A Plain Statement Addressed to All Honest Democrats

A Plain Statement Addressed To All Honest Democrats by Loring Moody is a mid-19th-century political pamphlet published in 1856 that argues the Democratic Party has become inseparably tied to the Slave Power and the institution of slavery. The work opens by praising the original Democratic creed and the Jeffersonian legacy, then presents a forceful indictment of the contemporary party, claiming that slaveholders and their Northern allies control policy, muzzle presses, suppress education, and subjugate laborers. Moody assembles a chorus of witnesses—speeches, editorials, and public letters from the era—to demonstrate that slaveholding interests oppose free labor and democracy, and to reveal how the Kansas Nebraska crisis, the Ostend Manifesto, and slaveholding agitation shaped national politics. The tract culminates in a call to action for honest Democrats to resist the Slave Power and defend the fundamental principles of liberty and equal rights. It blends historical quotation with polemical persuasion, offering a vivid portrait of the sectional crisis surrounding 1856 America.