New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1860-07-11
TRAGEDY sUBsIDING INTO FARCE.

Perhaps the most serious obstacle when hepuD-
Leans have had to encounter, and particularly in
everything relating to the Presidency, has been
the charge that theirs sectional party, whose
success would lead to dissolution Of the Union.
This was the most effective weapon used against
Fremont in 1856. Its potency then, has induced
its persistent employment ever since. The proof
of the charge of sectonalism, when our opponents
have attempted to resort to proof has been ref
erence to the fact that the Republican organization
existed almost exclusively in the non-slayeholdng
States, that the delegates to its National COnven-
tons were chiefly from those States, aud that its
electoral votes came wholly from that quarter of
the Union. 1t was in vain that the party at
tempted to repel this charge by pointing to the
eminenty national character of its principles, and
by proving that its policy was identical with that
of the most distinguished Southern statesmen of
past times. The charge, when first uttered, was
not credited by those who originated it, and was
believed by only few of the most ignorant and
tmid of their auditors; but it was reiterated so
so solemnly aud so vehemently that, like other
talsehoOds ot-repeated and well stuck to- not only
the credulous among the listeners but the utterers
themselves, finally began to believe it.
Almost despairipg of success in attempts to rea-
son well-meaning but simpe-minded people out of
this deuslon, the Republican party had arrived at
the conclusion that it would ave to 90 live down
this charge by achieving power and administering
the Government on the broad National policy of
the earlier Presidents. But the dread of dssolu-
ton Of the Union or of an attempted dissolution
involving civil war, which, according to the teach
ings of conservative men, of all types and sizes,
was to follow the election Of Republican Presi-
dent, as surely as effect follows cause, still stood
like lion, or rather like a whole herd of roaring
lions, in the way of Republican triumph.
Threatening to dissolve the Union, on the one
hand, and proposing to save the Union, on the
other has constituted the entire sock in trade, Cor
many years, of two classes of politicians. To say
that the one class were kDaves, and the other class
fools, would be doing Injustice to both. Doubt.
less knavery and folly, in underlined proportions,
were largely mixed with each. Some men and
some journals have followed Union dissolvi1g as
trade, while other men and other journals have
pursued Union-saying as profession. The latter
class have chiefly confined their operations to the
Northern States; they have been the most yirulent
opponents Of the Republican party; wi h them we
are the best acquainted. From the time the disci-
pies of John c. Calhoun, twelve years ago. con-
meDced in earnest the work Of enthronipg Slavery
as the dominant institution. of the country, under
threats Of breaking u ? the Government if resisted,
down 10 the hour when the late Baltimore Con.
yention adjourned, this class of politicians have la
bored ut the double vocation of exciting alarm
about the safety Of the Union, aud proaering aid
for ayertng catastrophe which taeir hnAginations
had copjued up. The assiduity, the fervor, the
appetite with which they have teled at Union saw
ing, is only equaled by the industry with which tbs
Australian miner works his placer, the affection
with which the Swiss m9untaineer nurses his
goire, the gusto with which tho Nubian negro eat,
his dirt.
After years Of pretense and delusion, this charg,
of sectiOnalism and this threat of disunion, hay,
been exposed to derison by the very partisans whC
have ,hriven oy palming them of upon credulou
people. Republicans have always insisted tha