The Hillsdale standard. [volume] (Hillsdale, Mich.) 1851-1909, 1856-08-12
ADDRESS.
Adopted by the Democratic Republicans AS
sembled at Syracuse July "a. 1886.


FELLOW DEMOCRATS THE time has com,
for Democrats to declare their independents,
of those packed conventions which have late
ly assembled to dictate the measures and the
candidates of the Democracy. THAT party
of glorious memory, which once spoke and
acted for freedom, has fallen into the hands
of office-holders and political Adventures
serving as the tools of save-holding oligar,
chy. For more than ten years the measures
of the General Government have been direct
ed mainly to to the increase of Slave States
One measure has followed upon another, each
bolder than the last, until we have violence
ruling in the Federal Capitol, and civil wa
raging in the Territories.
For the consummation of each measure,
the vernal have been purchased, the timid
frightened by threats of disunion, the peace
loving soothed by promises of future quiet
ness, and the reluctant and resisting silcnced
or overbonc by the clamor and force of party.
Each success has led to new aggression tiri-
til at last the weak man now at the head of
the Government, stimulated by Senator
from Illinois, in a rivalry for Presidential
nomination, and believing the best means of
reaching it was to secure the entire Southern
vote, and the best means of obtaining that,
a new sacrifice to Slavery, attempted to
force through Congress the repeal of an ex-
isting law, by which a compromise had been
effected by our fathers more than third Of
century past. These rival demagogues sue
ccedcd in effecting the repeal, though they
lost their reward.
BY this act of crime, unparalleled even in
our day of political crimes, one of the fairest
regions of our country, and, indeed, of the
world, has been converted into field Of bat
tie, where citizens of common country are
fighting with each other For the introduction
or exclusion of human rvitudc. Such an
other spectacle the world does not present.
And the end of it is dependent upon the
event of the Presidential election.
10 excuse themselves, the authors oc the
measure put forth the plea, that the people
of the Territories had the right to govern
themselves. If this were true, it would not
have justified the Kansas-N ebraska act, for
that was mere abandonment of Congression-
al interposition in favor of Presidential inter-
position, leaving tho law-making power to
the people, but feserving the executive and
judicial to the President or his nominees. 1t
was an abdcation by Congress of its legisla-
tive functions in favor of the executive.
But the plea was as untrue in fact as it
was unworthy in motive. They who put it
forth have abandoned it. The Senate has
passed bill proposing to annul some of the
most obnoxious acts of these lawmakers,
and the authors of the mischief, shrinking
from tho consequences of their own acts. and |
forgetting that others will remember their |
tergivcrsation, attempt to escape some of the
condemnation by undoing part of the evil.
If the people Of the Territories have the
right to govern themselves, they will make |
their governors and judges as well as their
legislatures. If they have not the right,
Congress has it; and if Congress has it, it
must be exercised according to the judgment
and conscience of the country. The true
question. therefore, is, What is Legislation
on the subject of Slavery in the Territories,
do the judgement and conscience OF the coun-
try ,require4
The present question is, indeed narrower
than that, for it relates merely to the Terri
tories of Kansas end Nebraska. These, the
legislation of Congress, perfected in 1920 by
the votes of the North and South-chiefy
and forever set apart as
Free soil. The dedication of the soil to Lib
erty the dcgeneracy of the present day has
annulled. And the legislation which is now
required is that which is necessary, whatever
il NAV be, TO make Kansas free.
This is demanded alike by every considera-
ton, past, present and future. If Kansas,
which the past made free, is now to be chang
ed to slave, there must be an end of compro-
misses and of conciliatory legislation; the
faith which prompts one Legislature or one
to respect the engagements Of an
other must disappear; and how long gov
ernment can be carried on without that faith
md confidence, without something more
han written constitutions, worked by mere.
majorities regardless of everything but their
,wn strength and will, they who have read
history can answer.
If the present struggle is to end as the Ill-
lois Senator has boasted, in the subjugation
# those who opposed his mischievous bill,
hen, indeed, is the spirit of evil let loose,
and violence are in the ascend
mt, the real opinion of the country is thing
o be despised, conscience may be laughed at,
md 1t Is of no Importance to the President or
Congress what the people of the North MAY
hink; If The South can be sectred, with the
Northern office-holders and purchaseable
members of Congress, any measure may be
afely carried and maintained. How such
tate of things commends itsek to the spirit
f self.respect of northern electors, we ask
hem to answer.
But what shall we say Of the future p
Kansas lost TO freedom, and as home for
he oppressed of all nations; free labor driv-
n across her borders, and that noble domain
f the New World, broader and farer than
many realm of the Old, made, not pros
erous and rich like Wisconsin and Iowa, but
alf barbarous, like Western Missouri.
That, however, is not the worst consc-
uence. The same spirit which contrived the |
Kansas conspiracy, already hints that the |
of the slave trade is an unjust dis ,
rimination against the South. And why