The Ashland union. [volume] (Ashland, Ashland County, Ohio) 1854-1868, 1855-11-07

this What produced this unlocked
for result? is u question that it be,
heoves the calm and the true men of the
Democratic party to examine into, IL
order that being ~forewarned, they may
be forearmed in the mex contest.
The candidate for reelection as Gov.
ernor, had performed the duties well,
and is, acknowledgedly, oLe of the pu-
rest and best men in the State. The f.
nances of the State were well managed.
Ohio never had a better Auditor OF
State-none more honest-none more
intelligent-none moro firm in the dis
charge Of his duty. If he erred, it was
always in favor of rigid economy and
against the Treasury caters, some of
whom were of his party and numbered
amongst his friends.
The Board of Fund Commissioners
were honest. talented and pursued a
course that raised Ohio credit ten and
twelve per cent above par, while under
whig rule it was more than fifty per
cent below par. Why then exchange
such off ccrs, for the doubtful chauce of
finding as good.
The laws passed by the Legislature
hGIC 1OG uupOpuidT. ~ particular
fault was found with any one of them,
The outlay for the State House, for the
new Lunatic Asylum, for supporting the
Benevolent Institutions, were acknowl-
edged to be just. The candidates for
Supreme Judges, in character and quail
i6cations, were umexceptionable. Why
then change?
The answer to these questions opens
up a volume of history, WHICH it were
well that the Democratic party study.
For a series of years, the State had been
in the hands of the Democracy-in all
its departments it had been we'll COVE ~
ed and yet, without failing in one partic-
ular, these servants of the people are
struck down, and men, whose political
opinions are as various as the shapes of
Proteas, or the hues of the chameleon,
succeed them in Office.
"Can such things be.
And overcome US like a summer cloud,
Without our special wonder
Three years ago, Franklin Pierce sue
ceeded to the Presidency on a platform,
which pledged the Democracy against
any renewal, in Congress or out of it, of
the Slavery question. The nation was
sick of the eternal clamor about negroes.
The majority of the Democratic candi.
date was Observation-Disclosures par
ty in most of the States was triumphant
scarce an anti Democratic Governor
ruled a single State, and men of all par
ties looked forward to a period of peace,
from the heretofore distracting question
of the day, which was fast driving tue
good ship of state upon the shoals of dis
aaion.
Less than enc year after the inaugu-
ration ofthe new President, thus elect
ed aud thus pledged, that hope was bro
ken. A bill for the organization of the
new Territories of Kansas and Nebras-
ka, was introduced into the Senate of
the United States, in the usual form and
was steadily progressing towards its
passage. A Wing Senator from Ken
lucky, proposed an amendment repeal
ing the Missouri Compromise, and it
was rejected. The bill was then recon-
mitted to the Committee on Territories,
of which Mr.. Douglas, of Illinois. was
chairman, and when reported back, was
found to contain a clause for the repeal
of the Compromise, which excluded sla-
very from all territory north of the line
of sc degrees and so minutes north lat
itude, and in it was other matter, which
ro-opened the slavery discussion. A
storm of indignant feeling conyulscd the
public mind. The Administration, I'M
der the silly pretext that it asserted the
great Democratic principle of "popw-
lar sovereignty aided in. it's passage,
and it became the law of the land, and
the old Abolition party, with thousands
of new recruits, again sprung into exist
enee, being warmed into life by the agi-
~tation, which to them is food and life,
and without which they cannot nave an
existence.
There was no more real popular SOW
reignty in the Kansas Nebraska bill
than in any of the other Territorial bills
passed since the date of the Ordinance
of 1887. The Governor was appointed
by the President, and he appointed most
of the officers of the counties. The
Judges were appointed by the same pow
or and they construed the laws. The
I" severeigns of the Territory had no
power in the appointment or removal
from Office of either, aud because the
bill, IN so many words, stated it favor
ed for I" popular sovereignty y while, as
we have shown it did not, its friends
sought to make that an issue, and al
though the attempt was ~repudiated by
the great mass of the party, it was fatal
to the Democratic party.
The Missouri Compromise provided
that slavery should not be extended
north of a line which left the larger por-
ton of Kansas free soil. Its repeal, in
the opinion of southern politicians and
southern Judges, left the whole open to
slave colonization. To secure the Ter
ritory for slavery, hordes of Missourians,
led on by David R. Atchison, once a
trusted member of the Democratic par
ty, but now tbesgreat head of the Know
Nothing organization, oysrrun the Ter
ritory-took possession of the voting
places aud by threats and by violence,
returned, as elected, Missouri slayehold-
ers to the Legislative council of the Ter
ritory of Kansas.
Although the first effort to repealthe
Missouri Compromise came from a Wing
although every Wing Senator say
ana lvofad far lie ranaaI aItbourh Aba