The Ashland union. [volume] (Ashland, Ashland County, Ohio) 1854-1868, 1860-07-11
MEN OF THE PEOPLE.

TIE sensible article below We COPY ktofn
the New York Times, q strong Repubfican pa.
per, edited by Lieut.. Got. FL. J. RAYMOND.
We hope that it will be read and pondered
Upon. It shows up the rail-splittine tom-fooi<
cry in its true light, and the motives of those
who try to use such stuff as Well.-Ed. Ports
mouth Times.
Some of our Republican friends, in thsiF
earnest desire to excite the enthusiasm Of fhe
nation by detailing the exploits Of .shonest old
ABE" with maui and a wedge, certainly make
very comical figure. The world Has moved
little since 184O; the United States have
moved with it; and though log cabins ana hard
cider passed tolerably well fot afgthehfs,-.s
or at least aided in srousing popular ehtAusie
asm, lin favor Of . candidate twenty years AGO,
we fear that splitHsils win hardy serve fk6
same turn now. Ihtrihsically, in the frse
place, they are not half 10 well adapted TO thst
special service,-nof are the cifcunnsfanees Of
the present canvass nearly 30 propitious to-
their introduction. A rail is not per SC pic--
turesque, nor does it suggest experiences upoii
which the average public mind loves to ingeF
and expatiate.
But there Is q serious side 10 all this hont-
sense which deserves moments eoiisideral-
ton. We do not hold the Republican party
responsible for il, nor do we suppose that Mr.
LINCOLN himself would feel anything but a
desire to kick the supporter who should puf
forward his railsplitting experience as . reason
for his election to the highest public Office In
the land. But it is one of the constant perilGf
Of a Democracy that third-rate party caciques
are always prone to play the sycophant TO labor,
as though 1t were separate caste in the CONF
munity; and to do their best in fiattering the
hard working millions, whose votes they en-
pect to catch, out of their natural common
sense by just such clap trap appeals as this to'
their passions and their weaknesses as class
There is pride of the pickaxe as well as d
pride of the purse; and to claim for man that.
he is specially fit to legislate for the poor be-
cause he once was poor himself, is Just ass
great an insult to human nature as it is to as
sert that no man can be trusted to legislate for
property but millionaire. The delight of a.
demagogue is to confuse mems moral percep->
tions in these matters The duty of states2S
lessly to tell them the truth, and to throw him.
self and the cause he advocates on the honssE
realities of experience in regard to them.
Especially in America ought this duty to be-
done. We are in no special danger Of being
trodden under foot by an oligarchy of money!,
or cheated out of our rights BY an aristocracyt
of intellect Our shoals and rocks lie in pre-
cisely the opposite direction. When the Iri-~
June tells the laboring men Of America that a.
particular public man "naust know and sympa-.
thize with them, because he was once a laborer'
himself" it not only utters an absurdity, COM
parable only to the famous proposition that
E'who drives fat oxen should himself be fat"
but it does the cause of popular governments q
positive harm, by fostering false and foolish
prejudice against others who have never BEEN
numbered among what are generally recog-
nized as the laboring classes. 1t is simply
not true that to have been once laborer is am
adequate guarantee of a mans steady, intelli--
gent and sympathetic regard for labor. On
the contrary, in nine cases out of ten, the
truest friends of labor have been men who
in their lives; while many of the most tyranni-
cal abusers of the toll of mankind have risen,
from the furrow and the ditch. There were,
wealthy mill owners, both in and out of the
British Parliament, who had once been tied to-
the spindle, when Lord Ashley introduced his,
Factory Bill; but 1t is to nobleman, and not
to any of them, that thousands of English men,
and women owe their escape from an infancY
of silent torture and a maturity of cullen mise
cry. Commodore VANDERB1Lr, who has,
spent near two-score years in crtshing his fell
low-creatures, in making life harder instead Of
lighter to the friehdless and poor; who squats
upon every enterprise of the weak, and yeafns;
after monopoly with all the ardor of . Soy
THAN cannibal, devoufing his enemy to absorb
his strength, and out-do him IN future ferocis.
ties-Commodore VANDERoItF began life as.
the oar, and belongs to those very hberinee
classes which he has done SO much to depresss.
Contrasts of this kind might be multiplied iAs-
definitely over all the range of public relations,
from an ARNOLD pounding drugs in mortar,
while a WASHINGTON was riding with the
Fairfax hounds, and toasting colonial bellies at
Greenway Court, to HUaGINs throwing pen--
niless prisoners out to die in the Fleet DitcEt,.
while HewARD was earning the right to,
bear upon his tomb that rarest Of mottoess
" Virit propter atios"
That man may work his way up from
splitting rails or making buckets, to planning;
cabinets and controlling policies, and yet re-.
tain all his care for his kind, all his clearness
of heart and brain, all his finer natnresia.
health and force, is happily possible. But the.
splitters of rails and the makers of buckets.
know as well as the rest of mankind, that fha.
struggle of life is sore trial and temptations;
and that it is not from the mere facts ofamauis
external experiences that anything can be,
safely inferred of his particular dispositions or
his general humanity. These depend Upon.
character, and not upon accidental anteee--
dents.