The Opelousas courier., 1857-07-25
TO THE PEOPLE OF ST. LANDRY
And the l7th Senatorial District,

:. your sufrages in the election of a Represel
tative in Congress, Representatives to bot
i branches ofthe Legislature, and certain Stat
t and Parish officers; and as your action wi
have a direct influence not only ON you
> home interests, but those of your State an
f what is more important at the present juno
tion, those of the Union, to the councils c
which your Legislature will be called upo
to elect SENATOR your Delegates in thei
late Convention have recommended that yo
should be addressed Oh the important issue
now before the country, and have appointet
the undersigned to fill that office.
In entering upon that duty we would re
mark, that although at different periods in th'
history of our country the conflict of politica
elements have evolved questions of great mag
nitude which have convulsed the Union to it,
center, and every where caused the friends
OF our government to fear for the stability O.
ourinsttutions, yet the present state and con
dition Of parties in this country, will warrant
us lQ affirming that at no period anterior tC
the present was there more just cause for Sc.
rious alarm.
The Black Republican Party of the North,
purely sectional in its character, uniting all
the elements of an early opposition to the
Democracy and led on in spirit of faction
| engendered by psuedo philanthropy, con-
template the Capitalization of all power in the
hands of the General Government, the dis
tinction of the equality existing between the
States, and eventually the annihilation of the
relations existing between master and slave.
1t has gathered about its standard such
strength that in the late Presidential election
it carried with it the vote of nearly every
Northern State, and had 1t succeeded, as It
anticipated, in dividing the South, it would
now have in its hapds the destinies of the
country, or we would be plunged in fratri-
cldal war which however it might have even
tuated could only entail upon the country dis
aster, dishonor and disgrace
Thisis crisis not unforeseen. The "Father
Of his country in his ''' Farewell Address "
upon retiring from public life, foresaw, and
warned his countrymen against it; and the
history of nations show, that in conflicts for
power growing out of sectional hostility and
sectional fanaticism, warnings are unheeded,
the teachings of history disregarded, and the
highest public good sacrificed. 1t is melan-
choly reflection that Nation such as ours
whose birth has been within a short century,
whose progress in all the arts of civilization
has been the wonder of the world whose
greatness is the admiration of nations should
SO far forget its great mission its duty to itself
and the world as to jeopardise its very exis-
tence by an insane struggle for sectional
power. Yet, SO it is, and we OF the National
Democratic Party who alone carry the flag
and keep step to the music Of the Union -
who know no North, no South, no East. no
West-but our whole country find ourselves
divided at home whilst upholding against
Black Republican aggression, not only the
national bat our own interests and honor, and
that by party which contemplates but one
object and that of such secondary and minor
Importance, that in the great interests which
divide the country, the great mass ofthe peo-
pie entirely ignore. We need not say, that
we refer to the one idea of the so-called
American Party, "the amendment of the
naturalization laws" all the rest is thrice
beaten straw sarcanet and prunella"
We would not disparage a party which
numbers in its midst men of undoubted honor,
undoubted integrity and undoubted patriot
ism did we not feel that the crisis demands
the investigation. That such men remain
members of the party is only to be accounted
for on the hypothesis that they have given the
subject little reflection, or that their habits
of opposition have become so confirmed as to
make opposition virtue, like the old cava-
liers who followed to the last the fortunes of
King Char'ee, whom they heartily despised.
The old " zig Party, gallant opposition
in its day, run its career most gloriouslY but
being party of expediency it died with the
failure to engraft its expedients on the legis.
lative of the country On its ruins arose the
Native American Party which with few
specious phrases drew into its ranks many
who, attracted by fair speech and loud profess
sions, troubled themselves little to investigate
what were the real ends of the organization
and until time developed what those ends
were, the party gathered such strength that
it promised to oversbadow all opposition. The
organization of this party on the basis of Sc
creey and of implicit obedience Of inferior to
superior was calculated to alarm the free and
open republican mind. It led to a careful
and more considerate investigation, and when
there appeared in the United States Senate,
men of mark known as uncompromising ene-
mics to the South and southern institutions,
and placed there by the agency Of this secret
order, enough of southern men saw the end
proposed to be attained and left the party in
time to save the country Massachusetts, the
first in order of the Know Nothing States,
whose first Legislature numbered more than
nineteen twentieths of the men of that party,
sent Wilson and Sumner to the United States
Senate. New York followed next, and with
a majority of Know Nothings in her Legisla-
ture, sent the arch agitator" Seward to
that august body,--a fowler blow was never
struck to the South! It would be in vain to
follow the tortuous course Of this party in the
North. Faithless to every principle. corrupt
to its very core, and with a lie in its mouth,
it sacrificed the patriot Fillmore, to cajole and
divide the South whilst it should place at the
head of the government that imbecile traitor
Fremont. Gentlemen Of the American party
here, do You not believe this /? Scan closely
the Pennsylvania election. Were you not
told that the triumph Of the Fusion ticket
there would be national American triumph
A - H., L. Co., A hr