Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1872-03-08
From the St, Adams Messenger.
The NIutineer.


ity of great minds, ambition has thrown
away the discipline for which he has al
ways heretofore contended and declared,
not for personal liberty, not for freedom
of opinion, but for dissention, dissolution
and defeat. The last of all men to be
suspected, his name is Horace Greeley.
He says conventions have no binding au-
thority and that we are at perfect liberty
to vote for their candidates or not. In a
legal sense this is true-so true indeed
that it was quite unnecessary to say So.
A man has a perfect right, also, to desert
his party and join the other. Nobody
can maintain suit against him for it and
it would not render him amenable to any
law of the land But in political sense
the case is otherwise. Parties are organ
lied for purpose. A man cannot cher
ish that purpose and at the same time ig-
more or resist the party which, animates.
Whatever his legal right may be, he has
no political right to train in company
which he counsels to divide.
We will put the case in parable. A
great and good man of the overcrowded
city of New York was for many years a
noted advocate of colonizing the West
At length great colony was formed and
he went out with them to help establish
government. They prospered and grew
mighty. Dissentions arose as to who
should be their mayor and also as to what
Notifications they should erect against
the Indians. who were ever ready to en-.
ter at the first unguarded point. The
majority of the colonists did not seem to
heed the wishes of their philosopher, and
so, in state of evaporation, he told his
followers to act "every man for himself"
Some went one way and some another.
Some built stockades and dwelt as her.
mits, some returned to their former con-
ditions and others continued in many
voiced contention until one dread night
the savage foe fell upon that devoted set
Element and all were lost.
The time never was yet, and probably
never will be, when party of progress
and moral ideas was strong enough to al
low individuals to carry out their whims
without endangering its own existence.
Many sacrifices must be made. Some
times, indeed, it may seem that right
must be sacrificed to wrong, but as the
good for which all are combined must be
greater than the good chosen by one or a
few, they ought to be wise enough and
unselfsh enough to yield. Now it seems
that Mr.. Greeley does not anticipate the
adoption of a republican platform to
which he cannot assent, but that his hos
tility to the probable nominee is SO great
he is willing to hazard all else, platform,
pledges, prosperity, peace and the securi-
ty of the past, willing to throw all to the
dogs rather than to follow where he can
not be chosen to lead. This is apostacy,
both dangerous and damnable, and it is
all the more reprehensible because it
comes from source whence until recent
ly we least expected it NOR even recently
thought he would go so far and has no
justification in any supposed safety of
principle, no excuse that ought to be suf- |
ficent for great man and no explana-
ton but that Mr.. Greeley feels neglected
by the administration and hopeless of
promotion by the party.
In reply to this, to be sure, this old
leader-one of the fathers of the party
and one whom We have delighted to fol-
low-may say that we are of small ac-
count to read him out of the party.
We do not do it. He has done it him
self He says he will cling to our prin.
ciples but refuse at will to work with the
men that uphold them. This takes him
out of the party as much as though he
were out of the country. We doubt not
there are many men in Europe who adopt
the principles of the republicans of the
United States, but in a political sense
they are not members of our party for
they cannot vote nor act with us. When !
1T comes to the tug of war, we care moth
ing for the principles of men who do not
vote or toll or fight with and for us, and
as in public life we have the tug of war
all the time, it is not mans professions
but his deeds that determine his position.
Nay, more than this: it is the height of
absurdity for positive man, whose DO.
sition has never been doubtful in all the
positive issues of third of century,
to now assume passivity in any issue
when his protested principles are mainly
represented by one set of men and fought
against by another. He is and must be
either with us or against US, and be can
not be with us in part and against US in
part and be of any aid or comfort to any
but the enemy. Candidates become the
representatives of our principles, and in
politics the only way we can secure and