The Cass County Republican. [volume] (Dowagiac, Mich.) 18??-1880, 1860-09-20

honest, jealous and liberty-loving peo-
pie, but to achieve some material pub
lie advantage of temporary importance,
or to secure the advancement of some
chief to whose discretion, as if the
government were an elective deposition
instead of Republic, the distribution
of its patronage and the direction of
its affairs should be implicitly confided
They did, indeed, out Of respect or
fear of generous reforms, often affected
to express elevated principles and gen.
erous sentiments in their carefully clab-
Grated creeds, but these creeds, never
theless, even when not ambiguously
expressed, were from time to time re-
vised, and qualified, and modified, so
that at last the interpreters who alone
had them by heart, and were able to
repeat them, were found perverting
the constitution in its most unequivocal
parts, and most palpable meaning, dis
paraging and rejecting the Declaration
of Independendence, and stultifying
the founders of the Republic. The
parties thus constituted, dependent not
on any national or even on any natural
sentiment, but on mere discipline for
their cohesion, and coming at last
through constant Generalization, to as
sumo that capital and not labor, prop
erty and not liberty, is the great inter
est of every people and that religion
conversant only with the relations of
men to an unseen and future world, |,
must be abjured in their conduct to-
wards each other on earth, have finally
discarded justice and humanity from
their system, broken up nearly all the
existing combinations for spiritual
ends, and attempt to conduct affairs of
government on principles equally in
violation of the Constitution and of
the eternal laws of Gods Providence
for the regulation Of the Universe.
These views of the character of our
modern parties are by no means newly
conceived on my part In that high
and intensely exciting debate in Con-
gress in the year 1850, which, overrul-
ing the administration of Gen. Taylor,
brought the two then dominating par
ties into compromise at the time sol
emnly pronounced final, irrevocable
and eternal, but which was, neverthe-
less, scattered to the winds of Heaven
only four years afterward, the great
statesman of Kentucky denounced
party spirit as he assumed it to be
raging throughout the country, as preg-
nant with the imminent and intolerable
disasters of civil war and national dis
solution. ventured then to reply that
in my humble judgement, it was not a
conflict of parties that we were then
seeing and hearing, but it was, on the
contrary,the agony of distracted parties,
a convulsion resulting from the too mar
row foundations of both of the great
parties, and of all the parties of the
day, foundations that had been laid in
compromises of natural justice and hu-
man rights-that new and great ques.
tion-a moral question transcending
the too narrow creeds of existing par.
ties had arisen-that the public con-
science was expanding with it, and the
green withcs of party combinations
were giving way and breaking under
the pressure; that it was not the Union
that was decaying and dying as was
supposed, of the fever of party spirit
but that the two great parties were
smitten with paralysis, fatal indeed
to them unless they should con
sent to be Immediately renewed and
recognized, borrowing needful ele
ments of health and vigor from cor
dial embrace with the humane spirit Of
the age.
j But fellow-citizens, to exempt oul
statesmen by casting blame on our po
litical parties, does not reach, but only
approximate the real source Of respon
sibility. All of these parties have beer
composed of citizens, not few bu
many citizens, in the aggregate, all the
citizens of the Republic. They wer,
not ignorant wilful or dishonest citizens
bnt sincere, faithful and useful mem
bers of the State. The parties of ou
country, what are they at any time, bu
ourselves, the people of our country
: Thus the faults of past administrations
f and of course the responsibility for ex
isting evils, are brought directly HON,
: to yourselves and myself-to the whol
| people. This is no hard saying. Th
, wisest, justest, ana most virtuous o
: men occasionally errs, and has neet
) daily to implore the Divine Goodnes
that he be not led further into tempta
, ton; and just so the wisest, justest am
( most virtuous of nations often uncon
sciously lose and depart from their an
: cient approved and safer ways. /
there any society, even of Christians
5 that has never had occasion to reform
, its practice ,retrace its too careless step
: and discard heresies that have corrupt
? ed its accepted faith? What was tn
e English revolution of 164S, but re
! turn from from the dark and dangerou
: road of absolutism /? What tn
!, French revolution, but a mighty con
t vulsion, that while it carried brave
S enlightened and liberty loving, natio
Q backward on their progress of thre
s hundred years, owed all its horrors t
: the delay which had so long postpone
t the needed reaction!
I A national departure always happen
when a great emergency occurs unot
$ served and unfelt, bringing tbenecessit
: tor the attainment of some new and in
v portant object, which can only be 81