New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1860-12-25
NAKED TO THEIR ENEMIES.

A respectable member said, during recent
debate in the House Of Representatives, that the
Southern Stnies were under too deep an oblga-
ton to tho Democratic party to leave it, by the
consumma,ion Of projected treasons, TO certain
annihilaton. However unsound ~ prophecy,
there was certain sense of equity-a feeling OF
the old proyerbal honor among thieves-a natural
disgust at thanklessness-in the observation. The
fate Of an organization which has been 50 power
lul, the utter fall Of party almost ignorant, Tor
so many years, Of defeat, does not provoke our
pity. ony because unbr0ken success had made
il intolerably arrogant and il is relief to all
good men TO have it out Of sight aud out
smell. The Democratic party is dead, simply be
cause little by little it grew to be curiously, and
even antithetcnll}, false to all its formulas aud
the champion Of opinions which it protested to
condemn. II w8s strange indeed, thut party
based upon certain philosophical principles OF
individual right and social equality, should become
in time the avowed champion of personal wrongs
and Of an institution intensely aristocratical. The
professed successors Of men who hailed the wild
and stormy outbreak of the French Revolution ss
the commencement of q political milenium--the
acceptors of Mr. J,Gcrsons dognas, ard Of Mr..
Thomns Paine's theores-the friends of human
equality, who hated Mr.. Jay because he did not
Late England aud Gent John Adams into
private life because he preferred Mr. Pitt
to Anacbarsis Clootz-tbe professed successors,
we say, of these pure, fierce, and uncompromis-
ing friends of the Human Race, actually went to
the people, year after year and election after
election, upon the affirmation that Slavery is bet
ter than Freedom, and that social equality is
neither desirable nor possible. They we're Dem
ocrnts declaring Democracy deluslon-they
we're friends Of progress resolutely bent upon
going backward-they were sworn phllanthropists
pledged to pepetuate human misery; and while
they were generously denOuncing all despotism
over the human mind and oil restraint of the
human tongue, they were substantially acting
over the old histories Of bull, synod, inquisition
now silencipg press and then a pupit-now
limiting the right of petition and then half muir.
dering q Senator in the Capito; and, to cap the
climax Of Inconsistency, now weeping over the
oppression of the race abroad, and anon extenu-
ating the oppression Of the race of home. A
haIlot preaching chastity, al inebriate hiccough-
ing 10 praise Of sobrety, an atheist on his knees,
or loud liar in the land of truth, would be
sincerity personhed, in comparison with that
moral monster Pro Slavery Democrat De-
mccracy, as BrOpounded in the gttering sentences
of Mr. Bancroft, Historian and Collector of the
Port Of Boston, or in the stately essays Of Mr..
Brownson, Philosopher and Federal Officer, was
something for good men to love il the abstract,
aud for bad men to love not less in the concrete.
II was charming TO talk Of, but, in practice, not
altogether to the taste of the supplemented aud
the sincere.
TIE existence Of party thus continually
haunted BY the ghosts of good resolutions cease
lessly broken was necessarily limited. In times
of perfect public serenity, it was tolerated with
traditional affection. la contests relating only TO
the Currency, although it could not always afford
to be-and, therefore, "a u matter of course.
vas not always-consstent, its moral delinquen.
cies were less earing; but the moment it was
encountered upon its own grounds of abstract po-
litIcal right, its doom was sealed Ii was then
that il became distinctly and aoycdly opostate.
II began by robbing the United States mails the
Postmaster-Genera! being partireps crimipiy. 1t