The Evansville journal., 1866-06-27

of the Democratic party, which would
have perpetuated the curse of slavery.
Every human being throughout the
length and breadth of this glorious
land, from the Northern Lakes to the
Gulf of Mexico, and from the Atlantic
to the Pacific Ocean, every human
being who treads the soil over which
the Starry Banner waves, is free as
God made him, entitled to eat the
fruits of his own labor, and to enjoy
his inalienable rights of life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness. Thus
the second great result of our war is
the freedom of each and every inhabi-
tant of the United States. Hencefor-
ward freedom will not be local, but
national boon. Henceforward one
individual will not be free, because he
happens to be born in Ohio, while an
other is a slave, because he happens
to be born in Kentucky; but both
will be free, because they were born
In the United States of America. A.
man may be a serf in Russia, he may
be peon in Mexico, or slave in
Brazil; but the moment his foot
touches the soil hallowed by the rest
ing places of George Washington and
Abraham Lincoln, the fetters drop
from under his limbs and he becomes
freeman.
We are opposed to Capitalization or
consolidation of power in the Federal
Government, because such centraliza-
ton might become dangerous to the
rights and liberties of individuals
ITrc o4-op- -looal- a m tenici
pal self-government, because we be-
lieve it to be one of the means of
protecting the rights and liberties of
individuals. But while protecting
the individual American citizen
against federal encroachments and
usurpation, we do not propose to sac
rifce him to local tyranny and oppres-
sion. We will never establish the
one, and we will protect him against
the other The Federal Government,
as understood by the Union party,
will not interfere with the rights of
local communities; but local eommu-
mites must not interfere with the in
alienable rights of man. If any such
attempt should be made, if State or
community should attempt to deprive
an individual of his inalienable rights,
to whom is he to look for redress?
To the soil on which he was born, and
that soil is not Kentuekian, is not
Carolinian, but it is all American, and
thank God, American soil is free.
Our Democratic fellow-citizens are
very eloquent about the dangers of
Federal usurpation: but they are ST.
lent about the dangers of independ-
ent, uncomfortable, and unassailable
local tyranny, as their party seeks to
perpetuate. They see the mote In
their neighbor's eye, but they do not
see the beam in their own. We are
willing to oppose Federal tyranny
whenever it should be attempted, but
why are they unwilling to oppose
local tyranny and to throw around
the poor outraged and prosecuted
black Mississippian or .Alabamian
the protecting mantle of American
freedom? In foreign lands, the pow
arbitrary injustice. It protects him
on the shores of the Bosphorus: it
protects him on the banks of the
Danube or the Rhine; it protects
him in the heart of the Andes, or on
the distant Nile. Is it to be power
less to protect him at home? Is it to
protect its children against injustice
on the Amazons or the Orinoko, but
to abandon them to slavery and right
lessness on the Mississippi? I do not
care whose duty it is in the first in
stance to protect the liberty of the in
dividual and whether it first behooyes
the local or the general Government
to maintain his rights as human be-
ing, Let it be the duty of the State
IN the first instance, if you so desire
it. But if that State neglects its duty
or attempts to enslave human being
whom the American nation has willed
to be free; if it deprives him of
rights which the American nation has
willed he shall enjoy, and without
which freedom would be mere name
a shadow without substance: then
we say, let that State understand that
being mere contrivance for the dis
charge of certain local and municipal
functions, it must not convert itself
into an instrument of tyranny and on
preston; let it understand that it can
make, no King and no slave; and that
1t can deprive no man of those in
alienable rights and sacred privileges
conferred upon him by the mere fact
of being born on American soil or of
breathing American air.
The Democratic party has not rec
ognized freedom as national Ameri
can institution. 1t has not recogniz-
ed the great principle of inalienable
individual rights 1t advocates the
pretended right of accidental local
maiorities to trample under foot the
rights and liberties of individual men
1t sacrifices the rights of individuals
to what it calls the rights of States
as it was willing to sacrifice the Union
OF our country to that same craven