Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1860-03-31
TIE CHARLESTON AND CHICAGO CONVEl
TIDNS

TIE CHARLESTON AND CHICAGO CONVEN-
TONS.
Nothing could better Illustrate the decadence
into which popular government has fallen whilst |
administered by the party in power than the
proposition which is now made to adjourn con-
gress during the sitting of the Charleston and |
Chicago Conventions in order to enable con-
gressmen to be present at them. 1t is quite |
seriously pr opposed and entertained by congress-
men themselves, to abandon their posts and |
duties and engage in the exciting operations of
President making The servants OF the people, |
who are elected for the necessary purpose of
sustaining certain forms in the expression of
the popular will, whose business it is to keep
the forms of government in action as the re- J
Elective, thinking power of the country, are to
leave their business and return momentarily to
the masses in order to teach these masses what
to do. Our members of congress are not salts
fed with making our laws for us, but they must
seek to control our elections, make our pres-
dents and shape our future tactical operations.
The spirit of intermeddling with the affairs
of the primitive assemblies of the people first
openly showed itself in marked degree, if we
are not mistaken, during Mr.. Pierce's admins
tration, when several members of the cabinet
took it upon themselves to administer not only
the government but also the party affairs in
their respective sections of the country. Party
leaders assaied by them in a way that
seemed TO show that they either mistook the
nature of their functions as cabinet officers, or
that, in order to carry on the government, they
found it necessary, in the first place. to defend
themselves against their own party. Probably
both suppositions are true to some extent; at
all events, the fact proves what We have already
asserted, that all formal deliberate, col sttuted
government had, through disorder, irregularity
and contempt of old customs, been brought in
to such state Of looseness By the savo-demo-
cratic party that the distinction between regular
government and the mere informal expression
of popular opinion had become nearly confoun-
ded. And to such an extent is this confusion
now carried that the idea of members Of con-
gress governing or controlling the country
through political convention is regarded by
some with as much innocent favor as is the con-
gressional, established mode of government
itSelfi-the distinction appearing to them hard
ly equal to difference.
This is one of the numerous errors of the
party now in power which it will be the duty of
the Republican party to correct. 1t will be the
first duty Of Republican administration to re-
store those democratic republican principles in
the manner of carrying Oh the government
which are essential TO its character, but which.
under the layo-democrntic reign have boe,
rapidly going into disuse. Il Is 10y q careful
observance of the forms of our government
alone that we can prevent our institutions from,
falling into state of anarchy; these forms arc
the shrine of our liberties they arc what consti.
tutes our government q Republic, and they are
what excite most the Impotence and the con.
tempt of the slave holder, for they stand in hii
way of iordly, hayward domination. They have
been much overridden, but fortunately we arc
still sufficiently sound as people TO permit O.
extravagancies among US working their owl
ruin. Wounded error with US still dies among
her worshippers The very extravagancies o
the democratic party are at length seeming t.
be prognostc of its fall The blindness which
precedes ruin seems to have governed the part,
in locating their convention Mt Charleston
That seat of political earthquakes and tremen
dous pronunciamentos, periodically threatenin,
destruction to all our hopes and peace, keepin,
US ever ready like the abject Mexican to throw
ourselves upon our knees to deprecate its awfu
wrath,-that darkling seat of foul malariou
air giving ague-fts to the body polite is abou
to be ventilated by the intelligence of demo
cratic delegates from the North West and othc
quarters of the Union; the yelled prophet i
soon to be exposed to the scrutnzing regard
OF his followers; the mountain is about to brinl
forth its mouse, and South Carolina will los
her terrors forever. When the discrepancy be
tween the smallness of her power and the loft
mess of her pretensons is once seen with ac
tual eyes, her threats will cease to frighten an,
her noise excite but pity and laugh.
But although the state of South Carolina ha
lost much of that power of terrifying which eye
quite an insignificant body under our form Q
government may possess, the slayo-democrati
party stllmaintains an attitude which, although
not formidable, ought not to be despised. Tn
Republican party. it is true, during the loni
suppression Of their principles by the msru