Cedar Falls gazette. [volume] (Cedar Falls, Iowa) 1860-1895, 1860-06-22
From the Cincinnati Gazette. ]
The True Question of the Canvass.

| Among all our political signs, that which
gives fairest promise is that the people are be-
ginning to see more clearly than ever before,
the nature of the questions which they are
called upon to decide Nor would a single
doubt remain in regard to the result of the
election if the people of the North could be
brought to understand the real issue which
is presented to the country.
That issue is precisely this: SHALL TIE
LABoREEs OF THIS LAND BE COMPELLED TO TAKE
THE POSITION OF DEGRADED CASTE?
| This, and nothing less, is the question
which the workers of this nation are called
upon to settle: and it concerns directly every
laborer of the land, but especially those ofthe
Free States, and indirectly, every public man
who stands in any capacity to represent the
working population of the North-for just in
proportion as constituency is degraded, will
the representative of them sink in the scale,
when in the presence of such an aristocracy
as the slaveholding class.
Underneath the beguiling doctrine Of Pop
ular Sovereignty, by which millions now seem
willing to be cheated out of every right be-
longing to freemen, beneath all discussions
of the meaning and intent of the Constitution
lies this ultimate question:: Shall our labor
ers be permanently degraded and treated as
an inferior class, to be gradually striped of
political rights, and sunk in the end to serf-
dom.
This is the inevitable result of the doc
trines of the misscalled Democracy of the
country. Should they be carried to practical
results 1t would reduce the producing
classes Of our Republic to a lower point in
social scale than any laborers of Europe now
are, not excepting the serfs of Russia.
The doctrine of the great party which calls
itself Democratic, and which claims control
of every Southern State, is nothing less than
chattle servitude for the working men, and
that without respect to color. If they are
workers, they must content to be degraded.
The idea that four millions of laborers can
be held in slavery at the South without de-
South, is absurd. 1t supposes an impossible
ity. The principle which underlies the sys-
tenn of the South, and which in the name of
Democracy they are struggling to establish
over the whole country, knows nothing of
whatever his color may be.
The distinction is not in essence between
white and black, but between the gentleman
who docs not work and the laborer who does
1t is demand that all who work, the hard
handed men, shall be treated as belonging to
an inferior condition, and as constituting an
inferior caste.
1t is simply an attempt to establish in this
land the old relation of Europe, the lord and
serf, and to use the prejudice against the
black man as means of effecting the object
Nonthing is more certain that depends upon
inevitable law, that the permanent establish
ment of slavery in this country as recog-
l. II, ~
workman at length. They who are eager
now to Cypress the black laborcr, and who
crushed him with their prejudices and scorn,
are simply preparing the bitter cup for their
own children, if they suffer the South to sue
coed in their attempts. Slavery perpetuated
means-Slavery for the 'corknadn white or
black.
To show that we do not misrcprescnt, we
make some extracts from views of Southern
statesmen, as they themselves have express
ed them.
In 1929, a distinguished statesman of Vir-
ginia thus expresses himself against granting
political franchise to the laboring classes:
There must be some peasantry, and as the
country fills up there must be more-that is
men who tend the herds and dig the soil-who
have neither real or personal capital of their
of their brows. / ask gentlemen to say
whether they believe those who depend on
their labor for their daily bread can or ever
do enter into political affairs. They never do,
never will, never can.
In 1886, Mr.. Pickens, Of South Carolina,
said:
All society settles down into classification
of capitalists and laborers. The former iciI
0lcn the latter.
These are samples of the opinions of South
ern leaders, and this is the one steady aim
and tendency of the system of society which
the South is endeavoring to force upon the
whole Countrywide ultimate disfranchisement
and degradation of the laboring classes, with
out respect to color. This object they are
certain to accomplish unless speedily checked
by united uprising of the laborers Of the
Free States to prevent their triumph. 1t is
right, say they, that capital should control
and even own, the laborer; there must be
gentleman and SERVANTS ruling and a ser
vile caste. This is the true Southern doc
trine, and having, except through present
circumstances, no special reference to black
men.
the country, we esteem it a most fortunate
ClICuillStduCc tiiAt SUCH AlAstA Uo MAJ.
has been selected as the standard-bearer of
the party whose aim is to defend and ennoble
labor-to secure for the workman all his
rights, and due reward for industry.
1t would have been difficult to have found
another man who would more completely re-
present in his own life, character and prin-
ciples, the exact antagonism to the Southern
idea Of servilc laboring class than Abraham
Lincoln. In his origin, in his carly life, in
courage, sclf-Iespect and high aims, in his
long enduring labor, in his integity, in his
success, in his present eminent position,
honestly won by virtue Of his sterling per-
sonal qualities, Mr. Lincoln presents an en-
bodiment of the true American idea he is a
great result Of the system which honors the
laborer No mere politician, however able,
could have occupied the exact position de-
manded in the present struggle. A political
leader would not have stood SO near the pop
ular heart. Mr.. Lincoln comes emphatically
from among the workers, and is himself q
noble example of what that system of free
labor can do, of which he stands as the
champion.
ADULTERAT1oN OF GOLD CoINs.--The adul-
teration Of gold coins is being carried to an
alarming extent, and the New York banks