of Washington, Jefferson, Jackson and Douglas! And to cap the miserable
climax, men boasting of the Democracy of their fathers in a line of lineal
descent for generations back, are required to subscribe to the doctrine of
the subordination of the civil to the military authority by the tenets of
the Sons of Liberty.

This astonishing feature of the Sons of Liberty, as contradistinguished
from the Orders which preceded it, at first met with murmurs of disfavor,
but the dissatisfaction was principally among men who ultimately acted the
_nobler part_, and as the tide of treason rolled up to sustain this
measure "for the good of the Order," all such were submerged and lost
sight of, except by the evil eye set upon them as spies.

Without offering his advice, the writer would respectfully ask the _true_
Democrat, who may yet, from the temptations of firmly-rooted prejudices,
incline to the belief that this organization was purely democratic in the
Andrew Jackson acceptation of that term, how the above statement of
principles comports with his notions of the doctrines of the party with
which he has hitherto seen fit to fellowship?

Is it not clearly to be seen that this Order meditated the establishment
of a government more despotic in its character than history furnishes any
example of? A government with three degrees or departments, each
oath-bound and a profound secret to the other, moving in their appointed
spheres, and the civil departments of which were secondary, in point of
power, to the military departments!

Let no man, of whatever political persuasion he may be, flatter himself
for a moment that such a government could be Republican in its nature.