The Council Bluffs nonpareil., 1860-09-15

t no party to their support may oe Phaao-
/ throrist, bat he cannot be . Statesman: and
even when the leader in administration =
thus sustained, be is, although nsssr 80
earnest or wise, everywhere and At ali times
/ inefficient and inbecils, just in the degree
that the party on which he depends. b in
/ constant, yascillating, timid or eaprIcioas.
[ What has become Of the several political
/ PARTIES, which have fourishej within your
time and mine? That dashing, unterriEsd
defiant, party, whose irresistible iegians
carried the honest and intrepid hero Of
New Orleans and their shields through 50
many civil encouusers-thas generous,
! though net uuprejuiieed Wing party, which.
! apprs hensive Of perpetual danger from toe
radical policies Of administration, so often
With unabs:et chivalry and enthusiasm
magieally recombined its bruised and scat
tered columns, even when caprieious Tor
/ tune had turned its rare and hard won iri-
umphs into defeats more disastrous than
( the feld fights which il had lost-the recent
American party, that sprang az one bound
from ten thousand dark chambers, and which
seemed only yesterday at the very point of
carrying the government by coup dc main;
all those parties, that for brief periods
seemed so strong and so aachanging have
persisted, leaving no deep impression on the
history of the country they aimed 10 direct
and rule forever. The Democratic party.
too, that has clothed itself TO campiacently
with the pleasant traditions of all preceding
parties, and combined SO felieitously the
most popular of our national sympaEhies
with the mos. inveterate and rerulsiye of
our conservative interests, that has won the
South so dexterous.y by stimulating its
maddest ambition: and yet has held the
North so tenaciously and so long, by AVA
kening its widest and most demoraiizng
fears: what is It's condition? 1t is distin-
guished in fortune from its extinguished
rivals only by the circumstance that both
portions Of its crew, divided as the bulk
breaks into two not uaequal parts, retain
sufficient energy in their despair TO seize on
the Srifiing wrecks of other parties, and by
clauiLs though hopeless caFpeHtery. TO
frame wr.'cLet and rickety RATS which TO
sustain themselves for one dark night more
on the iempestuous sea Q: NATIONAL politics.
All these parties, it is now ma"iiest, were
organized not specially to estau.ish astiee
and maintain freedom and equality amons
an honest, jealous and liberty loving people,
but to achieve some material publlc adsan-
tage Of temporary importance, or 10 secnre
the advancement of some chief 10 whose
discretion, as if the government were an
elective despo,ism instead of IA Republic,
the distribution of its patronage ard the
direction Of its affairs should be implicitly
conGded. They did, indeed, out of respect
or fear Of generous reforms, often affect to
express elevated principles and generous
sentiments in their carefully elaborated
creeds, but these creeds, nevertheless, even
when not ambiguoasly expressed, were from
time to time revised and qualified and modi-
fed, 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 unequiv ocal parts
and most palpable meaning, dsparaging and
rejecting the Declaration Of Independence,
and stutifying the founders of the Republic.
The parties thus constituted, dependent not
on any national or even on any natural SEN
timept, but on mere discipline, for their CO.
hesion, and coming at last through constant
Generalization, to assume that capital and
not labor, property and not liberty, is the
great interest Of every people, and that re-
ligion conversant only with the relations Of
men TO an unseen and future world. must he
abjured in their conduct towards each other
on earth. have finally discarded justice and
humanity from their systems, bros en- ncat-
ly all the existing combinations for spiritual
ends. and attempted to conduct the aifalrs
of government on principles equally in sir
lation of the Constitution and of the etcr-
nal laws Of Gods Providence for the regu-
lation Of the Universe.
MAGNITUDE or THE ISSUE.
These views of the characters Of our mod
ern parties are by no means newly conceived
on my part. In that high and intensely cx-
citing debate in Congress. in the wear 1850.
which, overriding the administration Of
General Taylor, brought the two then domi-
mating parties into compromise, at the
time solemnly pronounced final, irreyoca-
bic and eternal, but which was nevertheless
scattered to the winds of Heaven ONLY four
years afterwards. The great statesman of
Kentucky denounced party spigi. as he as
sumed it to be raging throughout the coun-
try. pregnant with the imminent and intol
erahle disasters Of civil war and national
dissolution. ventured then to reply that.
in my humble Judgment, it was not n
conflict Of parties that we then were seeing
and hearing. but il was, on the cont.arv.
the agony Of distracted parties /: n couynl-
sion resulting from the too narrow founda-
tons 0! both of the great parties Of the day.
foundations that bad been laid in compro.
mise of natural justice and human rights
that new and great qaestion-a moral
question transccnlipg ~ ~ 100 narrow ert I'd.
Of existing parties had arisen that the pub
lie conscience was expanding with it, and
the green withcs Cf party combinations
-, l.
rressure--that Ii was not the Union that
was dccayiDg ard dying, Gs was supposed ,
Of the fever Of party spirit, but that the two
great parties were stritsen with paralysis,
fatal indeed to them. unless they should i'm
mediately be renewed ard re organized, boz
rowing the needfui elements CT hrttah and
rgor from cordial embrace with the hu-
name spirit Of the age.
But. fellow citizens. to exempt our states
men By casting blame on cur political par
+ ties. does not reach, but nnlg approximate.
/ the real source Of responsibility. All these
parties have been composed # citizens. net
few bat many citizens, in 'he aggregate,
/ all the citizens Of the Republic. They were
not ignorant, willful or dishonest cifiz .ns.
but sincere, faithful and useful members of
the State. The parties Of our country.
. ~hat are thcy al any time. cut ourselves. the
people Of our country 1hus the faults OF
past administration. and Of course the re-
sponsibility for existing evils. are brought
directly haIae TO yourselves and to myself
to the whole people. This is no hard say
log. The wisest. juste.t and most viFtaous
OF men. occasionally crrs and has reed
daily to implors the Divine Goodness that
he be- not led further into temptation and
just so the w.sest. justest and most virsuou:
nations often unconsciouslv lose and depart
from their ancient, approved and safer WAYS.
IL there uHy society. even of Christians.
that has never had occasion to reform its
practice. retrace its too careless steps, and
discard herssies tha, have CORRUPTED its ac-
eepted faitha What was the English revo-
lution Of less, but return from the dark
and dangerous road Of absolutism Nhs,
was the French revolution but a mighty
! eensulsion, that while it carried brave.
eniightened, and liberty loving uatioa back
/ ward 90 their progress of three hundred
years. owed all its horrors to the deiay y hi
had lsps- 2 a