Saint Paul weekly Minnesotian., 1859-06-11
Democracy and Whiggery.

HORACE GREELEY made speech on the
18th of May before the Republican State Con-
vention of Kansas, at Ossawatamie; and for
force of argument and graphic delineation, it
was one of the best of his productions. We
copy from it the following description or char
acterization OF the old Wing and Democratic
parties:
speak not unkindly of the Wing party
1t had been great and noble party, and Ind
filed an honorable place in our country's his
tory. 1t had, of course, many ADLER advO-
Gates than was, but not one more constant,
more industrious, more devoted. "Sir," said
the fervid Grattan, 1" l ought to know some
thiag of Irish independence; | stood by its
cradle followed its hearse." So |, defy
mo the sneers of the malevOlent, and spurning
the mock humility of the hypocritc, will say
here-because it seems fit and necessary that
it should be said, even though by me-that
not one of those who now talk of reconstruct
ing and revivifying the Wing party, was more
devoted to Its principles, or more unseltishly
soicitous for their triumph, through all the
.ong wears of its substantive existence, than
was he who here says to them, the thing you
mediate is beyond human power. You can
not make those dry bones live. The Wing
party received its death blow when most of
its Southern statesmen voted to break the
Missouri Compact in order to aggrandze the
power or to silence the clamors of the slave
breeding interest, while the Whig Press and
Party Of that section actively urged or tacitly
sustained that fragrant wrong. Whatever
seeming success you may have in resuscita'
ting the Wing party will necessarily prove 10
cal, transitory, deiusive. You might as wei
attempt to revive the Ninth Century, which
however good century, cannot now be revv
ed, simply because this is the Nineteenth-as
we'll undertake to restore to moral life the cot
fined, moldering dead. History will not con
sent to be thus read backward, nor the mex
orable march of events to be reversed at man
bidding. The shadow goes not back IN tn
dial, unless moved by the finger of the Al
mighty.
As to that whited sepulchre, that GRIMM:
deaths head, that den of all denominations
which miscalls itself the National Democracy
it could not die of the Nebrasky lniquity, sim
plv because it was not morally alive. 1t cou
not be killed by any wrong perpetrated IN 1t
name by its leaders, because it was never eN
pected by any save the most Ignorant an
stolid, to hold itself amenable to, or be guide
by. the laws of eternal Right. 1t has sal
Million of Voters, who will vote for 1t becaus
it calls itself Democracy, and because the
t suppose it the same party that they have a
= ways supported, as did their fathers befo'
them. 1t may change its every principle an
i. measure-may plume itself on being Nation
I al, whereas the prophets whose tombs 1t no
: pretends to build were shocked at the vel
j.. shadow of Nationaity-revolted at the ld'
of being Federal even, and were devoted
, the independence and the sovereignty OF Il
: States. Between the National Democracy
6 our day, and the Jeffersonian ideas in whl'
d if pretends to be grounded, there is a neave
q wide diversity, an utter antagonism. Yet tt
;, Million 90 on voting whatever ticket is Civ
q them authentically labelled Democratic, al
c will do so till they die. Add to these the te
he of thousands too clever to be duped by tt
cheat, but not too honest to profit by 1t, inc
no ding the countless multitude of ottice-holde
- office-expectants, and actual or would-be tre
:! ury leeches generally, and then superimpt
u on this combination further mutual prom
"a BILE offensive and defensive alliance with
of great Slavery Power, representing Three Ih
~, sand Millions worth of productive but unc
y tain property, and the combined strength
ey the three is very formidable. The Democl
in ic party cannot die, SIMPLY because so ma
: . profit by keeping it alive. 1t may hecc
80 even more corrupt ana noxious, if that
er- possible, than it now Is, and stil s. the &C
we sive power of public plunder will keep it
,EY tensibly in being, like dead king whose