Raftsman's journal. [volume] (Clearfield, Pa.) 1854-1948, 1859-03-30
CLEARFIELD, PA, MARCH 80, 1859
ANOTHER NEW NAME.


1t is the boast of many Locofoco editors
that their party never changes its name. This
may be so in limited sense; for if they have
not many names for their party, yet have they
any number of distinguishing prefres, and we
hear of a great many sorts of Democracy
For instance, there is the Jefersonian, the
Jackson, the True, the National, the Harmo-
nious, the Lecompton, the Hard, the Soft, the
Barnburner, and it is difficult to tell how ma
ny more kinds. And now, it seems, in order
to distinguish those who adhere to Buchanan
and sustain the action of the late office-holders
and place-seekers convention, from those who
go with Gov. Packer in carrying out the pro-
fessions they made in the campaign of 1856, we
are to have a new species added to the long
catalogue which is to bear the expressive appel
lation of ssThe Rsgenergted Democracy Nor
is this new prefix used in derisive manner
IT comes in sober earnest from leading organ
of the ssfaithful''-the Harrisburg Patriot &
Irnion-which tries, in an article under that
heading, to be very severe on Gov. Packer
and his friends. An extract or two viii suffice
TO show the style il which the editor of that
paper spitches into the Anti -Lecompton Dem
ocrats, and threatens to demolish them in the
most unmercifuI manner. He says =
sSTime and again we have privately and pub
licly eXerted every nerve and energy to win
erring, guilty and recreant sons back to the
fold, for fear the National Democracy might
suffer by their desertion. But it has been in
vain. Disorganization has continued, and
corruption hGs sfGlkef Irits head erect, until it
has become the imperative duty of honest Dem
Ocrats to lOp OF gangTsHed member, lest the
whole body become corrupted. We waited
until the Democratic masses, through their
representatives, had declared that the party
with which We connected must now, ev-
er, assert the position which il hOlds-that of
Fighter of the wrong, defender of the oppress-
ed, undaUnted enemy of greed, and upholder
of the interests of the people"
Who in the world would ever have thought
that the Anti-Lecomptonites were such bad
men, as the editor of the :sPatriot & Union"
makes them QUITO be-'srecreant, "s'corrupt,"
stgangrened," and dishonest! Or who would
have dreamed, after the long continued and
determined efforts of the present National Adj
ministration to crush the popular will in Kan
sas. after all the Developments of corruption,
peculation and favoritism made the past win
ter, and after failing to render relief to the in
dustrial interests of the country by modif
cation of the tariff, that pet of the Presi-
dent-of the great J. B.-would have had the
brazen impudence to claim for his party such
mission as is portrayed in the last sentence
of the paragraph quoted above ? But so it is,
and these charges and assumptions are follow
cd by the declaration that
ssThe convention of the people responded !;
they rebuked dishonesty in high places they
re-asserted the dignity and purity of the or
ganization they deliberately cut loose from
the dirt-bespOted and Republican gang vino
surround the Chief Magistrate of this Com
monwealth. 1t is the sublmest spectacle
which American partizanship exhibits"
A sssublime spectacle" we have no doubt,
It must have been to behold those immaculate,
''pure'' and ssdignifed" souls, old State plum
derers, and the Ieeehes that are sucking the
money out of the National treasury, applying
the keen-edged and inexorable scissors of par
~ discipline, and sdcli5erGtety cut loose from
the dirt-bespotted gang who surround" Gov.
Packer! Unprecedented incompatible sub
Iimity!ll eEye hath not seen, ear hath not
heard, nor has it entered the heart of man" to
conceive of such spectacle ~
The fate and influence of the Governor and
his friends is spoken of By the Patriot 4 Union
in the following terms -
"Wm. F. Packer, as a politician, is dead.
His sformer faction can do no harm: it expires
with him. 1t can, at most, poll two thousand
votes of sin-ladened men: but the Democratic
party, freed from crushing incubus, viii go
proudly forward in its career of usefulness and
honor.''
Gov. Packer and his 'sformer faction" may
be ''dead :" but dead things sometimes rise
again, and like Banquo's ghost, sEpush US from
our stools, and if We are permitted to judge
from recent movements, the s'dead'and sssin-
ladened' Anti-Lecomptonites are likely to
spring from their cerements, and push ssthe
Regenerated Democracy" from the high seats
which they now so haughtily occupy.