The weekly Minnesotian. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1852-1858, 1855-12-22
From the New York Tribune.
Country and City Pelities.

From the New York Tribune.
Country and City Politics.
In almost every large city, from New York
to Milwaukee, the Republican party has met
with i'll success; in the rural districts, OF, the
contrary, it has generally prevailed; the con-
test in Ohio, Wisconsin and New York has
turned upon this simple question, whether
the Republican majorities of the country dis
tricts were sufficient to outweigh the adverse
majorities of the cities. Between the coun-
try gentlemen and yeomanry of the North
and its civic residents there is permanent
schism, the nature of which it may be worth
while to analyze. ,.--.---
The Republican is truly liberal party. 1t
appeals to no popular prejudice; and that
mob which hates niggers and Abolltionists,
as we'll as the other mob which hates the
Pope, Paddles and foreigners, finds it un-
palatable and slow. The Republican party
has no headquarters so alluring to the lovers
of free fight as Tammany Hall; it displays
no flags, it expends no rum and very little
gunpowder. How can it be popular in any
large city? The Republican party is free from
the machinery. of secret councils and eschews
the delicious mysteries of oaths, signs and
ceremonies. Keeping its eye fixed upon the
past, present and prospective aggressions of
the slave-breeding and slave-trading Oligar-
chy, and determined to prevent the extern
sion of Slavery over ground consecrated to
Freedom, the Republican is eminently par
ty of principle. and not of prejudice. 1t
speaks we'll for the moral elevation and in
telligence of our rural population that such
party should find favor with them. The
cities are mainly the strongholds of the Sham
Democracy-the party Of Negrophobia,
Slavery extension, incompetence and war
In them municipal and judicial corruption
nestles in safety. No greater calamity could
les should rule the country. Under the act
ual circumstances every true lover of Free
dom, Peace, Temperance and honest govern
ment must wish to strengthen the hands of
the country party"
In this respect our political system differs
totally from that of the Old World. The
dawn Of political liberty and modern civiliza-
ton dates from the time the chartered cities
of Europe gained representation in the Ma
tional Councils as an integral estate of the
realm. 1t was this national element which
by siding with the kingly power, enabled the
Louises, the Ferdinands and Henrys of the
Fifteenth century to quell the insolence Of
baronial tyrants and robbers. Ecclesiastical
power was struck down in the Sixteenth CEN
fury by the same hand; the doctrines of Luz
Their and Zwingle found their earliest home
in the free cities of Germany and in Zurich
Basic, Berne, and Geneva. Imperial power
received its first shock at the close of the
same century from the resistance of the bur-
ghers of the Netherlands, and its second
shock from the middle class of England; and
it underwent it's third and last convulsion
when the third estate of France humbled il
in 1889. .-,. III.
Four large cities, Amsterdam, London,
Plymouth and Bristol, originated those en-
terprises which colonized the New-Nether-
lands, Virginia and New England At this
day every humanitarian reform, as we'll as
the most of the inventions of civilized life in
Europe, is indebted to municipal activity for
realization and diffusion. The great cities
of the Old World are the foci of high Gull
ture and Intellectual freedom. Thus it hap
pens that the Liberals of Europe look toward
rendering the policy of the cities dominant
over that Of the territorial lords and rural
clergy, who singly or jointly exercise su-
preme sway over the dependent and un-
awakened rustics. The watchword of Euro
pean progressionists is: "Let the cities rule
the country" i.-.- e.a .911
p One need not search far for the causes of
this contrast between constitutional Europe
and Republican America. The statement of
them onn&ithtes pretty accurate measure
of the distance which separates the political
systems of the best portions of the two
hemispheres. The main consideration in the
case is the very superior independence and
intelligence which characterize the masses of
our rural population in comparison with the
rustics of the Old World. Here the land is
in the hands of the many. We have a per-
feet system of local self-government and dis
trict schools, cheap press, every facility for
locomotion and long training in public
affairs. In France the land is democratized
and social equality exists, but her yeomanry
and peasantry, if not peer-ridden, are priest
ridden, and remain in melancholy state of
ignorance and superstition. Scotland, again,
has district schools, local selfgovernment, a
respectable press, political training and free
dom of Enquiry, but Scotland is afflicted with
land monopoly and caste distinctions.
We must further take into account the
fact that we have dared to concede, to the
whites at least, the principle of universal
manhood suffrage; and in every city that
numbers $4,000 souls there is a proportion
of rowdy, drunden and badly-disposed indi-
yiduals who exercise deleterious influence
upon the character of our city politics. The
tide of immigration, which carries the more
intelligent class of immigrants upon our wide
unoccupied lands, and deposits it's vicious
elements in the large cities does much to in
tensify this evil. In the most liberal por-
tons of Europe the civic suffrage is limited
one; they do not venture to put political
power into the hands of every male person
efafan age who struggles, suffers and sins in
the pestilential alleys, and squallid dwellings
that there abound. -. -: -
These considerations afford a clue, we
think, toward explaining why it is that the
lover of social aprogpess in constitutional
Europe has to take sides with the munich.
paGties against the Country party" while
his fellow on this continent will array him
self on the side of country sentiment, in
opposition to that which prevails in the large
cities. SIS l.s- ss0t U5E II fsEge5fefi
20 E The Supreme Court Of Rhe1R b
land during the present term has! s1hteh36
petitions for divorce. One Of eeases Fe-
sented some novel features. A lady was mar
ried when about sixteen years Of age, to
man who soon after left her. Some eight