The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1861-08-16

and vitality to Southern treason on North
ern soil.
The Press Championing ITS Partizan-
ship, and Arraigning the Pioneer.
II evidence were wanting beyond what is
apparent on the very surface of society,
here, throughout the State, and over the
North, that the masses of the people, in the
present national crisis, favor the suspension
of party organization. and uphold the union
of all men in a patriotic phalanx for the
support of the Union, the opposition that
the movement meets with from the little
party organs who have no hope of living
except by the aid of party support and
plumber, would furnish all the testimony
needed to demonstrate both the fact and its
universally. The Press, here, though, per-
haps, one of the smallest of these little Or
gans, yet does its utmost, by the fact and
style of it's opposition, to show that the
Union movement not only has the sympathy
of the old Democracy, but also of the great
majority of its own party. 1t shows this
by the virulent style in which it attacks the
movement itself, and by the dishonest man
ner in which it seeks to raise question of
consistency upon the Editor of this paper.
On this latter point we will permit ourself
to be diverted, for this once, from the main
subject in hand, and test, from our files, our
personal consistency.
The attempt of the Press is to make it ap.
pear that, up to the fall of Sumter, we sym.
pathized with the traitors who are now in
open rebellion against the Government, and
that we are only cut loose from them when
compelled to by the overpowering patriotic
sentiment of the North. Now, the Press is a
young thing, as we'll as weak thing; and it
will pardon US if, in reviewing the rise and
progress of this Southern rebellion, and our
relations to it, we presume to 60 back to a
time before it was born.
This Southern movement took its rise
from the Lecompton controversy. In that
controversy was first organized the band of
men who, commencing to deny the rights OF
the people, have now come to deny the
rights of the overnment. We opposed
the Lecompton movement, and the admin
istration of our own party which sustained
it. The whole brood of traitors, FLOYD,
COBB, THOMPSON, of the Cabinet, and their
poor old dupe, BUCHANAN, we have, from
their first step in disloyalty to the rights of
the people to their surrender of Office, de-
nounced in terms which even their enemies,
at the time, thought unwarrantable, but
which after events proved to be just. From
the time of Lecomptonism to the date of
the Press, birth. no step in the programme
of treason was taken but it met our earnest
and indignant protest.
The acts and designs of the Southern
traitors were most conspicuous, after the
LecomptOn controversy, at the National
Conventions at Charleston and Baltimore.
At these gatherings the scheme of dsmem~
bering the Democratic party as prelude
to the ACKNOWLEDGMENT of the Union, took
more definite shape and became more APP
parent. Our files of that day show that
we predicted then what has since occurred,
and that we denounced it in terms fitted to
the premeditated crime. We hoped, how
ever, that the consummation of the traitor
Gus plot might be averted in the election
of DOUGLAS. We cherished that hope con.
fidently, until the dishonest or reckless man
agement of his friends in the canvass, by
destroying, through fusion with the traitors
themselves, the individuality of DOUGLASS
position, both in respect to his party and
and its principles, destroyed, also, all possi--
bility of its accomplishment. We then took
the only position which loyalty to the coun>
try allowed. By destroying the chances of
DOUGLASS success, his friends had narrowed
the canvass down to BRECKENRIDGE with
his Slave Code on the one hand, and LIN
COLIN with his Free Code on the other.
When this became apparent, we did not
hesitate to take the side of LINCOLN and the
North, on this single ground, because that
side clearly became, in the complication of
affairs, the side of the Union and good gov
eminent. On the 23d of October last, q
fortnight before the election transpired, we
published an editorial on "The State of the
Canvass, and the Issues to be Decided by
it," from which the following is an extract:
From the Daily Pioneer and Democrat Oct. g. 1860
Douglas, and the principles which he repre-.
sents, are. practically speaking, no longer at
issue in this campaign.
The canvass is reduced. by indications which
are prophetic both in their tenor and force, to
| q contest between Lincoln and Free Code on
the one hand, and Breckenridge and Slave
| Code on the other. This is result which all
who cherish the peace and harmony of the
Union must deplOre but, deplorabIe or not,
it is plain fact. which cannot be gainsaid or
obliterated, and which should, therefore, be
looked at and acted upon as such, frankly and
manfully. And being fact, the voice of the
North, in the expression of its sentiments at the