Portage sentinel. [volume] (Ravenna, Ohio) 1845-1854, 1853-07-27
For the Portage Sentinel.

For the Portage Sentinel.
The document which has been in progress oi
concoction for some months past, and which ap-
peared in two of the Ravenna papers of last week
with mass of respectable names appended there
to, claims our special attention, as aplatform on
which all parties and individuals, opposed to the
old staunch Democracy, are expected to unite, to
defeat that Democracy at the ensuing election. 1t
is the Development of another of the political
schemes for which the opposition to the old Dem
ocratic party have long been notorious. When
signally and repeatedly defeated on important is
they dodge them, anderect straw ones, as in l84o,
when they abandoned the bank question in the
canvass, but on the election of Wing President
and Congress, on the hard cider and no-standing-
army issue, an extra session of Congress was i'm
mediately called, United States Bank proposed
and the bill passed Congress in much haste, but
too late to receive Harrisons signature, for Prov
dence removed him, and Tyler vetoed the bill.
That veto the greatest defeat that party had
ever sustained, and for that their execrations of
John Tyler have never ceased to ring for the last
twelve years.
Now, warn my fellow Democrats of every
kind-the old line and the new lne-to beware of
false issues. We have Maine Law that has
proved sufficiently stringent for Ravenna, and
will be for every place, if backed, as here, by pub
lie opinion. And if found defective, it can be a.
mended. No Maine Law will be effective where
not sanctioned by public opinion. Shall we of
Ravenna seek to force on other places law they
cannot sanction! Would that be democratic or
polite! Would it, indeed, advance the cause of
temperance? H--e
But it may be doubted if the Maine Law is the
real issue in the case. There are indications that
the real issue, the great object, besides office,
power, and our defeat, is the speedy repeal of the
late law for taxing banks and bankers for all the
bank advocates, from Greeley down, sanction the
movement Horace Greeley, of the New York
Tribune, is the head of the movement, which is to
be simultaneous throughout the States as for as it
can be made available to recover lost power.
"Straws show which way the wind blows" A
tavern keeper, who has made good property by
selling sgrog,'' an influential Whig of this coun-
ty, remarked few days since in my hearing, that
he should go for the Maine Law. He said this in
apparently good earnest, just after pocketing the
money for drink of brandy.
ne dOHOCdLGS vi new pdIty duHOuHCC oS
their platform, besides the Maine Law Free
Schools Equal taxation, repeal of Oppressive par
tzan laws, economy in the administration of the
State Government and county expenses, no slav
cry extension the divorce of the General Govern
ment from the support of slavery, river and har-
Dor Improvements, and freedom of the public do
main to actual settlers"-all good objects. Who
will they find to oppose them!
But when they explain, as they do, that what
they mean by Oppressive partizan laws,'' is the
late law taxing banks and bankers as the people
are taxed, we feel constrained to dissent, and even
to doubt if the enactment of Maine Law is the
principal object of the new party movement.
In the advocacy of free farms to actual settlers,
they but follow the Democrats, who were the
first to advocate that measure in this county, and
it might now have been law of the land had the
Wings in Congress as generally and cordially sup
ported it as did the Democrats.
We have law of Ohio by which the Trustees
of each township are authorized to pass ordinance
es, and, as said BEFORE that law if deficient, Gas
the Star has been some time contending, prepar-
atory to this movement) it can be amended with
out any great effort to build new party on it.
The Democratic party has been the party of
progress and will still be. The Wing party has
too often been the hold-back party--conservative
of abuses-the advocate of corporate privileges
arrayed against individual rights. Let the adso-
Gates ofreform present their claims and advocate
them before the Democratic party, and on due de-
liberation, the people of that party will be ready
to sanction the right progress, whether 1t be Tor
free farms, equal privileges, human rights or
women rights. We feel that all are entitled to
equal privileges by nature, as they merit them;
and that natural right should BE and will be sane