Franklin Repository

I read last night of the Grand Review
In Washington's chiefest avenue--
Two hundred thousand men in blue
I think they said was the number--
Till I seemed to hear their trampling feet,
The bugle's blast and the drum's quick beat,
The clatter of hoofs in the stony street,
The cheers of people who came to greet,
And the thousand details that to repeat
Would only my verse encumber--
Till I fell in a reverie, sad and sweet,
And then to a fitful slumber.
When, lo! in a vision I seemed to stand
In the lonely Capitol. On each hand
Far-stretched to portico, dim and grand
Its columns ranged like a martial band
Of sheeted spectres, whom some command
Had called to a last reviewing;
And the streets of the city were white and bare,
No footfall echoed across the square,
But out of the misty midnight air
I heard in the distant a trumpet blare,
And the wandering night-winds seemed to bear
The sound of a far tattooing.

Then I held my breath with fear and dread,
For onto the square, with a brazen tread,
There rode a figure whose stately head
O'erlooked the review that morning,
That never bowed from its firm-set seat
When the hving column passed its feet,
Yet now rode steadily up the street
To the phantom bugle's warning;
Till it reached to the capitol square, and wheeled,
And there in the moonlight stood revealed
A well known form that in state and field
Had led our patriot sires;
Whose face was turned to the sleeping camp,
Afar through the river's fog and damp
That showed no flicker, nor waning lamp,
Nor wasted bivouac fires.

And I saw a phantom army come,
With never a sound of fife or drum,
But keeping time to a throbbing hum
Of wailing and lamentation;
The martyred heroes of Malvern Hill,
Of Gettysburg and Chancellorsville,
The men whose wasted figures fill
The patriot graves of the nation.

And there came the nameless dead--the men
Who perished in fever swamp and fen,
The slowly starved of the prison-pen;
And marching beside the others,
Came the dusky martyrs of Pillow's fight,
With limbs enfranchised and bearing bright;
I thought--perhaps 'twas the pale moonlight--
They looked as white as their brothers!

And so all night marched the Nation's dead
With never a banner above them spread,
Nor a badge, nor a motto brandished;
No mark--save the bare uncovered head
Of the silent bronze Reviewer--
With never an arch save the vaulted sky,
With never a flower save those that lie
On the distant graves--for love could buy
No gift that was purer or truer.

So all night long swept the strange array,
So all night long till the morning gray
I watched for one who had passed away,
With a reverent awe and wonder--
Till a blue cap waved in the lenth'ning line,
And I knew that one who was kin of mine
Had come, and I spoke--and lo! that sign
Awakened me from my slumber.

"Recognizing the questions of Slavery and Secession as settled for all time to come."

"Equal rights and protection for naturalized and native born citizens."--(Democratic platform.)

The Democratic party in National Convention assembled, solemnly admit and declare slavery and secession to be dead. Slavery dead! Secession dead! And this by the Democratic party, too, at the very moment when no one knew the instant when Salmon P. Chase, the original abolitionist and foremost champion of manhood suffrage, would be sprung upon the convention and nominated amidst a whirlwind of applause, which greeted his name whenever mentioned there. Liable to be nominated on a platform which utters not a whisper against colored suffrage, which simply remits the question of suffrage to the States, accompanied with a broad deliverance in favor of "Equal rights for all native born and naturalized citizens."

Equal rights for all! why that might have been seen flying at the head of Greeley's New York Tribune any time within the last two or three years, as the expression of the quintessence of Republicanism. Here is matter for astonishment. What are we, and whither are we fending? Do we not know that not a year ago the whole staple in trade of the Democratic orators here was the niggers' hell, lips, nose and monkey origin? Do we not remember how they rattled these poisoned arrows,--Pshaw, threw these dirty bats against the broad shield of the Republican party? Did not Col. Brewer carry to New York in his pocket a resolution, carefully prepared by the Big Ingens at Chambersburg, declaring it "a time-honored principle of the Democratic p-a-r-t-y," that the negro is descended immediately from the Chimpanzee, and remotely from the baboon? And now, lo! Equal Rights for all native born citizens, following: Slavery is dead; secession is dead.

And as a tender to the Democratic machine, they had a soldiers' convention there, of the boys in blue really, as well as of the boys in gray. They didn't have either at Chicago four years ago, for they were then denouncing the war a failure, and the boys in blue "Lincoln's hirelings," and the boys in gray--Wade Hampton, Forrest and the rest--had a little engagement with one Grant, which prevented their attendance.

And they have inserted in their platform their great doctrine of "Greenbacks for all purposes forever." And this is but the "Forward March" to the grand consummation of Repudiation, the objective point of all their movements.--Years ago the Democracy were a hard money party and christened one of their favorite leaders, who afterwards left them in disgust, old Bullion; and although Jeff Davis did repudiate the Mississippi bonds in times past, the party as such were not until lately avowed repudiators. But the onward movement is rapid. They are fast hastening the day of the destruction of the currency, when the prediction of one of the most prominent of the delegates to the convention will be realized, and a cord of greenbacks be insufficient to buy a cord of wood.

