The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1855-10-18
ELECTIONS IN PENNSYLVANIA AND
INDIANA.

INDIANA.
The opposition to the Administration Party
in Pennsylvania has been defeated, that Party
having elected its candidate for Canal Commits.
sioner, and majority of the Legislature, on
which will devolve the task of choosing Uni
ted States Senator. Last year the Opposition
swept the State. The press is engaged in phi
papers of course say that Public Opinion has
reacted in favor of the Adninistration-that
the policy of the Nebraska Bill having come to
be better understood, the People have revoked
an erroneous judgment, hastily formed. This
is nonsense. No Democratic State Convention,
held in Pennsylvania since the passage of the
bill, has dared to endorse it, although vehement
ly urged by the Administration to do so. The
Convention that nominated Plummer for the
office of Canal Commissioner, maintained the
same reserve, refusing to make the bill or the
policy of it an issue in the election. Besides,
it will be found that the Administration Party
has increased but little since last year: it has
not grown stronger, but the opposition organ
lied against it last year has grown weaker.
The North american attempts to explain this
fact by reference to the division of sentiment
in relation to the Prohibitory Law. We doubt
not that this, as in Maine had something to do
in changing the relative conditions of parties.
But the one great cause of the disorganization of
the opposition is overlooked. Last year, Know
Nothingism, acting secretly and insidiously,
combined all the elements of disafection to the
Administration, especially allying itself with
the Anti-Nebraska Sentiment, which it used,
however, to subserve its own purposes. Its
nature and real tendencies were not understood,
and it operated without making itself manifest
except in results.
Since then, it has emerged from obscurity,
been arraigned at the bar of Public Sentiment,
and condemned by the great majority of the
real Anti-Nebraska voters. Unwilling to sub
NIT to the judgment, it has struggled for polit-
ical ascendency. Where it gave place to Re-
publicanism, and became acquiescent, the Ad.
minstration has been overthrown, as in Yer
mont and Ohio. Where it refused to be ignored,
as in Maine, or undertook the lead, as in Penn
sylvania and Indiana, the Administration has
triumphed. The opposition to the Adminis-
tration and Slarery can be marshalled and or
ganized by RepuJlicanism, but not by Kno,o
Nothingism. True Anti-,Slacery men, deter
mined to screst the Federal Government from
the hands Of the StaUe Po,ccr aciU not array
themselves on the narrOw platform of the pro-
scriptiUe, Anti-American order.
That is the secret of the Administration VIC
tory in Pennsylvania and Indiana. The Know
Nothings attempted first to get the control of
the Republican Convention in Pennsylvania.
1t now turns out that the President was a
Know Nothing, and appointed a majority of the
State Republican Committee from the Know
Nothing ranks. A portion of this Committee,
acting, as we understand without any authori.
ty, at the eleventh hour, withdrew the name of
Passmore Williamson, candidate of the Repub.
licans, and, in conjunction with the Wing and
Know Nothing Committees, put in nomination
a new candidate. This change of front of it.
self would have tended to division, but, accom-
panied with so many suspicious circumstances
it insured it. Many of the Republican papers
denounced the movement as fraudulent, and
kept the name of Williamson before the PEG.
pie; and the result was, entire want of concert
among the opponents of the Administration.
We are not sorry for the result. We can see
no good from any election that may be Justly
claimed as Native American victory. Better
let division come this fall than next. Better
encounter now all the hazards of disentanglng
nti-Savery men from the meshes of the Secret
Order now, than year hence. If Pennsylva-
MIA is to be arrayed against the Administration
and the Slave Power in 1885, it must be, not by
Whiggery or Know Nothingism, but by Repub-
licanism.
The same is true of Indiana.
The Indianapolis Journal of the 10th instant
admits the total defeat of the " Republicans " at
the late county elections in that State, but de-
MES that the election was decided upon nation
al issues. Speaking of the result, it says:
awe are beaten so decidedly that we have
the satisfaction of knowing that the misfortune
cannot be the result of remissness in one place
or uncorrected falsehoods in another. So GREAT
a change from the vote of last year cannot be
traced to partial or local causes. 1t is the work
of a general sentiment, and that, we think. is
hostility to the prohibitory LdW. Not that the
principle of prohibition is so unpopular, but
the stringent features of the law, and its indif
ferent execution since it get into the hands of
the Supreme Court, have burdened it with all
the odium of stringency and the additional
odium of ineficiency. Other causes NAV have
aided, but this, we believe, was the main influ
ence. We need not say that we regret this in
dication Of popular feeling, but we derive con-
ISOLATION from the history of all great reforms.
Truth has many defeats to suffer, before a final
and permanent triumph. Let no temperance
man despair or cease his efforts to DESTROY the
accursed trathc. Though beaten now, we have
gained vastly on our position of two years AGO.
National issues exerted so slight an inAu-
ence as hardly to have affected the result at all
though of course our opponents will glorify the
result as an Administration victory. When the
question comes fairly and squarely before the
people in the Presidential campaign, swill YOU
support the advocates of the Nebraska fraud
and the apologlsts of Kansas villanies ?, diff
ferent result will be manifested. So great a
change on question presenting the same old
features of fraud and contempt for the nonnlar
will is incredible. People do not twist short
round so easily, although politicians do. Their
sentiments upon that question are UNCHANGED.
and, when allowed expression, unhampered by
local issues, the truth Of our declaration will he
SEEM"
Here, as in Pennsylvania, the Prohibitory
Liquor Law is made the scapegoat; but, the
truth is, true Republican Party does not ex-
list in Indiana. Why disguise the fact2 Was
not the State Convention held few months
since, claiming to be Republican" attended
by delegations with banners bearing the usual
Know Nothing catch.words, america for
Americans" Down with the Pope |" &C., in.