The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1856-03-13

even that platform is for the State. In Nation
al matters, in the Presidential contest, the Or
der will support Fillmore and Donelson, proyi-
ded they will pledge themselves to sustain
Americanisna, and stand By and defend the
Just rights Of the .freemen of the North an the
Territories and in the States, under all the
principles and provisions Of the Federal Con-
stitttion."
The reply of both gentlemen will be-"Amer-
icanism is dear to our hearts, and he must be
a traitor who will not stand by and defend the
just rights of the North, as well as of the South,
everywhere and at all times, under the princi-
Piles and provisions of the Federal Constitu-
ton"
The resolves are dishonest, and calculated to
deceive the people.
Enough II the free States are divided
Straight-out Whigery, impracticable Democra-
cy, and bigoted Know Nothingism, are doing
their work. If they persist, there can be no
union of the masses of the People on the great
issue rendered by the Slave Power. No one
of these factions proposes to meet this issue,
fairly and squarely, and this issue alone.
Straight-out Whigery would evade it-Know
Nothngism subordinate and adulterate it. The
former does not even dream of carrying sim
gle State the latter ought to know that it can
never rally the masses by its Anti-Popery and
Anti-Foreignism cries, its grips, its passwords
and secret oaths.
AS for the Republicans, they have a plain
road before them. Recognising the Slave
Power as the great evil of the country, they
have organized for its overthrow. They pro-
pose, without trespass on the rights of the
States, to subvert the rule of the Oigarchy,
and bring the People into power, SO that the
powers of the Federal Government shall be ad-
ministered by the People for the People, and
not by Class and Sectional Interest for its
own ACKNOWLEDGEMENT and perpetual domination.
Questions regarding the Currency, Commercial
Policy, Public Lands, Naturalization, they have
laid aside. The great QUESTION must first be
settled They recognise no religious test-no
difference between native born and naturalized
citizens. All citizens, of all sects, of all races,
are equally interested in the object they seek
to accomplish, and they invoke the union of
hold their Convention, and nominate their can
didates, on the one controlling issue. If there
be division, it will not be their fault: if they
fail of success, they will have no reason for
selfreproach. And for one, we are not to be
inundated, by an apprehension of failure, into
coalition with parties, holding what we regard
as bad opinions, into arrangements which will
bring us into an alliance with movements, our
heart and conscience condemn. Some who
have as great horror of minority, as nature
is success, without a scrupulous respect to
the means, shrink from the prospect of defeat
at the coming election. They say it will be
the last battle the freemen of the country can
be brought to fight on such an issue-that the
night of Slavery would then sink down over
the whole country, paralyzing its hope and its
energy.
Turn to what we said in the beginning of
this article. In 1880, the Slave Despotism was
as strong as it is now. In 1910, arose the first
political organization against it. At every
Presidential election it has been met; we have
been defeated but after every reverse, We have
gathered new strength. Political revolutions,
so vast as that we contemplate, are not to be
accomplished by one effort. The progress of
ideas is slow, but inevitable. We must learn
to labor and to wait. If we miss FIRE, let us
pick the flint, and try it again. Old soldiers
ls-o~ how to compel victory ron defeat fresh
recruits should teach themselves to bear re-
verses. Men that would conquer must know
how to die. In the famous siege of Malta, the
first lesson taught the knights of st. John, by
their great captain, La Vaette, was to expect
no foreign succors, to contemplate defeat with
calmness, to make no terms with the InGdel.
then, to conquer and they did conquer Fully
prepared for disasters, they won unexpected
victories, and drove the besiegers into the sea.
What good would power do US, if achiev-
ed by combination, containing within itself
nothing but discordant elements? 1t might
be used to distribute the spoils, it would be
impotent for the establishment of principles.
Union now, on Gn honest basis, would undoubt-
honest one, or rather a coalition of contradic-
tories, simply with view to secure power,
would carry in itself the seeds of selfdestruc-
ton. An honest organization on the one con.
trolling issue, although it may fail this time,
will finally prevail. The curse of our country
is impotence. We are in haste to be rich in
haste to get power; in such haste that, with the
majority, the end sanctifes the means.
We conclude by repeating what we have Of
ten said:
We ought to have union, but we ought not
to sacrifice, compromise, evade, or conceal, our
movement. We ought not to attempt success
on side issues. We ought not to seek merely
an advantage, by passing by men clearly and
boldly representing our movement and select
ing, as our standard-bearer, one who does not
thoroughly appreciate it, one who is not willing
to follow it out to its legitimate consequences
who is not imbued with its spirit, who is not
identified with it-selecting him simply on the
old Wing ground of availability because he
might run aOell, and, if elected, might be more
respectable than the incumbent displaced.
Finally, we must take care that the Repub-
lican Party be neither Third Party, nor a
tributary, by any completely, to any other party
or movement. 1t must be first, it must be one
Men who have been Democrats, Wings, Know
Nothings, or Independent Democrats, by party
ties, or who are such yet in principle, must of
necessity compose the materials of this great
Republican Party; but it must be an aggregate
of Northumberland a conglomerate of factions,
not partnership of parties, each seeking some
particular object of its own, but-an aggrega-