Iowa voter. [volume] (Knoxville, Iowa) 1867-1874, 1874-02-05
Party Loyalty.

The true relations and obligations
OF the individual voter to his party
are very generally and sadly misun-
derstood, as are those OF the party to
the community and the State. The
true purposes of party combination
are or should be to promote the pub
lie welfare to guard community and
State against the designs Of evil and
mistaken men and parties, against
all forms of error which political
parties may properly undertake to
combat, and to encourage and sustain
their opposites-economy, morality,
intelligence, order, obedience to law,
temperance, honesty, industry, and
all those things which tend to render
a community prosperous, peaceful
and happy. A party promulgates
and PROCESSES to endorse certain prin-
ciples, policies and measures. Indi-
viduals favoring these, join the party,
or act with it, and while 1t is true to
its declared tenets. and is believed
by its members to be the best exist
ing for the furtherance Of their views,
they are under obligations to be true
to it to such extent as it is true and
right. If the party nominates bad
liot, i'm n
competent man-the voter is certain
~ under no obligation to do violence
to his conscience by giving that man
his vote. The good Of his party and
of society, both dictate that he should
not do so. The party, in such case,
should be taught "A lesson by the de-
feat of its candidate; and that men,
Der is truest to his party who has the
courage to say: "No the party has
done wrong; and / shall not endorse
and perpetuate that wrong and do
the party further injury by assist
ing to elect this man."
In short, every mans obligations
to his conscience and his community
are paramount to the obedience he
owes his party. His manood and
his honor should be held at his own
command, and never laid on the al
tar of his party. If he is an honest
man they tell him in the language
of the Iowa Republican platform OF
last year, "to oppose the election OF
a bad and incompetent candidate,
whether he be upon our own or any
other ticket"
We believe man should not bolt
his party nominations without very
urgent reasons, but to say he shall
not bolt, Is to say he shall not be
honest. Hdrper's Weekly, in the fol-
lowing paragraph, lays down the
true doctrine:
"a correspondent in Iowa asks
how honest men can be nominated
to office, and whether we advo-
cate the strange and ridiculous prac-
tice of every voter judging for
himself of the regular nominations
of his party. Can parties, he en-
quires, be maintained upon such
terms ?" The question is not confined
to Iowa, and deserves to be constant
ly answered. Ii is generally asked,
and often with triumphant air, as II
party action must be renounced alto
gether, or party's obedience must
be absolute. THE latter doctrine has
been emphatically laid down by a
noted Liberal leader, who, before
he left the first party with which he
acted, declared that he should vote
for the devil If he were regularly
nominated. His remark contains a
logic from which no man must shrink
who insists that the voter must FOL.
low the party at all hazards; and
the reply TO an honest enquirer upon
the subject is very plain; the party
man must reserve the right to vote
against his party, or he must show
that the devil can never be nom
mated. The right and the duty, up
on proper occasion, To bolt are the
right and duty Of being honest. The
way to secure the nomination OF hon
est men in to refuse to vote for those
who are not honest.