The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1865-01-13
The Union - Ae .ssI.es slSda SIlasheu
thAn che Hepnhiiean Party. f.

mas she Hepuhilean Parry. f
For forty years there have been two
conflicting ideas among the people of these
Northern States contending for the mas
terry the one, conservative, constitutional,
observant inclined to observe compacts
and to coneiliate and compromise upon
alljarring questions; the other, radical, IN
novatory, visionary, denouncing the Con-
stitution wherever its strict checks and
balances stood in the way OF their re
FORMS" intolerent, meddling and agrees
siye. The first national, outcropping OF
the visionary and "reform " idea was in
1s2o-21, when it forgot the comfy, sol-
erance and compromises upon which the
Union Of the free and slave States was
based. and with an 81 am holier than
thou, Pharisaical selfrighteousness, as
serted its exclusive right to rule and domi-
nate in all the new Territories and States
and to black-ball and exclude all who
differed in opinion. 1t said to the new
State of Missouri, you shall not enter our
Union of. free and slave States unless you
square your creed with ours and come in
free State. 1t was unable to carry this
point. and the compromise idea triumphed
in the admission of Missouri under the
act of Congress called the Missouri Com
promise. @'. Z, tof%Fi-a ~ a7."
The radicals were defeated but not con-
3 auered. They kept up the contest under
/ the rallying cry of their party-which was
agitate! agitate!! agitate!!! Their
avowed policy was to 'teducate gener-
ton to hate the South" With tract,
pamphlet, with press and pulpit, with or
ators white, black, male and female, imbe-
Gle and talented, in season and out of
season, they piled their vocation denounc-
ing the Union "as covenant with death
and q league with hell" The Church
shook hands with the Devil, and while the
ministers. of one preached the crusade
from the pulpit, the minions Of the other
burnt bibles and demanded can anti
slavery God, and an anti.slavery bible"
In conventions of black spirits and white,
blue spirits and grey the infidel met the
christian-the long haired man met the
strong minded woman, the African met
the Oaucassian-all agreeing to "educate
q generation to hate the South, and to
agitate! agitate!i agitate!!! until the
hair Drained theories should triumph in
that s'irrepressible conflict . which was to
eliminate In. g making all the States free :"
Aand wrecking the Constitution and the
IUpon. With tho exception of LOCAL triumphs
here and there. which kept the Stewards,
Summers, Hales', Giddings' and Chases' on
the surfess, the radicals we're insignificant
in numbers and influence until 1854, when
the indiscreet and foolish policy Of re-
opening the Missouri Compromise ques-
ton came In a. God-send to revive their
waning fortunes, and the follies of the Bu-
chanan administration gave them new
capital for, agitation, and swelled their
numbers into q formidable power; and by
the unwise and unfortunate divisions of
the Democracy in 1860 against the votes
Of nearly 10000 feemen and by a
minority Of ,o0o. 900 sotea the radical idea
finally triumphed, and With the blasphemy
Of an oath to support, obey and protect
that constitution which it had always de-
nounced as "a league with hell" it was
seated in the chair which was occupied by
WAsHmaros, and Ike the wooden horse
in Troy, struggled into the very citidel Of
our liberties-to break up that "league
with hell "--the constitution, and to dis
solve that covenant with death the
Union-by wiles and strategy consum-
nation which forty years Of "direct as
sault had been unable to accomplish.
Gould this party have saved the Union
before the war commemorate No fact of
history il more susceptible of proof than
that they could. The filesof the Congress
sional Globe and the testimony of STEPHEN
A. DouslAs In his speeches of January Sd
and March 18th, 1851, prove that compro-
mise would have saved the Union
but it ,oo~ld haue destroyed the Repub-
lean party. Send none but stiff backed
men to the Peace Congress, !" wrote CHAM
DlzR to his friends-''men opposed to COM
promise-an for Gods sake help us to
| SAGE the Republican party" Who "dis-
membered the republic then, as the Min
nesota Governor now charges on the Dem
ocracy2 Was it the Democracy who were
willing to abide BY the compromises of the
constitution and present the rebellion, or
| the Republicans whose paramount idea was