Wyandot County Republican. [volume] (Upper Sandusky, Ohio) 1869-1903, 1871-08-03

is upon the old doctrine of decentraliz2-
ton, which means State sovereignty. Not
withstanding the fact that, ten years ago,
there was general armlng OF the people
of the United States to test by force of
arms whether the United States were
national union, having national existence,
possessed of national powers to make.and
execute national laws, or whether it was
mere decentralized organization, paper
union, depending for its authority upon
the voluntary consent of number of
sovereign" States,-sovereign as respects
the general union, and sovereign in rela-
ton to each other. For four years the
country was subjected to a costly and
bloody war to decide whether we had or
ever had national existence; and though
upon the battle fields of every State of the
South the monuments to the slaughtered
dead attest the msjesty and supreme SOW
ereignty of the nation, and that the Amer
ican Union is a national union, and not a
confederacy merely of independent States,
the Democratic party of 1871 are proposing
to ask the people, in 1872, to undo the
great decision of the war, and to exchange
the National Constitution for the treason
able instrument adopted at Montgomery,
and under which jeff Davis ruled the
Confederacy at Richmond.
to read the proceedings Of the various
conventions which adopted, in 1860 and
1861, ordinances of secession, will be
struck with the marked coincidence of
thought, expression, and sentiment ex-
pressed in those conventions and in their
ordinances, aud those expressed in the
resolutions of the Democratic platforms
The doctrine laid down and asserted in
both is that the United States is a confed-
eracy, and not national union; that the
sovereign power of the nation rests with
the respective States, and not in the nation
at large, that the National Government is
creature" and the States creator,
and the creature can never equal or sur
| pass in authority its creator. Therefore,
the Democracy insist that the govern
ment shall be decentralized; that each
State shall become sovereign; that the
national authority shall be exercised with
in State only by the sufferance or under
the control of the State. In the ordi-
nances of secession it is recited that the
United States, having become a central
lied government, therefore, such States
recognizing the sovereignty of the States
supreme within the territorial jurisdiction
of each-reservipg their once delegated
authority-asserted their sovereign indie
pendence, and withdrew from the hated
| Union.
That is the same doctrine of decentraliz
ation now put forth in the various Demo
cratic State platforms, and which is to be
the grand and leading principle" upor
which the Democratic party propose tt
go before the people in 1879. That wa!
the doctrine of jeff. Davis resolutions il
the Senate in 1860; that was the doctrin,
of the South Carolina Secession Conven
ton in December, 1860, and of all the sub
sequent seeding conventions. That wa
the doctrine OF the Confederate State
Constitution. That was the doctrine fo
which the Democracy in the rebel State
fought in rebellion for four years, and tina
is the doctrine which bas, until recently
been known in history as the Lost Cause
JEFF. Davis was right when he told tn
people of the South never to admit tina
the cause of the rebellion was lost; tba
in time the Democracy of the North woul,
make it their cause, and that with the ali
of their Northern allies, they would agail
see it proclaimed in every State of tn
Union. The Democracy of the Nortl
propose to enter the campaign of 1872 fo
the restoration of the lost CtacGg
| Tribune.