The weekly Portage sentinel. [volume] (Ravenna, Ohio) 1854-1861, 1858-09-16
The Approaching Dissolution o.
the Republican Party.

The approaching Dissolution o
the Republican Party.
There is every indication and reason {
believe that the Republican organization
about following its immediate predecessor
the "American" and "Whig"-to tn
grave of oblivion, and that the opposition t
the Democracy will soon be known by
different oppellation. It's existence has, in
deed, been brief-its days few and full o
trouble. In the four years that it has beel
in the political field it has committed NOR
crimes, errors and follies-been guilty o
more Inconsistencies and tergiversations ant
scandals-elevated to Office greater mum
Der Of weak, ignorant, corrupt and unprin
cipled men, than the worst combination on,
can imagine ought TO have done in centu
ry. That page which records the history o
its miserable failure will be one OF the mos
melancholy in our national annals. lts
performance has been as miserable and un
satisfactory as its pretensions were exalted
Claiming to be the especial friends of free
dom and free States, we have beheld q
large portion of its Representatives in Con.
gress vote against the admission of Oregon
and Minnesota into the Union as free States
while, at the same time, they all voted to
admit Kansas as a slave State. Asking
the confidence the people as especial foes
of political corruption, the only House oi
Representatives they ever elected spent the
last week of its existence in expelling from
their seats several leading Republicans,
who were proved to have received money
and other considerations for their votes,
and who declared, in letters, that they were
only part of large combination of mem.
bers who had united for that purpose.
Never did corruption stalk so boldly
through the halls of our National Legislative
as when the B anks, Matteson and Welsh
dynasty held carnival at Washington, and
never before was such universal disgust In.
spired throughout the land. Promising the
people to put down the spirit OF party and
factious opposition, it kept Congress in an
orchy for nine weeks, because its members
would not unite and elect Speaker and
80 intent was it on schemes of personal ag-
grandizement, that it adjourned without
passing the necessary appropriation bills
for the support of the Government, and had
to be called back by the President in extra
session. Claiming to be particularly friend.
ly to an equality of political rights, it has
labored, in oil the States where it has had
the power, to place the negro above the
white foreigner from Europe; to give the
former privileges and franchises which were
denied to the latter. Processing to be in ia.
vor Of "popular sovereignty" it has endea.
vored to deprive our fellow.citizens in the
Territories of the right to make their own
laws and institutions by ves,ing their sole
control in Congress, body in which they
have no representation. Claiming to be
by patriotic and American feeling,
they have always spoken of our brethren in
the slave States as if they were our worst
enemies, instead of being citizens of com.
mon Confederacy, with whom We should
the most amicable and friendly re.
lations.
They have stirred up strife, discord, Ill.
will and bad feeling between the northern
and southern sections of our Confederacv.
and more than once, to make political capi.
'aI, they have lighted the flames of civil
var in Kansas. They have, by State lie.
'islation, sought to nulify and resist the
avs of the United States, and thus, by pro.
ucing a collision between them destroy
he finest and best political fabric that the
World ever saw. They have done the most
erious harm to the holy cause of religion,
temperance and other moral enterprises,
y prostituting them to their base purpos.
S. and by hypocritically affecting friend.
hip that was as insncere as it was perni. |
ious. They have debased and demoralized
ne clergy, converting large por ton of
lem into political electioneerers and their
ulpits into party rostrums, to the serious
etriment of public morals: They have
roscribed in their elevation to Office, talent,
Ignity and tried integrity, and have in all
ases given the premium to fanaticism, big.
try, il!iberality and cant. As samples of
olitical integrity they have given US a Mat.
'son, Welsh, an Edwards and a Bash.
'rd in that of morals, Kalloch and
[iss; in craftsmanship and courage, Lane
nd Robinson, and in religion Messrs.
Iifieman Beecher and Professor Silliman,
nd the three thousand political clergymon.
With such representative men and such
rinciples, such inconsistency and corrup.
on, it is no wonder that the Republican
rganization is in such state of decadence
lat promises its dissolution.
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