The Grand Haven news. [volume] (Grand Haven, Mich.) 1858-18??, 1862-02-12
THE SPURIOUS UNION PARTY


licans propose TO abandon the party which
they organized at Philadelphia, in 1856,
and merge themselves into n Union par
ty.'" This would, if the movement was in
good faith, be the greatest transformation
ever known of political party. The re-
publican party, in its organization and in
all tho stages of its progress, has been
party of notification. It's platform at
Philadelphia was multiplying platform.
II placed one of the institutions of the
country, recognized and protected by the
constitution, side by side with Mormon
polygamy, denounced them as twin relics
of barbarism, and proposed TO strike at
both by Congressional prohibition. In
its subsequent platforms, National and
State, and in its subsequent State legisla-
ton wherever il has held the legislative
power, and in its action through the State
Judiciary, wherever it could control the
Judiciary, it has thrown off and repudiat-
ed the authority of the Federal consttu
ton and laws, as that authority had been
cxpounded by the Federal Supreme Court,
and set up other and multiplying authority.
Witness the Chicago platform, which
brushed away the decision Of the Supreme
Court in the bred Scott case, and ali the
republican State platforms, which have
done the same thing; and witness the
personal liberty bills of nearly all the
Northern States; and witness the decis-
ion of the State Supreme Court of Wis
consin, in the Glover rescue case; and
witness the occurrences in Ohio rs TO the
case in which Judge Swan upheld the
Federal constitution and laws, and for
having done which he was ostracisod by
the republican State convention.
From this outline of the history of the
republican party, which the memory of
the most juvenile reader will enable him to
I'll up, it will be seen how great would be
the transformation of the republicans
should they become genuine Union par
ty. But they have good many things
to do before they can become a genuine
Union party. They have, in the first
place, to repudiate all their platforms,
National and State. They have then to
repeal all their personal liberty bills.
They have then TO override all their polit-
ical judicial decisions. They have then to
pledge themselves, without qualification
or mental reservation, that they will obey |
the constitution rs it has been and rs il |
shall be interpreted by the Supreme
Court. All these things they must do as
indispensable prerequisites to the forma-
ton Of or admission into any healthfu
POlitIOdl OIgtulLutIOn.
All these things they arc not going to
to do, according to present Indications
TO be sure, they have in two or three
States repealed the personal liberty laws
but in others they have refused to repeal
them. And this is all the retreating they
have done Of any sort. Is it not spur.
Gus Union party into which they will
merge? Do they not contemplate I'm
ion of their own peculiar kind, from which
fifteen States will be excluded unless such
terms can be imposed upon them rs are
not prescribed in the constitution? Tn
short, will they not remain an anti-slave-
ry party, and is it not an anti-slavery I'm
ion whose especial guardians they propose
TO becomel
If at any time during the past nine
months we have felt the slightest faith in
the Unionism of the republican party, or,
We should rather say, the republican lead
ers, such faith is utterly gone now. They
are against the Union--the old Union
and mean that it shall not survive. 1t
has been their purpose TO destroy it from
the beginning. With them this war has
been mn anti-slavery crusade from the be-
ginning, and they have designed to hold
only such States in their Union as shod