Raftsman's journal. [volume] (Clearfield, Pa.) 1854-1948, 1858-07-07
AN ANOMALY In POLITICS.

AN ANOMALY IN POLITICS.
Whatever follies may have been committed
~ political parties heretofore, says the Indi-
ina Register, their positions in regard to men
md measures were generally weIl enough de-
iued to enable men of common apprehension
to understand what they were for and what they
were against. They presented their platforms.
placed their candidates upon them, and then
went ahead. True, it was said of the modern
Democracy, that they sometimes drew doub-
le string on their bow, the one directing ar
rows northward. and the other sending missiles
in an opposite direction. Still, it could be
seen what they were about, and hence their
movements could be met. But a recent inyen-
tion of theirs goes ahead of all previous ones,
for it enables them to work two bows with one
string-the string of modernized modern De-
mocracy, by means of which they draw Le
compton bow and an Anti-Lecompton bow at
one and the same time. Truly, the present is
an age of inventions. In their State Conven-
tion, held at Harrisburg, they presented to the
people platform cf principles highly painted
in Lecompton colors, and in connexion with
convention was said to have been controlled
by Washington officials, and the predomina
ting feature of Lecomptonism in its proceed
ings was imputed to that source. 1t was re-
garded and boasted of as triumph for the
President in his own State, and no doubt had
its influence, as had been designed, in the pas
sage of the so-called English bill. But the
l. ,;f,t tI, -,
than were Mr.. Buchanan and his Lecompton
friends, and in order to reconcile them to the
proceeding, the Democratic presses in Districts
strongly Anti-Lecompton, on hosting the
State ticket, arrayed themselves against the
Lecompton swindle, and thus presented to a
sswondering world" the anomaly of support
ing set of candidates as the choice of the
Democracy, but repudiating the principles set
forth as the basis of the party's platform. But
the farce was not permitted to end there. An
effort must be made to give to the whole pro-
ceedfng the appearance of plausibility and
straight ht-forwardness; and to accomplish this
end it was boldly assumed and broadly assert
ed that the election of State officers had moth
ing to do with the Kansas constitution, and
hence the one question had no bearing upon
the other. This were perhaps true ab-
stract proposition, but it does not hold good in
the case under consideration, when all the
facts and attending circumstances are taken
together. Why was the Kansas question at
all introduced into the Harrisburg convention
if it was not designed to mix it up with the
State election and why were Lecompton men
selected as candidates, if il was not done to
indorsc the Presidents course in regard to
that swindle, and to make them the champions
of the principles which the convention pro-
claimed? If it be said that there is no proof
of their being Lecompton men, we answer that
the fact that they have acquiesccd in the nom
ination and platform is prima facia evidence
against them. The truth is, that those politi-
clans who support the State ticket must sustain
Lecompton, if they mean to be consistent and
to remain within the paes of the party. The
two are inseparable and consistency requires
that they be supported together or be totally
rejected. Any other course will be regarded
as duplicity.