Litchfield enquirer., 1859-09-22
The State of QUIT Politics. POSITION OF THE REPUBLICAN RTY

PARTY.
 SPEECH OF HORACE GREELEY AT AUBURN, CAL FoRNIA, AUGUST $.
 Fellow Citizens of California Distance il
 location does not always indicate difference i
 principle Or in purpose. 1 am among you
 stranger and you are on the eve of all excit
 ing election. beg you to understand that
 have no remarks to make with reference t
 your local contentious or local candidates.
 have no charges to make against the one O
 the other have no exculpations to make fo
 any. leone to you to speak of great Nation al controversies, and shall endeavor to make
 what l have to say plain and brief. speat for the Republican party of the Union, and shall endeavor, so far as I may, to make it's principles and its views, fairly understood be fore you. Let me say then, in the first place that the Republican party sa great fact. Nc man heard the name-no man knew of such an organization until in the year 1854. In con- sequence of the passage of the Kansas-Nebras- ka bill, great number of citizens of different parties said to each other: "These old con- tentons are obsolete these old differences no longer divide us. We arc united by an over- shadowing conviction that the progress of Sla- very in this Union ought not to be further ex- tended; ;" and on the strength of that convic- tion they came together and formed new po- litical organization.
 The name given to that party, instinctivcly, with obvious fitness, was the Republican par ty" It indicated return to the old platforms, and to the old ideas. Each party, in former times, had claimed to be Republican. By the Federalists, Democrats, and Wings, the idea was entertained in substance but unsil now the name had been discarded New issues O. vershadowed old ones, until when the people came back to the principles and views of the men of the Revolution, they took up the name under which those men of the Revolution had formerly stood-"the Republican party" That, to-day, is the ascendant party in not less than twelve to fifteen States of this Union. It is the party which, by the people of those States, has been entrusted to their government, and thcy certainly not the least intelligent, not the least influential, not the least educated States in the Union 1 am sure no man will say that where the Republican party is ascendant, there school houses are less numerous, or the people less educated; there churches less frequent, or the people less moral there newspapers less g. bundantly circulated, and the people, there fore, less intelligent, than in other parts of the Union. am sure that will not be said What is it, then, that in twelve to fifteen States of this Union, from New York, the largest, down to Rhode Island, the smallest in Territory of their number-from the farther East to Min nesota, Iowa, and Kansas, has placed in it's present position this new party, rising necessa- riy on the ruins of old parties, drawing it's strength from their ranks? What has given it so sudden and powerful an acquisition of strength, until to-day the almost unanimous prescience of the Americah people looks for ward to its early and decided triumph r. What is it
 will say, in the first place, that though it is new party, it presents no new principle nor motive of action. It demands that the policy traced out by the fathers of this American Union for the government of this Union should today be recognized and pursued by the rulers of the nation. This is its demand It has no new doctrine to teach respecting Slavery, Li- bcrty, or any other question whatever. Its fundamental principle is, that the doctrine laid down by Thomas Jefferson in his draft of an ordinance in l7S4 for the government of the Territory, adopted and approved by the unall- imous voice of Congress in l7s7, again re-enac- ted by the first Federal Congress in l739, and thereupon signed and approved by Washing ton-he, as well as majority of that Congress, and the author (Jefferson) being themselves principle that the Territory om achich >larery had not been planted should remain free ersrmore. That principle to be an established and controlling principle of the go- vernment, is the animating purpose of the Re publican party. Its position is conservative one. It attacks no rights; it wars upon no es- tablshed institution. It says simply that where the earth has hitherto been free for any man to labor on, and has not been polluted by the tread of chattelized negro slaves, that there Freedom shall be the law of labor, and Slavery shall be inflicted only for crime. Such was lief ferson's principle, enunciated and formed into a bill intended to be basis of a law in l7S4
 Such was the principle adopted by the Con-
 gress of l7S7, and reafirmed by that of l7S9
 On that principle the Republican party plants
 itself, and asks to go no further. It wars moi
 on Slavery in the States, though any Republ
 can, as trust all considerate men must, re grets that slavery exists in any American State deeply regrets it, and desires that it should come to an end. Our weapons, with any of us
 who choose to make warfare upon that institu
 tion, all are those of proposition. of argument
 ard of fact. We have just the same right t.
 remonstrate against slavery ill Virginia as in
 temperance or any other evil But we have nt
 power to lessen or effect it's existence there.-
 We claim none, and desire none. We desir, only that the common Territories of this Unicr as they were won by the arms, bought by thu blood and purchased by the treasure of free
 men, shall remain free-their free soil to be tn,
 homes and nursing places of freemen to the ent
 of time. [Great applause. So our fathers
 when they were themselves shareholders
 our state of New York, and nearly every stat
 were slaveholding- so they agreed and insiste in l784 and l787. They said " Though sls very is here, we don't want to extend it elst where. We know it to be curse we kno,