Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1857-07-02
Vital Principle Of the Repub-
lican PARTY.

SHOW that this view Is wrong. Mr.. Prem
lice, of the Louisville Journal, made an ad
dress in Cincinnati, a few weeks ago, upor
"TH Past and Present Aspect of Ameri
can Politics I" The address was able, al
nigh have been expected from a gentle
manpf his national reputation, yet it tool
In fabe view of American politics. 1t wal
idtspsring. The past was all that was left
to "a q glory The present vas overcas
with sDortentuous clouds, and the future wa.
black AM scow,ing. The great men hat
all died. There was no living great man
The revolutionary age, with its Washington
and Adams, and Hamilton, had past away
The mature life of the Republic, with its
Jacksons, Clays, Websters, and Calhouns
had shriveled up. The twilight of the Re.
public was now upon US. and we were soon
to grope in the dark and dash each others
brains out, without knowing why or where
| fore. Such was the sullen and sombre view
which-thee distinguished Kentuckian took
OF our destiny. 1t is all false. The Re-
public never stood on so high an emnence
as it does now. What we have lost in great
men, we have gained in great masses. In
teligepce is more oifiused than it was
Dollars and cents have less to do with cur
political action. We discuss little about
tariffs ard banks, and other mere statistical
and fnanc ial questions. The politics OF
this country have more o { the moral and re-
l.gious elements combined with them than
ever before.
People care less about leaders and more
about principles than they used to do
They think more, have more independence,
more courage. They are not afraid to speak
out, and call things by their right names
The heart is allied more with the intellect.
The feelings that we're once suppressed
now find vent. The barbarism of slavery
is called barbarism. The apoogists for it
are the merest dr.tt-wood upon tho great
river OF life-the disjointed scantliEgs of
sawed log. They hope to repress truth and
choke up the affections by scare-crows and
phantoms. They shake the anatomy of
bygone age-a skeleton without blood or
flesh, and call ii the Union, and warn US
against approaching it, lest it fall to pieces.
They forge. that the principle o: love OF
country is embedded in warm living bodies,
and true, hoping hearts-that it lives in
the present more than in the past-that it
has never dwarfed from its birth, but has
grown up in daily beauty and in manly
strength-that it can now go alone, and is
not to be held up like a cOnsumptive pa
tient, or fed with milk sops like a pulling
infant.
The falsely styled Democratic party is
but tradition. 1t has outlved everything
but it's name. A new generation has arisen
who know not the Joseph which these men
W ould bow to. The true Democracy of the
day is for freedom. not for slavery; it tadTits
not of bondage either of the mind or of the
limb. Its healthful exercise is personal la
bor. Therein ia its usefulness, and from it
will spring its highes; triumphs. 1t is not
SO much the independence Of men, as it is
The independence. of MAN. Sel-erect and
self DO sed, mans freedom comes from the
God who made him, and not from the stat
utes of a State. Yet in the State, as in the
men who make the State, there are antago-
nisms, the right and the wrong, the good
and the had. These antagonisms have now
4 fairer field than they once had. and the
conflict is going on. I'VE see it in the pull
pit; in the press; in the convocations OF
Gospel ministers; in the gatherings Of po-
itical conventions The active, living, |
of American antagonisms is
slavery or freedom. The men who love
liberty more than they do tradition, who
ire resolved to do right, are those who band
together ia political unity under the name
Of the REPuBLIcANs, and are those who in |
religious or sectarian convocations set their |
seals upon their records against the sin of
'laveholding. Men must either serve God
,r BaaI, and we must choose; and we do |
:hoose which Of the two we will serve.
These combined armies, the political, the |
eligious, the mora al, are all acting in con-
,ert, like the allied armies before Sevasto-
,ol. They will soon upite, and present one
'erried front to the enemy. 1t cannot be
lvoided. It's the fiat of Jehov.Sh, against
which the weak devices OF man Cannot pre-
,ail. Those of the slave side, those who
flank the chains Of an imperious desputisu
o our ears, think that this great question
. to live or die with the fight now going on
n Kansas. They don't know whit they
ire talking aboutit Vulgar men utter the
ny of "nigger," ""nigger;" but vulgar men
will die, and worms will eat them, but the
principles of Republicanism will never die.
Those who ealk that way have not been i'm
,ressed with the remotest idea of the sub
ime missi5n sftFe Republican party Our
work hus'been going on for half century.
/ has never lost ground. It has always
increased, always grown stronger. 1t has
lever given back. It's course has ever been
Upward and onward The promethean fires
'urn upon its altars; and although the winds
nay blow, and the rains may fall. and beat
lpon it, it will Withstand the whirlwind and
'otlive the storm Columbus Journal.