nce
your peculiar pride. You have lived to see the Dagon before which you
and your friends have for so many years cheerfully prostrated yourselves
fall to the ground, and lie a helpless, hopeless ruin on the very
threshold of the temple where it lately stood defiant and dominant.

Have you ever had the curiosity to investigate the causes of this
disaster? It is a curiosity which can be easily gratified. The
Democratic party was killed in cold blood by Southern traitors. There
never was a more causeless, malicious, or malignant murder. The fool in
the fable who gained an unenviable notoriety by killing the goose which
laid golden eggs, Balaam, who, but for angelic interposition, would have
slain his faithful ass, were praiseworthy in comparison. Well might any
one of the Northern victims of this cruel outrage have exclaimed, in the
language of Balaam's long-eared servant, "Am not I thine ass, upon which
thou hast ridden ever since I was thine unto to this day? was I ever
wont to do so unto thee?" And the modern, like the ancient Balaam, must
have answered, "Nay."

But, alas for Northern manhood, alas for human nature corrupted by long
possession of political power, after a short-lived, though, let us hope,
sincere outburst of indignation, followed by protests and remonstrances,
growing daily milder and more moderate, the Northern Democracy now begs
permission to return once more to its former servitude, and would gladly
peril the permanence of the Union, to hug again the fetters which it has
so patiently and so profitably worn.

Lay aside party prejudice, for one moment, my dear Andrew, and tell me
if the world ever saw a more humiliating spectacle. Slighted, spurned,
spit upon by their ancient allies, compelled to bear the odium of an
aggressive and offensive pro-slavery policy, tamely consenting to a
denial of the dearest human rights and the plainest principles of
natural justice, rewarded only by a share in the Federal offices, and
punished by the contempt of all who, at home or abroad, intelligently
and unselfishly studied the problem of our republican institutions, the
Northern Democracy found themselves, at the most critical period of our
national history, abandoned by the masters whom they had faithfully
served, and whom many were willing to follow to a depth of degradation
which could have no lower deep. And yet, when thus freed from their long
slavery by the voluntary act of their oppressors, we hear them to-