to raise his wages,) these outbursts in his behalf are premature. They betray the real intention of these blatant "soldier's friends." which is not to assist the soldier but themselves. These eloquent flights show the real and just fear they entertain of the deserved hostility of the army, and are brilliant efforts at the neat little dodge of putting on Democratic shoulders the Mantle in which they find themselves enwrapped.

The Democratic party has no fear of the vote to be cast by the army. Why should they? What they do fear is that the expression of the soldier's voice will not be allowed to be heard; that an attempt will be made by the knaves in power to convert the election in camp into a farce, a juggle, a cheat; that, no matter how decidedly the soldiers by their votes condemn this Administration, which has wronged them, the returns will only show unqualified approval. This and the consequences of this, are what the Democratic party apprehend. They have not forgotten the manner in which last year's elections were conducted. The Schimmelpfenning fraud and the Ohio scheme are not calculated to induce a very strong belief in the purity and the honesty of Abolition Captains and Lieutenants, the returning officers. They believe that Lieutenant Edgerly was dismissed the service for circulating "Copperhead tickets" in New Hampshire, many a poor private would dread the guard house and "buck- ing" and "gagging" for voting the same. It is a well-known fact that while the Administration has relied on the hard-fisted Democracy to fill up the "file," nearly all the "rank" of the army has been thoroughly abolitionized. The most capable and meritorious officers have been dismissed and degraded on account of their political opinions. From Gen. McClellan down to the latest example of this kind of tyranny, Major Clitz, who has been reduced because he would not, in obedience to Administration behests, recall the invitation of the West Point orator—Buell, Negley, Porter, thousands of all ranks, have been removed, until at last nearly every Democrat of any rank above a corporal has been weeded out. It, however, no menaces or blandishments, or other influence of the superior to the inferior were used to force votes; if it could be that the bona fide, honest, uncontrolled opinions of the soldiers could be expressed by their votes, does any man believe that such an expression would be returned by these Abolition officers, untampered with, unchanged? Would the men who forge bounty warrants, who draw rations for men who don't exist, who sell passes to spies, who furnish ammunition and supplies to the enemy, hesitate to alter returns and forge election certificates at the bidding of a master at whose will they enjoy these opportunities for peculation and villany?

What the Democracy fear then, is not that the opinion of the army is against them, but that an attempt will be made to crush out the expression of that opinion. Let us have an open, honest, bona fide vote, and no Democrat fears the result. If we cannot have such a vote, then let those who prevent it be responsible for the consequences.