So the world moves and thus the Democracy advance. It is not to be supposed of course that the body of the party rejoice over Slavery dead and Secession defunct, norwere the strong manifestations in favor of Chase the product of a genuine sentiment of a majority of the party. The great bulk of the Democracy is still afflicted with negrophobia; but it all shows that the leaders who have the manipulating of conventions dimly discern the march of history and the progress of ideas.

On the questions of slavery and secession they seem like a party awaking from sleep to a realization of accomplished facts, and devoutly utter God bless me! Slavery and Secession are dead! Not that they would have it so, but that to their amazement they find it is so. And as to Greenbacks, the issue of which they violently opposed when essential to the life of the nation, we have given them such a jerk forward as to addle their brains. Now they would have nothing else, and so much of that as to repeat the mistake of the people of the so called confederacy, who, according to Seymour, the Belmont bondholder's candidate of the Democracy, at first went to market with their money in their vest pockets and brought home their provisions in a basket and afterwards went to market with their money in a basket and brought home their provisions in their vest pockets.

The Democracy advance: slowly, to be sure, but still they advance, following the Republicans like Peter his Master, afar off. In 1860, when they were the champions of Slavery, and advocated trafic in the bodies and souls of men, they were advanced to about the period of the invention of gunpowder, and were soon made acquainted with its use as a great civilizer. Now they may be considered to have reached the invention of printing, and a general enlightenment succeeding we may hope the dawn of the great reformation of the party approaches. But the Republican party, living and working in the nineteeth century, profiting by its light, its steam and its electricity, its grand discoveries and its subtile inventions, its demonstrations of new political truths, and its realization of better governmental forms, learning its higher philosophy and accepting its better morality, as she presses forward to the goal of absolute justice, equal freedom, immaculate honesty and peerless glory, can only beckon forward the tardy Democracy, while she follows close after Grant and Colfax, who bear high-advanced the standard of Human Progress.

The Democratic Convention has settled several things which have been the subject of considerable speculation for some time, but that they were settled to the satisfaction of the parties most deeply interested, we do not believe. We have heard of things being "hog cheap," and of others as being a "drug in the market," and have an idea that the terms express the largest supply and the smallest demand possible; but that they more than very faintly typify the price sought by Johnson and Chase for their apostacy, and that paid them by the Democratic Convention, we do not believe. It may be that the former estimated their services to the Democracy too high, and the latter too low; but be this as it may, new terms must be fabricated before the infinite distance between the two can be represented on paper.

Johnson was the most pronounced radical in the country during the rebellion, and displayed remarkable facility in calling rebels hard names. He used to call the negroes of Nashville about him and tell them how that their former masters had forfeited their property by rebelling against the Government, and that they (the negroes) were morally entitled to their lands and houses and should yet occupy them. Assuming an attitude intended to the majestic, but which was only a happy combination of a drunken tailor and a conceited demagogue, he assured them that they must have a Moses to lead them out of Bondage into the Promised Land, and that if no other Moses was raised up, he would be their Moses.

In this way he deceived the loyal people into electing him to the second place in their gift. The assassin's bullet removed the only bulwark between the safety of the Government and the treasonable designs of a cowardly demagogue, and Johnson occupied the lofty place once honored by Washington and Jefferson, and Jackson and Lincoln. He was no sooner President than he arrayed himself against Congress, put himself in active sympathy with the unrepentant traitors of the South, removed all loyal office holders, and arrayed the entire power and patronage of the Government against its loyal people and against the peaceful restoration of the seceded States to the Union. He encouraged resistance to the reconstruction laws of Congress at a time when the people of the South were willing and anxious to accept the just and salutary measures proposed to them, and incited riot and murder among them.--He unlawfully organized unconstitutional and revolutionary governments among them and attempted to introduce into Congress from these bastard States men whose hands were still red with the blood of loyal citizens; and all this he did for the Democratic party. But for him the shattered elements of the Democratic party would still be drifting without chart or rudder and without a head as it was left immediately after its last defeat.--Whatever power and strength it may have now is simply the old treason to the Government both North and South, unified and systematized by Johnson's efforts.

Chase, whose boast is that his life has been given to the emancipation of the colored race, while equally willing and far more able, lacked the opportunities given to Johnson to betray the loyal people. He had chance enough and time enough however to destroy the splendid name he had won to crawl on his belly and eat dirt; to demolish like a vandal the fair temple of Liberty he had reared, and standing amid its ruins, still clad in the robe of Justice, beg pitiously for the Presidency till his countrymen cover their faces with shame.

These men have received their reward. The Democratic party has settled with them in full. The debt they owed them is cancelled. Johnson received the votes of Tennessee, and the thanks of the Convention, and Chase didn't receive any thanks nor any votes either, except half of one from the Pacific Coast. Let disappointed or dazzled demagogues in the future reflect upon the fate of these two men before they sell their manhood. The price it brings does not come up to the standard of living rates. Poor Chase. Poor Johnson.

