The spirit of democracy. [volume] (Woodsfield, Ohio) 1844-1994, 1858-11-24
The Issue for 1860 Framed and
rendered by the Republican Can
didate for the Presidency,

The Washington Onion says, that no
one can now doubt who is to be the re-
publican standard bearer in 1860. Gov.
Seward is, beyond all question, the man.
Neither Of the twenty Fremonts who ran
as one man in 1856 is now thought Of
The very name is almost forgotten and is
entirely uncherished. When there is any
hope of success Seward will not permit
any one to stand between him and the OBJ
ject of his ambition. Chase, of Ohio, is
jostled out of the way, as not sufficiently
lavish with spoils of the treasury. Wade
is known to be too ignorant to command
and too stubborn and self-conceited to be
used by the wire-pullers with ease and at
pleasure. Hale, of New Hampshire, is
too great a blunderer, and often cracks
his jokes at the wrong time and place.
and by some, probably enormously, is
supposed to have practised it so long
as to almost believe in his own demaguo-
guism. Gov. Banks is too recent con-
vert, processes too many faiths, and talks
too much of having been democrat, to
suit: and then he is so slippery and foxy
that his good faith in anything, except
what may benefit himself, is largely ques-
toned. Sumner is too much of believ.
er in the earlier forms Of their creed to
adopt, with sufficient readiness, the chan
ges which the necessities of the party may
require. Every aspirant is summariy
killed off, with pointed and unanswcrable
objections, none of which apply to Gov.
Seward. He and his friends consider
him as good as actually nominated
he claims to have disbanded the old whig
party and absorbed it in the republican
swapping his finger at the few who re-
fused to follow him as leader and a.
dopt the newly professed faith. His
friends boast that he prostrated the
Americans, and that all of that party who
are worth having have enlisted under his
banner, and are followers in his camp.
By single speech he sponged up and
wholly absorbed nearly every abolitionist
proper, leaving Gerritt Smith scarcely
corporal's guard, as the reward of his sim
cere but mistaken exertions. Having
blown to the winds all organizations 9TH
er than his own and that of the democra.
cy, he boldly tenders an issue with the
latter for 1860. All collateral questions
are ignored by him as productive of en-
barrassment, and everything is s.aked up
on one question-:o wit, the overthrow
and final; destruction of State rights, and
consequently ofour Union and our lber-
ties, through the instrumeutality of Sec
tional agitation and action.
He expects. by warning upon the
southern States concerning their own do
mestic institutions, which were cherished
and sustained by Washington, JEFF FFso,l,
Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Tyler, Polk,
and Taylor, to combine the entire nor
thern and western States, and to force
the former to conform to the bidding of his
party, or to break up the confederaey--
which he cares not so that his aspirations
and the desires of his friends for Office
and public plunder are gratifed. Per-
sonally, he cIres nothing for the slave or
about slavery. He thinks, and we hear
has said, that the democratic party can
only be overthrown by resorting to this
sectional aggression He contrives
theory which he thinks adapted to and
likely to accomplish his objects Refer
ring to the local institutions of the South
10 recent speech at Rochester, New
York, he said:
"Thus, these antagonistic systems are
continually coming into closer contact,
and collision results. Shall I tell you
what this collision means? They who
think that it is accidental, unnecessary,
the work of interested or fanatcal agita-
tors, and therefore ephemeral, mistake the
case altogether. 1t is an irrepressible
conflict between opposing and enduring
forces, and it means that the United States
must and sciX sooner or later, become en-
tirely a slaveholdiug nation or entirely a
free labor nation. Either the cotton and
rice fields of South Carolina and the su-
gar plantations of Louisiana will ulti-
malely be titled by free labor, and Char
lesion and New Orleans become marts for
legitimate merchandise alone, or else the
rye fields and wheat fields Of Massachu-
setts and New York must again be sur
rendered by their farmers to slave cul-
ture, and to the production of slaves, and
Boston and New York become once more
market for trade in the bodies and souls