NEW ERA IN SECRET POLITICAL ORGANIZATIONS--PLEDGE TO "TAKE UP ARMS"
FOR JEFF. DAVIS--TRUE DEMOCRACY STRUCK DOWN--NATIONAL AND STATE
LEADERS--INVINCIBLE CLUB LEADERS--VALLANDIGHAM'S RETURN TO THE STATES IN
HIS CAPACITY OF SUPREME COMMANDER OF THE SONS OF LIBERTY.
A new era in the history of secret political orders was opened by the
Sons of Liberty.
As the Presidential election of 1864 approached, the party in the
minority began to appreciate the awkwardness of its attitude upon the
political issues of the day, and appeared determined in its conclusion
to obtain the ascendency in the coming administration, by means of fraud
and force.
The great mass of the party had now become conversant and familiar with
every species of political crime, through secret organization, and it
only remained for the leaders to decide upon a programme, to have it
executed with despatch and fidelity.
Languishing under the lash of chastisement inflicted upon those infamous
enough to aid and abet the cause of dismemberment, mutual hate and
slaughter, National extinction and death, they swore in this Order an
eternal and most dreadful oath of vengeance upon their offenders, and
pledged themselves, under fearful penalties of death, "ever to take up
arms in the cause of the oppressed in their own country, first of all,
against any monarch, prince, potentate, power or government usurped,
and found in arms and waging war against a people or peoples, who had
of their own _free choice_, inaugurated a government for themselves, in
accordance with and founded upon the eternal principles of truth."
Thus, the liveliest form of ancient or modern civilization, in a
republic just rising to the glories of empire, was to be sacrificed
to the mad notion of petty "State Sovereignty," by a sworn band of
desperadoes. How sad when other generations would ask, where is the
Federal Government, to be answered only by poets, who would sing her
elegy, as in the past they have sang that of the lamented Hellas:
"Ask the Paynim slave,
Who treads all tearless on her hallowed grave;
Invoke the spirits of the past, and shed
The voice of your strong bidding on the dead!
Lo! from a thousand crumbling tombs they rise--
The great of old, the powerful and the wise!
And a sad tale which none but they can tell,
Falls on the mournful silence like a knell.
Then mark yon lonely pilgrim bend and weep
Above the mound where genius lies in sleep.
And is this all? Alas! we turn in vain,
And, turning, meet the self-same waste again--
The same drear wilderness of stern decay;
Its former pride, the phantom of a day;
A song of summer-birds within a bower;
A dream of beauty traced upon a flower;
A lute whose master-chord has ceased to sound;
A morning-star struck darkling to the ground."
The thought of the miserable commentary stirs the ire of the patriot
and nerves his arm to daring deeds, in the holy cause of liberty, the
constitution, and his country.
Skulk back into your dark dens of iniquity, you Clement L. Vallandigham,
and you James A. McMaster, and you S. Corning Judd, and you Amos Green,
and you P.C. Wright, (in Fort Lafayette where you ought to be,) before
the wrath of honest people falls upon your wicked heads! Each of you,
with the exception of _you_, Wright, being too infamous for that, even,
have been before the Commission at Cincinnati, and stand before an
outraged people condemned out of your own lips! Dare insult the light
of day with your hideous faces, and be dashed in pieces on the rocks of
public scorn!
But to return to our text, the Sons of Liberty, we find that undaunted
organization in full blast from the time of its official inception in
New York up to the Monday morning of the arrests on the 7th of November
last.
It is now proposed to show, by an allusion to certain prominent facts
occurring during the summer of '64, that the so-called Democratic party
was the mainspring to the great conspiracy that has been attempted in
the North with so much audacity that many men of the best judgment
can scarcely believe it to be a reality. In this we do not wish to be
understood that all men who have heretofore voted the "unterrified"
ticket, have knowingly and willingly given aid and comfort to the
treasonable plans and purposes of their leaders, for our personal
acquaintance among that class of anti-administration men, is sufficient
to enable us to say, with confidence, that many of them are as loyal at
heart as any man who ever breathed the air of an American freeman.
But we mean this, and proclaim the fact in the face of every foe,
that upon the death of that lamented statesman and patriot, Stephen
A. Douglas, the Woods and McMasters of New York, the Seymours of
Connecticut, the Vallandighams and Pendletons of Ohio, the Voorhees and
Dodds of Indiana, the Judds and Greens of Illinois, and others of
like ilk in other States, obtained the chieftainship of the party and
inveigled its too pliable ranks into the prostituting embrace of this
foul conspiracy, to overthrow the government and crown with success the
cause of the confederate arms. It must be readily seen by every honest
man of ordinary intelligence, that such an affair could never have
gained a foothold among our people under a truly loyal condition of the
opposing party. The truthfulness of this assertion is so very forcible
to the candid reader, that illustration or argument in support of it
would be superfluous. However, occasional incidents will serve better to
connect popular leaders with the subject of these sketches, and call to
the minds of participants practical facts.
