We are indebted to the courteous officers of the
Exchange Bureau for copies of late New York papers, from which we make some extracts:
The Democratic Committee.
The Democratic National Committee at
Washington appear in the papers with a circular letter, in which they earnestly urge their friends in the
United States to organize rapidly for the presidential campaign.
The names signed to the letter are not very well known.
Charles Mason signs as chairman.
They set forth the formidable nature of the
Lincoln party organization, and assure their own party that there is no chance of success but in the most perfect organization through Democratic clubs and associations, and to all these must be freely added "money. "
The vast patronage and power of the Administration, which its organs and its acts inform us are to be used to an extent never before paralleled in influencing the approaching election, can only be successfully opposed in the manner now contemplated.
To the patronage and favor of the
Government we must oppose the patronage and favor of the people.
While we fully appreciate the magni- tude of the effort we are now called upon to make we see therein no ground of discouragement.
The power with which we are contending is enormous — almost in calculable.
But great power naturally begets great abuses, and those, when sufficiently developed, destroy their own parent.
Upon this great principle we place our chief reliance.
Great as is the power of the Administration, the abuses of that power are more than commensurate therewith.
The preponderance is in our favor, and will secure us victory in the contest.
But the vast political machinery which must necessarily be employed in the approaching momentous struggle cannot be put in operation without the motive power of money.
Let the capitalist of the country bear in mind that the war, as now conducted, is in fact one of the historical processes for transferring the accumulated wealth of the country from its legitimate owners to some of the supporters of the present Administration and their satellites, who have inaugurated and who now control it. What is contributed to carry on the conservative movement is but the premium paid to insure the possession and security of the remainder.
A great meeting had been held at
Rochester, New York, of the supporters of
McClellan.
Speeches were made by
Washington Hunt,
Francis Kernan, and others.
Mr. Hunt is well known as an Old Line Whig — very orderly and conservative — as having opposed Know-Nothingism and being a considerable stickler for that obsolete thing known as the "
Constitution of the United States."
Mr. Hunt charged that
Lincoln had violated his own pledges, in which he promised not to interfere with the rights of the States, by issuing his emancipation proclamation, which took away from the States the most precious attribute of their sovereignty — the right to control their own concerns.
The speaker, appearing to regard the people about him as of the sort he knew in other days, talked much of
Lincoln's usurpations and violated State sovereignties.
We apprehend his is like the voice of one crying in the wilderness.
We quote the following from his speech:
Now, one of the grounds on which I oppose
Mr. Lincoln is, that he has usurped power and attempted to perform functions that are prohibited by the
Constitution.
I charge him here to- day with violating the
Constitution which he had sworn to support.
How, then, can any of you, if you believe this, ask him again to swear that oath when you know that he has deliberately violated it?
Will you mock high heaven by enabling him once more to take the oath, when you know that he has no intention of keeping it?
I might refer you to other parts of the
Constitution.
There were provisions placed in that Constitution for the protection of every American citizen in his rights of person and property.
It provides that no man shall be deprived of liberty or property without due process of law — that every man shall have trial by jury; it secures the
habeas corpus, which is the protection to guard the citizen against the exercise of arbitrary power, and to obtain which, cost our ancestors hundreds of years of struggle.--Those principles of our Constitution which secure to the people of the States the right to control their own concerns have been most wantonly infringed upon.
Here, where people of all parties have been obeying the laws, you have seen one instance after another till they have become so numerous — the individuals seized by arbitrary process, without means of redress, have been taken to prison, confined in bastiles for month after month, and year after year, without even the formality of trial, and without even an accusation.
And after being confined, in some instances, for a year they were, without any excuse, finally discharged.
The tyranny of
Austria is not worse.
We can only be saved by the efforts which we make to regain what we have so nearly lost.
Brute Butler on the Presidency.
The tender hearted and affectionate
Butler, in a letter to "Deur Comeron, (of
Pennsylvania,
Lincoln's former
Secretary of the of War,) in which he bids adieu to his Democratic friends and takes sides with
Lincoln, essays to satisfy his old confreres that there is no difficulty in the way of their voting for
Lincoln.
He says if they elect
McClellan they remit the country to the hands of
Vallandigham,
Voorhees,
Wood,
Seymour and others, who, if even they carry on the war, will disband two hundred thousand colored men now doing duty as soldiers.
Butler is a trump.
This argument will tell amongst Yankees.
Two hundred thousand of them have no idea of putting themselves in the places of these negroes!
Butler ridicules all idea of debating the negro question of emancipation.
It is an idle one; for the armies settle it as they advance.
Slavery terminates wherever they appear.
He objects with great earnestness to
McClellan's proposition to give the
South guarantees, and asks if it is possible anybody at the
North will agree to concessions to the
South, forced at the point of the bayonet?
For himself, he declares he has but one article in his political creed, and that is "war," "until the authority of the
Union is acknowledged and its laws obeyed upon every foot of soil ever within the boundary of the
United States." Most amiable and conciliatory beast!
May you have enough of war before you descend to your final abode!
