Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1851-04-03
Principles the First, a
Secondary Object.

The burlington Courier, and some other %freesoil
papers are suggesting, these days, the expedi.
ency of forming a new organization of the
friends of freedom, on such basis as shall more
etfectually rally, on one platform, all the oppo-
nents OF the slave power, taking Liberty and
Democracy for the watch-word, and assuming,
perhaps, some new corresponding party appella-
ton.
That there must be a more thorough and
efficient organization of the friends of freedom,
if we do not mean to fold up our hands and sub
nit to be overridden and made the vassels Of
the slave power, We are fully conscious but,
at the same time, we must be permitted to say
that we have little faith in the efficacy of names,
and less in the plan of often changing them, which
experience has shown us, is liable to subject a
party to false lmputations, and give its opponents
unjust and unnecessary advantages.
The name, however, which was assumed by
the united party in Vermont at the convention
of the 3lst of May l849,-that of the Free
Democracy, seemed to be one which was not only
required by the circumstances, but one which
was beautifully appropriate, in Itself, as combin-
ing the leading, and, rightly viewed, the congo
NAL ideas, Of the two classes who had so cordi-
ally and tremendously come together to battle
for freedom under the new banner they then
unrolled to the breeze.
Liberty and democracy are indeed, or ought
to be, one and the anne thing. Jefferson was
the father of democracy, and his creed also fur.
nished the principal groundwork of the f%reesoi
party. And we all, as Anti-slavery men, free.
soilers or free democrats, believe that we con.
stltute the only true democracy, and that, at thu
day, with our aims to carry out the great leading
idea of our government,-equa liberty to all
we only are entitled to be called the Nationa
DemoctatiC party. But there is another grea
party, entertaining a very different creed respect
ing what we all know is becoming the paramount
issue of the day, who claim also to be the Ma
tional Democratic party, and are now very wide
ly known by that appellation and it is more
over an appellation, which, as applied to them
with their avowed purpose of going with tn
South in sustaining the worst of the compromis
measures, has become a term Of offence to tn
friends of freedom.
And we may readily see the jealouses ant
suspicious the adoption of such a name nigh
introduce into our ranks--the confusion and I'M
certainty it might produce, the wide door it might
open on one side to unreliable accessions, anC
the narrow, if not an impossible one it might be
thought to leave for any accession on the other
side-the handle it might give our opponents
and the cover it might afford for shufiling politi.
leans who might thus be enabled to hail under
ole flag and act under another.
The name Of Free Democracy, as we have
said, is an appropriate and significant appellation
for our party as present constituted. 1t has now
become sufficiently distinctive of our p~lofessed
united purposes ofresistng the encroachments OIL
the Slave Power, and of restoring the now per-
verted functions of The general government, to
their legitimate scope, and the basis of action on
which Jefferson and Madison left it. All true
democrats should, and will be, satisfied with the
name. The old anti slavery men are now gen.
orally found rallying under it cheerfully,-much
more so, we think than they would be likely to
do under any such new one as has been suggest
ed. Massachusetts,, New Hampshire, Connecti-
cut and several of the western States have,
adopted it to such an extent that it now promis-
es to be the common ppellation by which the
friends of free principles are every where to be
known and shall Vermont then, the first to as
sumo it, be the first to seek to change it.
We assume not the province of debating to
the party at large but the con siderations we
have named are sufficient, in our view, to make
US at least, pause before embarrassing ourselves
with the question Of new names, or new organ.
~izatlons other than to make the present more
thorough, more efficient and more faithful to the
great and vital principle Of Freedom which
stand pleged to advance.