New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1856-12-05
men have now at last been indicted BY the Grand


lively alarm the sincere friends of Republican Gov.
eminent. Observe, for example, the open con.
tempt so emphatically expressed by many conspicu
Gus leaders of the dominant party in our national
politics for the Rights of Man-those very Rights
upon which the Declaration Of American indie.
pendence was founded. We may find another still
more alarming symptom in that corollary to o. de-
Lial of human nghts-the doctrine now in vogue in.
the Southern States (the ruling portion of our con-
federated Republc)-that domestic servtude, so far
from being an evil to be got rid Of is blessing to
be perpetuated and extended, slavery being the
natural and fttest condition, not merely of the AZ
rcan race, but of the laborng classes of all races.
Nor do these new political and social views rest
in theory alone. We have just seen them vigor
ously carried into practice, not only in the sup.
preston by violence and threats, in so many of the
Southern States, of all attempts to get up Fremont
electoral tickets, bat in the audacious undertaking
countenanced and sustained by the persons at the
head of our national affairs, and bya large majority
of the United States Senate not merely to force
Slavery upon the Territory of Kansas against the
wishes Of large majority of the actual settlers. the
to drive out of tie Territory by FIRE and sword but
friends Of Free LabOr-a piece of outrageous des
potsm to which the result of the recent Presiden.
tial election would seem to have given a quasi
Enforcement.
Occasions like these are well calculated to excite
apprehensiOns that our whole system of Democratic
Government is about to undergo some terrible col.
lapse. However that system might have worked
or seemed to work, in times when poverty combined
with virtue, public and private to give it support
can it avoid breaking down-such is the question
which these events are well calculated to suggest
under the pressure to which it is exposed from in.
creased wealth combined with increased rascaty
and a prevailing skeptcism even among many
priests at the altar to the reality of anything ex
cept money, and what can be bought and sold for
money!
Yet thorough and critical comparison of the
present with the past, comparison which, diving
beneath the surface shall probe matters to the bot
tom, would 60 far to show that, alarming as is the
present condition of our national affairs, the princ
Piles Of Republicanism nevertheless exist amonx US
in fuller state Of development, and in greater
purity and power, than at any former period since
Constitution; whence We may reasonably conclude
that ifthOse principles are now to be put-as seems
certain-tO more fiery trial than ever before, they
are better able to endure that trial. and have much
better chance of coming out victorious
We hear great deal about sectional parties,
about the danger of sectional parties, and the i'm
possibility of carrying Presidential election by
means of a sectional party-all aimed at the Repub.
lican party at present constituted else at the
fundamental principles upon which that party is
based. Nevertheless, We are bold to say that the
Republican party, as at present constituted, and
precisely because it is SO constituted is the only
national party which has yet appeared in our his
tory from which Repubicanism, as practical
tn Dg, ever had anything to hope; and we are bold
to say, further, that the sudden uprising Of that
party, the bold and decided stand which it took, and
the determined and formidable front which in spite
of temporary defeat it still presents, show that Re-
publican ideas have a hold upon the public mind,
which, in the impending contest between democratic
equality on the one hand and ars!Ocratic despotsm
on the other ought to inspire us with every conf.
Gence of success.
OF the old JeflersoDian Democracy the best that
can be said is that it was talking Democracy.
In the then existing state of affairs considering the
strong reaction against republican ideas which the
French Revolution and the despotism of the elder
Bonaparte had produced, and, so far as this coun-
try was concerned had embodied and personifed
in the Federal party, talk, perhaps, was all that
could be expected of Jefferson and his associates;
and, in truth, that party though by way Of con-
cratic, seems after ALL to have had but very few
Democrats in it. During quarter of a century,
under the successive Presidencies of Jefferson,
Madison and Monroe, it stood at the head Of
American Affairs dominant in the nation, dominant
in the larger part of the States, and finally, in all
Of them; yet, if we were to inquire critically as to
what it actually did for democratic ideas, We come
even cover the surface with promising verdure;
still it did one thing-it scattered democratic seed
broadcast over the land.
OF this seed, a good deal, it is true, fell upon
stony places where the ground was but shallow,
and where for the lack of moisture so soon a. the
sun was up, it was scOrched and withered away.
Such was eminently the case throughout the South
ern States. Slavery being there the substratum of
society," it was not to be expected that democratic
ideas should take root sufficiently to produce any
results. Even of the democratic seed sown in the
more favored region of the Free labor States, some
fell among thorns where IFS growth was speedily
choked. A great deal also fell by the wayside, and
for thirty five wears past fowls of the air in thu