Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1856-10-08
Po.Ilion Or the Repnbllcan Par,r.


Lest the true position Of the Republican party
before the country on the great question of the
day may be misconctrued or misunderstood, in
any quarter, it may be well to revert to the plat
form laid down at Philadelphia, on which Ere
mont and Dayton were nominated and which
they have both endorsed as the chart of their po-
litical course, and see in what explicit terms the
Peoples platform commits the party against any
further extension of slavery, or any further ad-
diton of slave states slave territory to the Re
public
The following are two resolutions of the
Philadelphia platform, which have special refer
ence to this matter
'Resolved That with our Republican fathers.
we hold it to be self evident truth that all men
are endowed with the inahenable rights of life,
liberty, and the pursuit if happiness and that the
primary object and ulterior design OF our Federal
Government is to grant these rights to all persons
under its exclusive jurisdiction that, as our
Republican fathers, when they had abolished sla-
very in all our national territory, ordained that
person shall be deprived of life liberty, prop
erty, without due process of law, it becomes our
duty to maintain this provision of the Constitu-
ton against all attempts 10 violate it for the pur-
pose Of establishing slavery in the territories of
the United States, BY positive legislation, TrOhi6
attng ITS ,erlStepce or extension therein; that we
deny the authority of Congress, of a territorial
legislature, of any individual or association of in
diyiduals, to give legal assistance to slavery in any
territory of The United States, while the present
Constitution shall be maintained.
ResolUed That the Constitution confers upon
Congress Sovereign power over the territories of
the United States for their government, and that
in the exercise OF this power, it is both tie Yiqht
and tie Imperative dutg Of Congress to prohibit
an a4e territories those tom relics Of bar6ariSn',
potgganly and siaueyy."
What ran he tuora defnita fban file roI
Fremont, in accepting the nomination rendered
him, upon that platform, replied in endorsement
of it: 1.-THE declaration of principles embodied
in the resolves Of your Convention, expresses the
sentiment in which have been educated, and
which have been ripened into convictions, by per-
sonal observation and experience" lie added
on this point:
. Ncthing is clearer in the history of our
institutions than the design of the nation ia
asserting its own independence and free.
dom, to avoid giving countenace to the exten.
sion Of slavery. The influence of the small
but compact and powerful class OF men inter-
osted in slavery, who command one section of
the country, and WELD a vast political control
as consequence in the other, is now direct.
ed TO turn back this impulse OF the revolution,
and reverse its principles. The extension of
slavery across the continent is the object Of
the power which now rules the government,
and from this spirit have sprung those kim
cred wrongs in Konzas 50 truly portrayed in
one oil your resolutions, which prove that the
elements OF the most arbitrary governments
bayo not been yanquiRhed by the just theory
Of our own"
He pledges his influence in support Of Congress.
ional legislation against the extension Of slavery.
and declares that
"such policy would leave no aliment 10
that sectional party which seeks lie agrandze.