The daily union., 1854-12-29
A FREE PEOPLE ALWAYS OPPOSED TO SECRET
POLITICAL SOCIETIES.


POLITICAL SOCIETIES.
"Who knows notn says John Milton, that truth is
strong next the Almighty She needs policies, nor
sraagem iicessings make her victorious Those are
the shifts and the deences that against her
power
Sentiments like these in times like the present. cannot
be too profoundly cherished by free people secret or
ganzation if the latest certainly the most dangerous
element that welded against the rights and the lib
critics of such people There in the whole idea of Sc
crecy something snguarly abhorren TO all those who in
tellgenty and graely regard the blessings of en~
ghtened and republican government All history shows
the jealousy and the Indignation of the against
every form of organized combinations secretly conducted
and those which have been established for phlan
thropc purposes have escaped complaint from of
"wisest censure'
The American people will forget with what
thusiasm proposition greeted few years ago.
discard the usage Of holding sessions Of The United
States Senate Though this reform doubted and
rested of the abest of the day. and for a
parenty good reasons yet there is question that the
idea has taken deep root in the popular mnd and that
sooner later it will succeed
At moment when the whole country is suffering from
the explosion of banks and bankers-at when
labor is clamorng for bread and when millions and mil
lions of worthless paper trash is left in the hands of the
the andwho does not to the fact that
all these banks based upon system? Their di
known true but who knows the
their daily conferences Who knows of the machinery
by which their immense credits are expanded Who
knows how many of their controllers using the funds
of Others for their private purposes? Who alas
unt; of fms and
suspectng and betrayed men, women and children who
have confded their little all to the tender mercies of the
bank been paid in the valueess currency of the
cern, for their hard and unremitting toll?
The great defaulter Schuyler tcas member Of secret
society," far his operations concerned and
when his deeds unveiled the great danger also
vealed of inrusting to few men the uncontrolled man
agement of the interests of Others
We yesterday alluded length the operations of that
monster society, the Bank of the United States
which stands out now on the history of the past as
blackening monument of infamy and crime
When the slaves of the South rose against the white
population in sections of that part of the Union
few years ago filling the whole land with dsay and al-
prehenson their fell purposes proved to have been
conducted and ripened in secrecy and in silence Abo-
onsm then ready encourage them in their fear
order against the rights of conscience and the equality
the citizen.
The oppressors of the Old World have been maintained
and consolidated for ages by aderng the principle
Their diplomacy their government their whole system
based upon the idea of keeping their people in ignorance
their oings To this end permitted speak
only the yrant directs To this end DEGREES of the
ruler made binding irrevocable as if he held
In na;t To, ,;c
people shot down like dogs the they aspire to
think and for themselves By this system of secrecy
the of the Old World regarded in the light of SO
many serfs and helngs whose lives the mercy Of
their ruler the deems necessary to sacrifice
them to his secret ends.
There is indeed but one preext for secret political Or
ganzaon and that when the wrongs and the suerngs
of down-trodden people have grown SO monsrous that
they must hide in like hunted feons TO protect
themselves against the man-slaycr Then resistance t
rants becomes holy duty. Then the of stricken
manhood becomes holy cause Such organizations exist
in the Old World and doubtless now, when ambitious
princes hurng embaed hosts against each other upon
the bloody fields of Russia the long prescribed and long
degraded people of the Old World counsel together in
cret to decide what they shall do throw off the calling
yoke of despotism The outawed patriots of Francethe
that nger miserable existence in the wnry wastes
of Sberaand all those who have been compelled fly be-
fore the boodhounds of tyranny who pine and die in
his prison well hope for and toll for the day
that is to restore them their rights sharers of the
common heritage of air and light and personal lib
erty.
But there such sufferngs here. What impious
tongue dare say that in this land of law and civilization
and rational freedom the revolving practices of European
despos shall be initiated Who will that here the
masses oppressed by any by any men that
they must fly to midnight and oathbound cabas to
protect and ayenge themselves To say this is declare
our republican experiment ailureto denounce the
ampes of the Of the past many lessons Of vice
to dshonor the memory Of the gallant Dead who died that
might be free-and to let loose among happy and
prosperous people, kindred and equals in arts arms in
all the blessings Of free speech and free action and supreme
gous acrimony, of church militant of disfranchsed
and alien populations of ambitious mediocrities, and
finally, of national dissolution
Is our constitution despotism2 And yet know-noth-
ingsm would tear it into atomsl Is the Union of the
States national evil2 And yet know-nohingsm has
combined with public enemies of that Union all the
States of the North What American citizen feels that he
is injured in and under equal aud benign
institutions and laws And yet know-notbngism
in its had