An adjourned meeting of the citizens of Chambersburg and its vicinity, was held in the Court House, on the evening of the 8th inst., to receive the report of the committee appointed to solicit subscriptions to aid in constructing a railroad from Waynesboro, through Quincy, Funkstown and Fayetteville, to this place.

The committee on that occasion, reported that they had succeeded in securing about $25,000--and that they had no doubt that sum would soon be increased to $40,000. The history of this enterprise and the benefits to be derived from its successful prosecution have been pretty fully discussed in the REPOSITORY during the past four or five months, and need not be repeated now. It seems proper to state however that owing to the unaccountable indifference of the people of Chambersburg, to the importance of the railroad movement they have greatly jeoparded the chances of bringing it to this place as its northern terminus, and to that degree forfeited a splendid opportunity to add to the lasting and material prosperity of their town.

If the same interest had been manifested at the inception of the railroad project that is felt now, there would be no question as to its terminus. But the people along the line of the projected road were in earnest while we slept; and while they have secured the means of constructing it to Scotland, they have also acquired from our apathy a disregard for the real interest of Chambersburg.

A committee of three of our citizens has been appointed to advise with the other committees and inform them of what we have done, and what we are still able to do, and if possible secure this point as the terminus; and we know that those to whom this is trusted will allow no trifle to prevent their success.

We are informed by the committee that their efforts to obtain subscriptions received the greatest encouragement. Mechanics and laboring men, and small property holders to a man, are anxious to assist in securing the road, and even women in some instances contributed handsomely. It is an indication of the earnestness that is now felt, and we should not allow the opportunity to escape. This railroad once completed, it but begins an era of progress and prosperity for Chambersburg and for Franklin County whose importance we very much fail to appreciate.

GEN. FRANK P. BLAIR is the Democratic nominee for the Vice Presidency. A few days before the convention met, he wrote a letter defining his position, and it is safe to say that this letter secured his nomination.

The gist of his policy is contained in the following extract, which tells clearly what he would have done and how he would do it:

There is but one way to restore the Government and the Constitution, and that it is for the President elect to declare these acts null and void, compel the army to undo its usurpations at the South, disperse the carpet-bag State governments, allow the white people to reorganize their own governments and elect Senators and Representatives. The House of Representatives will contain a majority of Democrats from the North, and they will admit the Representatives elected by the white people of the South, and with the co-operation of the President it will not be difficult to compel the Senate to submit once more to tht obligations of the Constitution. It will not be able to withstand the public judgment, if distinctly invoked and clearly expressed on this fundamental issue, and it is the sure way to avoid all future strife to put this issue plainly to the country.

Frank P. Blair was a member of Congress during two years of the war, and commander of the 17th Army Corps under Gen. Sherman. In the first position he participated in the legislation of the Government to suppress the Rebellion; in the second he fought the rebel armies and thus enforced the laws of Congress. He cannot now claim that he was ignorant of what Congress was doing when he was a member, or that he was compelled to fight against the South during the war, for he is an intelligent man. Yet he repudiates both the one and the other, insults the Government and the army and declares in favor of another rebellion. He ignores the war and its consequences and sees nothing constitutional except copperheadism. He expresses himself in favor of disfranchising the southern blacks and virtually in favor of re-enslaving them. He urges the admission of Representatives of the Southern States elected by the white people of the South alone. In a word, he would undo all that has been done since the close of the war and turn back the government into chaos.

This is the Democratic Platform and the party cannot deny it. In the full force of this letter when it was fresh upon them, the Convention nominated Blair, and but for this they would not have chosen him. You men who want to renew the horrors of the war, vote for Seymour and Blair. They will not disappaint you. You have them fully on the record. But if you want Peace and Prosperity, and a strong government, vote for the soldier and the statesman, Grant and Colfax.

The Democrats, by the nomination of Seymour for President, have driven all Union-loving citizens who might have been friends of Chase or Hancock, to the standard of Gen. Grant. Conservative Republicans cannot forget the course pursued by the Governor of New York during the war, and they must know that he has only been honored on account of his record as a Copperhead. In sympathy with treason from its very inception, an enemy to all measures that had in view the suppression of the rebellion, a foe to emancipation, maligner and slanderer of Mr. Lincoln's administration, prominent for his denunciations of the gallant soldiers of the Republic, an intimate friend and supporter of Vallandigham and Pendleton, and the orator who addressed the New York mob in 1863, who were burning orphans' homes, murdering innocent negroes, threatening to destroy the printing establishments of papers that advocated the prosecution of the war, while our gallant patriots were winning immortality at Vicksburg and Gettysburg, under Grant and Meade, it is but proper he should receive this empty homage from his admiring friends. Forrest, the murderer of helpless prisoners at Fort Pillow; Wade Hampton, who received the surrender of Chambersburg during Stuart's invasion, invited by Copperheads in 1862, and other gallows deserving traitors, will return to their friends with the news that the Northern doughfaces are as pliant in the hands of their Southern masters as of old, and will arouse the enthusiasm of Lee and Johnson's disbanded forces, by the gratifying announcement that the men who wept over their defeat have joined hand in hand with them now, and will labor earnestly until the November election for the recognition of the independence of the Confederacy.