Weekly Trinity journal. [volume] (Weaverville, Calif.) 1857-1972, 1868-05-16
From the New York Tribune.
The Destiny OF the Republican Party.

The age of the world has been favorite sub.
ject of inquiry with philosophers-that is, not
the actual number of years that it has existed
but whether the planet is in its youth, its prime
or its old age. For there is no doubt that SIMS
and satellites grow old and die as men do. We
hardly feel able to decide this question, though
it is our private opinion that Tellus our mother.
is past her bread-and-butter days, and is becom-
ing quite matronly. To adopt human standard
we should say she is about forty years of age,
and in wishing her a long life we hope that the
rest of it will be better spent.
But this philosophical inquiry NAV with bet.
ter results be extended TO the great movements
of humanity. In them We may find positive
causes which enable US to predict absolute
| events. Their general courses may be accu-
rately determined if the mind can only rise 10
the hight of that unwritten logic which brings
races and empires to their predes,ned ends
The historian now can easily see how the ineyit.
able advance of the Cloths necessitated the down
fall of the Roman Empire. Even when the Re-
formation was young, much faith was not re-
quired to believe that no Pope's bull could crush
the development of its great idea. Mr.. Motley
has traced with mastery hand the natural laws
by which the principle represented by the United
Netherlands in their struggle with supreme
Spain destroyed that tyrannous power and built
out of insign6cance the England, and the Ger
subjects of history but until this century his
tory was not science. The culture and pro-
gress which have made it one enable us not only
TO generalize the past, but to speak with GER
tainty OF the present. 1t is not presumptuons
to say that the laws Of God and humanity make
the defeat of the Republican party impossible.
The Republican party is to America what the
Reformation was to Europe. 1t is the child of
the Revolution of l776 The pen which wrote
he De- lars nf linda 81,
recorded its triumph 1t alone of all our polti-
cal parties has gone back to the principles on
which our independence was founded, and re-
solved that they shall be perfectly embodied in
the Government. When, forty years ago, Gar
rison attempted the apparently hopeless task of
proving the Constitution to be a covenant with
hell and league with death, men might have
known that, whether he lived or died, no power
on earth could stop the progress OF the anti
slavery idea. Slavery was supreme in the land
1t marShaed the armies; it directed the navies
1t had the Government under its heel. President
after President went into the White House with
the Shareholders collar around his neck. Moth
ing confronted it but miserable and hal:-frozen
idea in the North but that idea was the soul of
the Republic-lhe idea of the equality of men.
few years passed, and behold it multiplied
Itself into votes, it conquered State after State,
1t transformed itself into armies, till the South
heard the cannon of the North proclaim it in
hundred battles, and Slavery fell dead at the feet
Of the Abolitonist when Lee surrendered his
sword to Grant.
When the Republican party champoncd the
idea Of freedom, success followed night the
day. 1t was destined to advance until that idea
should be wrought into every fiber of the Gov
ernment. Had it not been the ave of necessity
there would not have been civil war in Amer
lea, and the politicians who now seek to control
it viii find that Canute could as easily stop the
on-roing sea as they limit its career. In the
Fremont campaign of 1856, few Republicans
imagined that in seven years their party would
sweep slavery from the land. There are many
men now who cannot understand that Republic
canism cannot perish till impartial suffrage is
established in every State. Their arguments
tend TO prove that it has exhausted its force and
is drawing near to its decline. For no party can
long continue to exist when it has nothing left
to do. We Jeliere in the Republican party because
its purpose is unaccomptished. If we look at its
career simply as an abstraction, dvcsting our
selves of all sympathy with its aims, we must
perceive that it is the embodiment and instru-
ment of one great idea And what is that? That
all men created free and equal. To deter
mine whether the Republican party approaches
the hour of its defeat it is only necessary to as
certain if it has carried ont its principles to their
logical conclusions. Two-thrds of the way it
has gone, and a party which has done much,
so swiftly, and against such terrible odds,
not be turned back within sight of the goal.
We cannot pretend that it has fulfilled its mis-
sion so long an American citizen is forbidden
to vote in New York Pennsylvania solely be-
cause he is black Observe how we started
Slavery shall not be disturbed where it exists
it shall go no further; the Territories shall be
free; fugitive slaves shall not be hunted on
Northern soil. Then came EMAScIPATIoy-the
one victory Of the war, whose transcendant
brightness throws into shadow even Vicksburg,
Chattanooga, and Gettysburg. The Republican
party followed this step by the gift of the ballot
TO every freedman in the South. The ballot to
the colored citizen of the North is yet TO be be-
slowed, and cannot be withheld. When we de-
clare freedom the nalenable right of every man
we also assert his equality before the law. For
unless men have equal rights slavery has all the
justification it needs. If the negro is not fit to
vote he is not fit to be free, and the only choice
of the American people is this-suifrage for both
races or serritudc for one.
If the idea of the Republican party were false
or superficial it could not have triumphed so far.
Its success proves that its rise and growth is as
truly great movement Of the human race as
was the Reformation or the French Revolution.
This proved, the perfection of its destiny is but
a question of time. So long as it has work to do
it is idle to talk of its decay When its great
central principle is universally established, then,
but not till then, may there be danger of its de-
cline and fall