Brig. Gen. Charles Walsh, some time during the winter of '64 and '65,
received his quantum of a fund, of which we shall hereafter speak, to
purchase arms to be distributed in the 1st Congressional district of
Illinois, comprising the county of Cook, and the scene of the late
Chicago conspiracy, the enactment of which was to be the signal for a
general conflagration of our cities, and thus fulfil the prophecy of
Jeff. Davis, that the grass would grow again, on the streets of the
cities of the North.
Do the leaders of the Invincible Club, among whom are W.C. Goudy, John
Garrick, Malcom McDonald, and Dr. Swayne Wickersham, remember that that
institution was to be the public mouth-piece of the Sons of Liberty, in
an address to the Democracy of Chicago, to have been issued during the
Presidential campaign?
Do they also remember the joint delegation of Invincibles and Sons of
Liberty that received Vallandigham and the Woods of New York, on their
arrival in Chicago to participate in, and mould the proceedings of the
National Democratic Convention?
Do they further remember the remarkable speech made in their Hall during
the Convention, by Capt. Rynders of New York, whom they hissed from the
platform for his bold and fearless expression of loyal sentiments?
Do they remember the motto, "Never worship the setting sun," which
appeared on transparencies, and frequently fell from their own lips,
and was meant as a hit upon those who were supposed to have allied
themselves with treason, because of their belief in its eventual
success?
Do they remember how it was proposed that Charles Walsh, of the Sons of
Liberty, was to negotiate a purchase of the Chicago _Post_, and convert
it to the same villainous purpose of its contemporary, the _Times_?
Have they forgotten the fifty or sixty thousand dollars raised by
subscription to the books of the Club, nominally to be used for
procession and illuminating purposes, but which was used for the
purchase of arms and the importation of butternuts, to engage in the
attack upon Camp Douglas?
Have they forgotten that large sums of this money was obtained under
false pretences--under pretences that it was to be used for ordinary
campaign purposes?
Have they forgotten that through their instrumentality the McClellan
Escorts, then organized in every ward, were officered by Sons of
Liberty?
Have they forgotten the meeting of Invincible Club members and Sons
of Liberty in the sanctum sanctorum of the Chicago _Times_, where
the question of punishing Col. R.M. Hough and Mr. Eddy, in redress of
personal injuries alleged to have been inflicted upon Wilbur F. Story,
was gravely discussed by B.G. Caulfield, O.J. Rose, Alderman Barrett,
S. Remington and others, and where also, large numbers of muskets and
smaller arms were exhibited?
And lastly, have they forgotten that the Sons of Liberty, upon a certain
occasion well known to every Copperhead member of the last Common
Council of the city of Chicago, held themselves in readiness till after
midnight, expecting to be called to the assistance of that, at that
time, treasonable body?
None know the significance of these questions better than the persons
above mentioned, and _others who were on hand about those times_. The
merchants of South Water street in Chicago can now, perhaps, explain
why they were called upon to subscribe so heavily to the books of the
Invincible Club, and the writer would suggest the propriety of these
merchants compelling those who solicited these subscriptions, to deliver
up the arms so purchased, or refund the money to its rightful owners.
It is pretty well understood, we believe, that the Bridgeport Irish,
vote the "_straight ticket_." It is said, also, that James Geary, a
Son of Liberty and "old clothes man" on the corner of Wells and Madison
streets, could "influence hundreds of them by the wave of his hand."
Now this "old clothes man" was empowered to furnish food, raiment and
shelter to all escaped rebel prisoners, and charge the same to the
Sons of Liberty, _alias_ the Invincible Club, which, it is thought,
_sometimes paid such bills_ out of South Water Street money _subscribed
for processions and illuminations_. These facts are the keys to the
revenue plan of the Sons of Liberty.
The complicity of the "_straight ticket_" voters in this scheme is
further shown by the character of their State ticket, headed by Robinson
for Governor, Judd for Lieut. Governor, and Hise of La Salle for
Auditor, each Sons of Liberty, and Judd the Grand Commander of the
State. If, as it would be made to appear, there was no complicity
between the Democracy and the Confederate agents, why did Vallandigham,
the Supreme Commander of an Order having its inception in Richmond,
address the people from every stump in Illinois? If there was no
complicity, why did Vallandigham, on his return from exile, in his
official capacity, with his staff around him, defy the United States
government that had justly banished him--with 80,000 Ohioans at his
command?
If no complicity, why did all the rebels and confederate agents in
Canada come to the Chicago Convention, and why were they here again
at the November election? Copperheads of Chicago and elsewhere, answer
these questions!