In their stead, a long line of Democratic martyrs and patriots marched
in—men who had “fought four years for their Democracy” under Lee, or
Bragg, or Joe Johnston; men who had expatriated themselves to the wilds
of Canada to avoid Lincoln’s “bastiles;” men who had wandered through
the timbers of the Wabash or the Miami bottoms hunting their lodge of
“Knights of the Golden Circle” or “Sons of Liberty;” men who had
rejoiced over every disaster to the Union arms, and mourned over every
Union victory; men who had denounced that gentle and loving Greatheart,
Abraham Lincoln, as a “tyrant,” a “baboon,” and an “ape;” men who had
assailed our great commander, Ulysses S. Grant, as a “bloody butcher”
and a “drunken tanner”—these, in large measure, were the “honest
patriots” who marched in, while the drums beat and the fifes whistled
the old familiar tune, “Turn the rascals out;” and the Democratic party
of Kansas, assembled in State convention, formally indorsed and approved
this programme by adopting a resolution that “the soldiers and sailors
of the late war”—not Union soldiers, not loyal soldiers, mind you, but
“soldiers of the late war,” Confederate as well as Union—“are entitled
to the first consideration in appointments.”