The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1865-07-03

with christianity nations elcoruagfng them
to perpetual wars BY aiIording paying
markets for their captives, have moi made
4pereeptble Improvement" If this shows
want of capacity and Of natural endowment
what are we to say when we see a great peo-
tple, or great section of great people, sur.
rounded by circumstances the most favorable
to progress, with school houses and churches,
open bibles and free discussion, virtually clos
ing up all the avenues to their hearts, shutting
out all the claims of humanity, and lapsing In
to old .barbarism? Andldo we see nothing of
this kind in this country and age?
Look at the Democratic party, once the
champion of progress, and now as "conserva-
tive as a barnacle upon a ships bottom, doing
little else than to impede her free progress
through the waters. Once it dared assail any
wrong, and beard the lion Of despotism in his
very den; now it crouches before the whip,
and can find no higher Office than to do the
bidding of men-stealers and women-whippers!
Once it declared saIl men equal, and endowed
with the inalienable right to Liberty; 'znow it
has become the advocate Of negro bondagel
Once &c went for universal suffrage, and was
proud to be known as the champion of squat
ter sovereignty = now it denies the right Of free
native citizens to have voice IN the selection
of their own r1ilersi Once it asserted that all
governments derive theirjust powers from the
consent of the governed; to-day it insists that
a large portion Of the governed have no right
to say what powers shall be exercised over,
them. = r Tlsis
W We have not room to carry out this line Of
thought as we would we can only copy the
following definition of Democracy as we find
it in the very paper-anong its selections, it
is trueAfroln which we have copied the para
graph that has afforded text for this article;
Democracy, sentiment not to be appalled,,
corrupted OF compromised az 1t knows no
baseness, it covers to no danger, it Expresses
no l0eak;ness Destructiue only of depotism, tits
the sole conserrdtor Of liberty, labor and
pro2erty.x Itis the sentiments OF freedom, Of
equal rights, of equal obli9stions-the law Of
nature prevailing the law of the land.
a This Is Democracy, pure, undefled1the De-,
,moeracy Of Jefferson the Democracy of the
men who looked upon Slavery as moral, so
cial and political evil, blot upon our national
escutcheon, and looked forward to its early alb
fogation Need we compare u with the De-
mocracy of to-day as practically defnedsby the
Democratic party-its papers, orators and pol,
iticians? To-dayn stops at no corruption ];
It is ever pleading for compromise; it seeks to
place its iron heel upon the neclxs Of the most
helpless weakness; despotisin Is its element;
it is the conservator of slavery and not of lib
erty; i abominates freedom; II ignores and
fights against equal rights. 1t is not the law
ofnature but the spirit Of hell, seeking to per
wade the law; ofthe land. M vrEHu
Now if the negro shows his lack Of capacity
by not rising from barbarism against adverse
circumstances, what shall we say of a. party
which, surrounded by light and Christian in
situations, has in sixty or, eighty years, so
lapsed into the worst form of barBarismP At
the risk of making this already long article in
oruiillscss's, we copy from IA speech of
ABRAHAM LiNcoIr, -Eab., 186O-before he
was prominent as Presidential s.aate- !
The extract shows better than word of ours,
how the lapsing and sinking process to which
we have referred, has gone on and illuminated !:
aYou say we have made the slavery qies-
ton more prominent than it formerly was
We deny Il. Weiad1it that II is more pfomi-
nent, but we deny that we made it so. TWAS
not we, but you, who discarded the old policy
of the fathers. We resisted, and still resist,
your innovations, and thence comes the great
er prominence of the question. Would you
have that question reduced to its former pro-
portions? Go back to that old policy. What
has been will be again, under the same condi-
tons. Hyou would have the peace of old
times, reIadopt the precepts and policy of the