The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1859-08-20
The Pending Issue.

Nothing can besmore absurd and upfoun
ded than the charge which certain Journals
persist In bringing against the Republican
party. that in the coming presidential cleo
ton they were determined to ignore the
white man. and to make the negro the only
issue The connection of the Republican
party with the Slavery question has been
from the beginning, and is such as to afford
no shadow whatever for any charge of neg
ieeting, overlooking or postponing the in
terests of the white population out of any
sympathy with the black race. The truth
ls-and we state it not as thing TO boast
OF, but as mere matter of fact and histo-
ry--that the Republican party cannot lay
claim to any such character for philanthro
| Ply and disinterestedness as the presses we
refer to are 80 anxious to ascribe to it. No
doubt very large proportion of the mem
bers OF the Republican party would be great
ly gratifed to see those who control the pol
icy and legislation of the Slave States as
alive as Washington and Jefferson were to
the evils, moral, social and political, of the
institution of Slavery. They would hail
with delight, and would be ready to second
by any means in their power, any steps
which those States in their Sovereign ca
pacity might take to ameliorate or gradually
to rid themselves of that evil. But the Re-
publican party does not claim, any more
than does the Democratic party, or than
did the old Wing party, any right of inter
ference, should the control of Congress and
of the executive administration pass into
their hands, with the exclusive authority of
the States over that subject. 1t was not
any sympathy with the black race, the cru
al 70, IL, Il.
the degraded position in which they are
held, that called the Republican party into
existence. 1t was the defense of the inter-
ests of free labor, the interest of the great
mass of the white population of these States,
the interest of those residents in foreign
countries who might wish to become citi-
zens of this, that so suddenly called into ex-
istence and SO rapidly built up the Repub-
lican party. That party, so far from clos
ing its eyes to the fact that in seventeen of
our States there are few or no negroes, and
that in some of the other States the negro
interest is far from being predominant,
makes the precise state of facts the very ba-
sis of its organization, and the foundation
of the system of policy which it advocates
AS it was opposition to the attempt Of the
negro interest to seize upon and appropri-
ate to its own use territory which by SOL
emn compact and compromise had been set
apart to be colonized by free labor that call
ed the REPUBLICAN party into existence, so
it is the same devotion to the interests and
rights of free labor--that is to say, Of the
great mass of the white population-that
still sustains its organization and dictates
the policy.
The free labor of the country has at last
come to realize chat nothing but a free or
ganization and perpetual vigilance can
save it from encroachment after encroach-
ment, and from being again and again be-
TRAPPED by those whom it looked to as its
most reliable champions. No sooner had
the adoption of the famous Compromises of
1880 given great triumph to the negro in
terest, such as nobody had thought posi-
BILE, in the passage of the Fugitive Slave
Act, than schemes began to be formed for
the repeal of the Missouri prohibition. No
sooner is the Missouri prohibition repealed
"a thing which, two or three years before,
would have been secuted as political i'm
possibility; and not only repealed by Con
gress, but pronounced by the Supreme
Court never to have had any binding force
than we see new agitation set on foot
for disposing in the same way of the laws
prohibiting the African Slave Trade. It is
not the Republican party-it is the Demo
cratic party-that has given and gives to
the negro question its late and present
prominency. The Southern States are the
great stronghold of the Democratic party,
and what political question is now discuss
ed there, in view of the approaching Presi-
dental election, except the question of the
duty of Congress to carry out the bred
Scott Decision by protecting and unfolding
Slavery in the Territories, in spite of the
wishes and will of the Inhabitants
The truth is, that within few years pasl
the negro interest has come to feel and to
realize its power as greatly exceeding what
had formerly been supposed; nor, until 1t
had been defeated in square struggle, and
the patronage of the Federal Government
wrenched from its grasp, will it cease to in
sist, as Austria does in the case of Italy,
upon its indefeasible right to rule. The
question now pending, and that upon which
the Republican party takes its stand, is,
Shall the United States continue to be a
Free-Labor country, or shall our whole pol
icy be shaped, so far as the National Gov
eminent can control it, to serve the inter-
ests of the owners of Slaye-Labor
as al Illustration Oh Tie purely Intensive
position of the Republican party, and of
the perseyering spirit in which the negro
question has for years past been forced up
on the country by the negro interest, we
would refer to the late yaledictory speech of
Mr.. Stephens of Georgia. addressed to his
constituents. In reviewing his sixteen
years of political life. and justifying his
opinions and his course of action. the only
questions to which he thinks it worth while
to make the slightest reference are those
which relate to the extension of Slavery
He exults over the part which he bore in
the annexation of Texas; and why Be-
cause the acquisition of Texas was impor-