The Georgetown news., 1855-06-21
From the N. O. Picayune.
Down on the KnOw-NOthinps

mldSt Ol MS employment OF the Sp0llS OF
prostrated foes, was luxuripting in his mar
BILE palace, and saw "Mene, Meme, Tekel. |
Upharasin, inscribed upon its walls, in 1
timating to him in letters of fire that he had
been weighed in the balance and found
wanting, and that the kingdom was about
to depart from him. has there been a great |
er political fright than that with which the
old parties have been agitated by the forma
ton of a new party, whose motto is "a
plague on both your houses. we Know
Nothing" of either, and don't care to. How
to fight this new and growing party, seems
to tax the ingenuity and invention of the
shrewdest leaders and organs of the old ones.
They find it consisting of men of all sorts OF
opinions in some matters, but who are unit
ed on its main grand principles; ana when
they are in the midst of struggle to prove
that the party in question is heterOdoX Oh
this point at the North, they are met with
the response-that so has been every other
party that ever existed in the Republic; and
then when, turning round, they find that the
same new party is at fault in the South,
they discover that in this it is no worse off
than any other that has preceded it. And
how, in their agony, they exclam, can we
fight such party?
A short time ago, portion of the press
rang with the cry that the new American
party was an abolition party and the bug
a-boo story was raised that it was but Gar
risonism, Theodore Parkerism, and Wendell
PhiIipsism in disguise.
Seward, the arch-abolitioniSt, said these
terrified organs, has been elected by Know
Nothing votes, and Know n othngism is
abolition, "and nothing else"
But now we ind Lloyd Garrison, lectur-
ing in the Broadway Tabernacle against the
Know Nothings and abusing Houston, OF
Texas, on the bare suspicion of having any
thing to do with them; now that we see
Thurlow Weed in the Albany Erening
Journal, Horace Greedy in the New York
Tribune, Safeguarding them as "Hindoos;"
now that we discover William II. Seward.
who is in the field as the abolition candidate
for the next Presidency, making set speech
es against them in the United States Sen
ate, we find that tune changed, and then
pitch is on quite another key.
Now it is religion. Do the Known 9th
ings mean to prescribe men for their relig-
ious belief is the cry. The first cry of abo-
lltionism is given up, for the abolitionists
are all dead against the new party, and as
there is nothing in party politics. like good
"cry," the new cry is. the Known othings
are down upon the Catholics! And this
cry will have its day, and like the other
will in due time fade into the faintest murmur
and eventually die out in utter extinction.
AS we understand the object of the Amer
lean party, it is to divest the issue they pre-
sent, of all outside considerations and to pre-
sent the naked question whether Americans
cannot govern America whether the ballot
has not become vltiated by a too lax con-
structlon OF the laws of naturalization, and
their practical application-wh whether the
consequence OF this has not been, that the
real wish and understanding, in the heart of
this people, with regard to that which
makes for their peace, their prosperity and
their welfare, has had its conscientious and
deliberate utterance impeded by the facility
with which our laws. as they have been in
terpreted and administered, have been wrest-
ed to party purposes.
A reform that strikes so deep, so radical
ly as this, that goes down to the very bases
of old abuses, grown almost venerable by
the practice of all parties alike and boldly
avows its object to be to topple them all
over, like a dangerous ruin that threatens
all passers-by, very naturally excites the op-
pugnacy of those whose interest it is to keep
the old tottering structure standing as long
as 1t can cover their otherwise defenceless
heads, and to perpetuate the abuses by
which they alone can keep breath IT. their
bodies. And thus we need not be at all
surprised to find demagogues sometimes ex-
claiming that the Know n othings are in
disguise" while the Northern AbOlitionists
are denouncing the same Known othings
as "Hindoos."
Again, we hear a great hue and CRY raised
against the new American party, on the
ground that It's supporters work in secret
Another transparent piece Of humbug this
For what party that was ever known in
this, or any other country. did not initiate
It's workings in secret? They will not be
accused, we presume, of voting in secret, OF
coming up to the polls, and exercising the
right OF suffrage under cloud of night. And
when they have chosen their men they do
not turn out to be the sort of folks that are
AFRAID OF declaring their principles, and OF
boldly assuming the responsibility of carry
ing them out practically and effectually.
Secret societies What are all the eau
cuses the committees, the preliminary ward
meetings for nomination, the Tammany
Halls, the Broadway Houses. the Albany
Regencies, and all other stereotyped cutting
and drying arrangements for the regulation
of party action, at our elections but secret
associations?
all the opposition to the American party
that is based upon this ground, is cant and
hypocrisy, and such the common sense Of the
people is daily discovering it to be. 1t can
not longer deceive, and the fact that it is
kept up so far beyond the exposure of its
absurdity is proof that it is the last weap-