The true Democrat., 1855-09-18


 - ings and their southern brothers. It will satis - fly you that the feud is irreconcilable, and tha - any truce that may be made, is made only fol e the miserable motive of attaining power and V the spells of office. Witness the long struggle -the reluctant concession of half way nation. T al platform, followed instantly by an indignant secession and repudation by more than half the ] northern States Witness again the fact that the States whose delegates ratified this misera- ble platform, (this hollow trap for the south, ) have either repudiated the platform in their ) State councils, or prepared to make aunion, and put forward candidates by fusion of parties and of course have put forward such as will suit the freesoil party
 Look again at the northern material of that l, Philadelphia convention, and 1 defy them to show five men, or even one in it from tine north } ern States whose acts and votes and speeches if he have any of record, do not prove them to be freesoilers
 These are the men you are invited by honorable southern men to trust, to unite with to rely upon as brothers, and all you guarantee for them , is past life of hostility to you, and present wishy washy platform, which ha, already been repudated by nearly every northern State if not absolutely eve,y one.
 Ought southern men, whigs or democrats, to be deceived, beguiled and defrauded thus, by few reckless and unsorupulous men in the face of ItheSe papable facts?
 l Should they repudiatc democrats of the north, who have ever defended our constitutional lrghtS with success al q unite on the faith of a platform already repudiated by every important State, beginning with Pennsvlvania; unite with those who ever have been the foes of the south, and Who WiU n0t eUen stoop to deceive them about bu wi bo trIIct +f, find boir the south, who will stoop to that task for office and place?
 If a majority of the south will do it, our des- tiny is sealed. We first aid to destroy our na. Ltura friends, and then we fall ourselves, with -four rights, our property, our social relations, our hopes, and the existence of the States in which we live, for we must leave them if we submit But have little fear of the result; the south- ern party, the democratic party will triumph proudly over this fathless conspiracy.
 Mo- When you have entombed the last northern democrat you have destroyed the last northern defender of your constitutional rights When this is done the north stands solid pha- lanx-the constitution cannot resist their over whelming majority and nothing is left but su5- mission, extinction cf slavery equality of aohite and blach, or dissolution of tue Union.
 If dissolution of the Union is the object of know nothngs, they pursue the right course now, (though part of their oath is to oppose disunonists) for they are contributing rapidly to destroy the northern democracy, the last re- fuge of the constitution. When they are dead we shall be called to arms to rally around that constitution and amidst battle, blood, and car mage we may carry it away with us, but we can never re-estabish it.
 In the language of Mir. Benjamin, every day l laHH Hc to tha hot for tbo concerned, the whole strength of the party, rests on two basises, one of violent hostility to the south, the other of bigoted intolance towards Catholics. l put it to you as candid men, if the northern know nothings were to refuse admi8- sion into their lodges of all enemies to the south, and all unwilling to extend equal politi- lcal rights to Catholics, how many members of the party would remain? Not enough to carry a ccnstable's election in any ward or district in a northern State.
 A very little reflection 1t seems to me would Edeter any man, not an officer seeker, from join ling lodge, aside from those higher considera- tions of allegiance and devotion we owe the south If you are sworn in as one, you are sworn in for hte to do the bidding of this party of men, right or wrong, and to obey the orders of certain officers whether you approve or not ltis an oath of the most solemn and awful char acter without limit of circumstance and with out mean or exception, by which even your withdrawal may relieve you from the oath
 If you approve all the objects held out to n- duce you to join, recollect that the only legal way to attain those objects is by electing men to do 1t, over those who may oppose it. Every election by the law of the land is open and pub- lic You can as well vote for the man without being know nothing as with it. Then why l r.olf tn do nd T # al cor life, whether you approve it or not. This con- sideraton it seems to me ought to be sufficient to drive every rational man from the know noth- ing lodge except one who joins it to get him. self promoted to office, or for some sinister mo- tive.
 You can prescribe the foreigner and the Ca- tholic. as well outside of the order, by your vote, as inside ol 1t. To resist Catholicism is the inducement in Arkansas, but is not so in Louisiana and South Carolina; there it is the foreign born. The order Is subServient wherev- CT we find it. It submits to circumstances cheer fully upon all points. It only asks majority and power and office and plunder. In Wscon- sin it denounces the Catholic but defends and adopts the foreignet.
 At the south its members have a horror of. and deadly hostility to abolition and free soil ism. At the north the Tod ,es is composed of no other sort. What too is surprising is that by their oaths, they are sworn to vote against, as well as to turn out of office every one not a member of the order. Protestants as we'll as Catholics-natives as well as naturalized. They are the most proscrptive party ever formed iu America, yet they complain bitterly, and de- nounce democrats, if any one of them is re- moved, and threaten what they will do. These complaints aie hypocritical and threats are empty, for they have sworn to prescribe and should expect prescription; they have sworn they will prescribe all not in their order, and they will do it whether prorcribed or not So 1t Is useless for democrats to spare them They assault all mankind; and become indignant if 1t be resented.
 They deny that they are the old whg party. Yet they are composed of little else than whigs; and to sustain their denial they seldom swear in prominent democrat, but they put him for ward as proof of the fact to use him to break down the democratic party, making of him a stool pigeon with which to ensnare his former friends; and yet more strange, whilst the old whigs stand back, and enjoy the success of the stratagem, the deluded instrument with fiat tered vanity, is proud of his position, and re- joices in his insubstantial honors and fancied importance.
 The length of this letter admonishes me that 1 should close, and will do so with the hope that every true southern man of whateve, party, will scan this order closely, and the con- viction if he does, that he will forever oppose and resist it.
 l have the honor to be gentlemen with sen- timent of the highest respect,
 Your obt servt.,
 R. w. JOHNSON. To Hon. E. A. WARREN, c. H. THORN, and others, committee.