The Highland weekly news. [volume] (Hillsborough [Hillsboro], Highland County, Ohio) 1853-1886, 1870-09-01
no ALL REPUBLICANS.
Address of the Republican Con-
gressional Committee TO the
Party,

Party,
Review of the History of the
PRrtV-What it Has Accom-
DIfshed-WOrk Yet 10 be Done
success of President Grants
Administration
To the Republicans Of the U. States:
The Executive and Legislative De
partments of the National Govern
ment, and two-thirds of the Safe
Governments, have been committed
to your keeping. Such power carries
with it grave responsibilities. The
people, as is their right, will hold you
to a strict accountability for the exer-
else of this great trust. Elections are
soon to be held for the National House
Of Representatives. These elections
will determine the political complex
ion Of the popular branch of Congress.
They will, too, determine the political
character of several State Govern
ments. And these results will be ac-
cepted as the verdict of the people
upon the ideas, principles, and poll
cie8 of the Republican party, and up
on the measures aud character Of the
national administration. To these re-
spOnsibilities, and the gravity Of these
issues, your thoughtful consideration
is invoked. In the present juncture
it behOOves the Republican party not
to forget its origin, nor its history.
Amid the difficulties that beset it, and
the responsibilities and Iabors, which
the needs of the country in the new
and untried condition of affairs i'm
pose, it should remember that it was
born of the nations necessities, and
thus far it has gradually met the ex-
igencies for which it was formed
Having passed triumphantly through
three great eras of its history, it is
now summoned to enter upon its
fourth. Gathering, therefore, inspira-
ton from past success, it should Crap
pie hopefully, and with unshrinking
confidence, with the duties Of the pres
ent and future.
ORIGIN OF THE PARTY.
Recurring to the origin, Republicans
will remember, when the land was the
theatre of a stern and irrepressible con-
flict between the demons of slavery
and caste and the spirit of liberty and
equality, when the slave power held
great interests and powerful Organiza-
tions in its grasp, and ruled the nation
with imperial sway, that the founders
of the party, instructed by passing
events, with convictions dgepened and
zeal quickened by the teachings of his
tory and of Holy Writ, and inspired
by the deathless words of the patriots,
statesmen and heroes of our earlier
time, rose to the exigencies of the
hour, opposed the naughty ambitions,
the maddening passions, the cruel
prjudice5 and the disOrganizing theo
ries of the dominating majority, and,
although long Overborne by numbers,
still struggled on amid jeers, insults.
mobs, blows, assassinatiOns, till, under
the lead of Abraham Lincoln, they
achieved success and grasped the scep-
ire Of political power.
ITS SECOND ERA.
Entering upon its second era, appal-
ling responsibilities at once arose. The
slave masters, in the pride and arrO-
gance of power, instantly plunged
the nation in the fire and blood of
civil war. But the Republican party
rose with the crisis. 1t raised money
in unstinted measure, organized vast
armies, created powerful navies, fought
bloody battles, crushed the most gi-
gantic rebellion of all recorded in his
tory, and saved the nations life. 1t
was then, amid the clash of arms, that
the Republican party saw that slavery
was the relentless and unappeasable
foe of the country; was theinspiration,
the heart and soul of that civil war,
and that its death would be the ami
hilation of the rebellion, the unity of
the republic and the development of
free institutions. Against cowardly
fears, selfish instincts and unreasOna-
bIe passions and prjudices it pro-
nOuuced the doom of that hideous and
horrid system of human bondage,
though it was upheld by the aggre |
gated interests of three thousand mill
ions of dollars, hedged about by the
passions and prejudices,
prides and ambitions of seven genera
tions, and intrenched within the So
ciaI, political and ecclesiastical organ
zatious and affiliations of life. By a |
series of executive and legislative acts
it broke the chains and lifted from the |
depths of chattlehoOd, up to the sum-
mits of manhood, four and a half mill
ions of hapIess bOndsmen, and stood
before the nations with their riven
fetters in one hand and their title
deeds of freedom in the other.
THE THIRD ERA.
The war ended, the rebellion sub
dued, the bondmen emancipated, the
Republican party entered upon the
third era of its eventfuI history
conquered by arms, the rebels
did not accept the just, humane, and |