The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1869-10-01
DEAD vs.. LIVE ISSUES.

The New York Express gives some valua.
BILE instruction to the democracy on dead
issues. 1t declares that while many of JEFF
fcrson's measures have become obsolete, his
cardinal principles still live. Having buried
the dead, our contemporary gives the follow
ing summary of what it regards as the main
questions that should now occupy the public
attention. "But what are live issues" it
says "are the inequality of the taxes, the Sc
verify of the taXes-the unwisdom of the tax
legislation, their oppressive, injurious charac-
ter, the destruction they have already created
to our commerce, and the damage they have
inflicted upon our manufacturing interest, in
shutting it out from the markets of the
world" These are things which really con-
Germ the people, and to which they desire
Legislators to turn their attention. The En-
press tenders to the democracy this significant
advice 1.-THE fact is" says that paper, 1--WE
are full of lice issues, of great Importance to
the country, and the quicker we drop all
really dead ones the better. There is no use
in trying to race with dead horses. When
things die, bury them, though never, nerer,
NEVER bury great principles for in them
there is eternal resurrection" True to the
letter.
We take the above from the Baltimore
Sun of last week. 1t has become much the
fashion of late to charge the Democratic par
tY as being one peculiarly tenacious of dead
issues"-in fact the phrase is often used to
answer arguments which it would otherwise
require some ingenuity at least to refute. If
by the enumeration of what are "live is
sues" in the above article, it is intended to
exclude all others not therein specified, We
sincerely hope the Democratic party will
continue to advocate these others, though
thereby it should incur the odium of racing
with dead horses" But what we wish to
say upon this subject, we do not desire to be
understood as uttered in any spirit of mere
carping at phrases, for it is of too great i'm
portance, in our Judgment TO be thus treated.
1t is difficult to determine how many of tie
great political issues which have from time
to time agitated the public mind in this coun-
try are really dead" History repeats itself,
Slavery is dead-and SO is secession, and
once it was thought that the old United
States Bank question was defunct also; but
it will scarcely be contended that these or
any one of them are what the Democracy are
charged with wishing to agitate, when they
are tainted with attempting to support dead
issues" But many other questions have
been for the time trampled under foot, as it
were, and ignored by the Republican party,
which are not dead, however desirable for
the tranquility of that party it may be that
they should be buried away from sight For
example, the great Constitutional right of a
State to regulate for itself its own proper do
nestle concerns, as the qualifications of its
voters" &C., may have received severe blow
at the hands of the dominant party-but it is
not dead !. for if it is then has the spirit of
Constitutional freedom in this country taken
its flight, the revolution Of our government
is consummated, and we are not, as formerly
we were, in possession of any proper charter
of our liberties. For the purposes of this ar
gument, it is unnecessary to enumerate many
other questions of vital Importance to us as q
people, which for the last eight or nine years
have been settled, or rather put aside, simply
by the ability Of the Republican party to
crush them down for the time, but which yet
retain oil that vitality which they originally
derived from the Constitution itself, and