The Bedford gazette. [volume] (Bedford, Pa.) 1805-current, 1868-06-12
Jhe 2eeafora Gazette.
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY DEAD-.A
LIVELY FUNERAL DISCOURSE BY
DON PLATF.

NIac-a- Cheek, May II:
! | wish to make few observations of
a philosophical sort, touching the late
Republican party.
/ assisted some twelve or thirteen
! years since at the birth of the party
! Just demised, having travelled from the
Mac-a-Cheek valley to Buffalo, carry
| ing a plank for the platform on which
| the newly born was to be cradled, and
my affections have grown with its
| growth to such an extent that its sud-
| den death threw me into state pro-
found grief, disturbed by indignation.
1 passed from lamentation to an indig-
nation meeting, and from an indigna-
tion meeting to deep grief. But with
| reflection came consolation. L came to
the consoling thought that | was not
the only sufferer, and handing out my
surplus affliction to my beloved cOun-
| try at large, l found my share could
be carried without much incOnVen-
| ience.
| The immediate cause of its death
was dyspepsia, aggravated by whis-
key.
But the seeds of weakness and dis
ease were planted in its birth. We be-
gan party of reform, of agitation, OF
aggression, and we took into our en-
braces the old whig party, that was a
party of conservatism, aggravated by
great dignity and timidity. The re-
suit has been internal dissensions. The
| ultra reform party could not digest the
conservative lump, and we have been
afflicted with cholic, so to speak, that
we'll nigh destroyed our usefulness.
Our actions, in consequence, have been
contradictory. While at one time we
create John Brown, and glory in
John Brown as our greatest and best
beloved, organized huge armies, fought
out big wars and liberated a race, on
the other hand we have been busy
smoothing our wars wrinkled front
with the decayed plasters ofpast wrong
doing. 1t is called compromise -
which means to give the devil your
soul in dignified, peaceful manner.
The last internal convulSion eXhibi-
ted with great clearnesS the different
elements. On the one side we had
Butler, Stevens, Bingham, Logan,
Sumner and Drake on the-other stood,
in calm rennse, FnSSnndnn and Trunn-
bull, while between hoated another
element, born of the revolutionary
times, that had its marketable value,
and fiuctuated as either party bid.
Now, am prepared to admit that
Messrs. Fessenden and Trumbull were
actuated by the highest and the most
honorable motives. | do not believe
they could be bought with money or
swayed by prejudice. They felt that
they were jurors, under oath, ansWera-
BILE to their God for the verdict they
rendered. Nor do L blame them for
responding as they did to the solemn
question asked them by the Chief JUS
tice. [ believe that the thirty-fve vo-
ting "guilty" were honorable, honest
men. But in political life blunder is
worse than a crime, and Messrs. Fes-
senden and Trumbull blundered in be-
longing to the republican organization
at all. They should have gone over to
the party of StanDery and GrOesbeck,
where the old whig dignity is preserv-
ed intact, and where conservatism is SO
intense that an ancient wrong is pre-
ferred to a new right, and where Off
cial position is so glorified that a halo
is thOrWn around an inebriated mule,
than an all-wise Providence, through
some inscrutable reason, has set on end
and made our President.
When Impeachment was first brOach-
| ed the evidence was as we'll known as
| it was at the end of the trial. At the
beginning Messrs. Fessenden and
| TrumbuIl should have made their
| fight. Failing to defeat it they should
have resigned their positions, as hon
orable men, and washed their digni-
| fed hands of the responsibility. But
! they chose to reserve themselves for a
conflict when their triumph would be
our death, and are somewhat astOnish-
ed at the popular howl of wrath and
Indignation that comes up over their
dignified, honest, honorable stupidity.
We could have survived a blunder
great as this is had it come alone, but
it is the concluding act of a long series.
Through the unsettled condition Of a
country suffering from civil wars we
have developed more rascality than
any organization ever called into eXis-
tence. We have filled the offices with
thieves and their pockets with steal
ings. We have organized rings that
in turn create officehOlders and control
the government. Men go in poor and
come out millionaires. For one dollar
paid to the government from hard
earned taxes, hundreds stick to the dir
ty fingers of official scOundreis. We
have whiskey rings, Indian Bnreau
rings, manufacturers rings, natiOna
bank rings, railroad rings, landjobbine
rings and internal improvement rings
From the lowest officials up to Sena
tors and Cabinet officers, the taint o
corruption runs, until the people, daze(
and confused, confound the right anC