The Cass County Republican. [volume] (Dowagiac, Mich.) 18??-1880, 1858-12-02

condition, but even with a covenant
that the State might be divided and re
organized SO. as to constitute four Slave
States instead of one.
In 1S46, when the United States be
came involved in war with Mexico
and it was apparent that the struggle
would end in the dismemberment o.
that Republic, which was a non-slave
holding power, the Democratic party
rejected a declaration that slavery
should not be established within the
territory to be acquired. When il
1850, governments were to be institu
ted in the territories of California and
New Mexico, the fruits of that war
the Democratic party refused to admit
New Mexico as free State, and only
consented to admit California as free
State on the condition, as it has since
explained the transaction, of leaving
all of New Mexico and Utah open to
slavery, to which was also added the
concession of perpetual slavery i'm the
District of Columbia, and the passage
of an unconstitutional, cruel, and hu-
initiating law, for the reception of flu
gitive slaves, with further stipulation
that the subject of slavery should never
again be agitated in either Chamber OF
Congress. When in 1854, the slave
holders were contentedly reposing on
these great advantages, then so recent
ly won, the Democratic party, unnec-
essarily, officiously, and with superser-
vicable liberality, awaked them from
their slumber, to offer and force on
their acceptance the abrogation of the
law which declared that neither slavery
nor involuntary servitude should ever
exist within that part of the ancient
territory of Louisiana which lay out
side of the State OF Missouri, and
north of the parallel of SO degrees 80
minutes of north latitude, law, which
with the exception of one other, was
the only statute of freedom then re-
naming in the Federal code.
In 1856, when the people of Kansas
had organized new State within the
region thus abandoned to slavery, and
applied to be admitted as Free State
into the Union, the Democratic party
contemptuously rejected their petition
and drove them with menances and in
timidation from the Halls of Congress,
and armed the President with military
power to enforce their submission to a
slave code, established over them by
fraud and usurpation. At every sub
sequent stage of the long contest which
has since ragged in Kansas, the Demo-
cratic party has lent its sympathies, its
aid, and all the powers of the govern
ment which it controlled to enforce
slavery upon that unwillingly and in
jured people. And now, even at this
day, while it mocks us with the as
surance that Kansas is free, the De-
mocratic party keeps the State excluded
from her just and proper place in the
Union, under the hope that she may
yet be dragooned into the acceptance
of slavery.
The Democratic party finally has
procured from a Supreme judiciary,
fixed in its interest, a decree that slave
ry exists by force of the Constitution
in every territory of the United States,
paramount TO all Legislative authority
either within the Territory or residing
in Congress.
Such is the Democratic party. 1t
has no policy, State or Federal, for
finance or trade, ormanufactures, or COM
merce, or education or internal i'm
provements, or for the protection or
even the security of civil or religious
liberty. It'll positive and uncomprom-
ising in the interests of slavery-neg-
ative, compromising vascillating in re-
gard to everything else. 1t boasts its
love of equality, and wastes its strength
and even its life in fortifying the only
aristocracy known in the land. 1t pro-
fesses fraternity, and so often as slave
ry requires, all itself with prescription.
1t magnifi es itself for conquests in for
eign lands, but it sends the national
eagle forth always with chains and not
the olive branch in his fangs.
This dark record shows you, fellow
citizens, what l was unwilling to an
nounce at an earlier stage of this argu-
ment-that the whole nefarious sche-
dule of slaveholding designs which 1
have submitted to you, the Democratic
party has left only one yet to be COM
municated-the abrogation of the law
which forbids the African slave trade.
Now, 1 know very well that the
Democratic party has, at every stage of
these proceedings disavowed the mo-
tive and the policy of fortifying and
extending slavery, and has excused
them on entirely different and more
plausible grounds. But the inconsist-
ency and frivolity Of these pleas prove
still more conclusively the guilt l
charge upon the party. 1t must; in
deed, necessarily excuse such guilt be-
fore mankind, and even to the concious-
ness of its own adherants. There is an
instructive adherence of slavery and
an Unborn and inhering love of freedom
in the human heart, which render pal
liation of such gross misconduct indis-
pensible. 1t disfranchises the African
on the ground of fear that if left to
enjoy the right of suffrage, he might
seduce the white citizen into amaIgama-
ton with his wronged and desplsed
race. The democratic party condemns
and deposed John Quincy Adams be-
cause he expended twelve millions a
year, while it justifes his favored suo-
cessor in spending seventy millions
wear tt denies emancipatiOn in the