The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1875-08-05

principles and promote the honest and
efficient administration of public affairs;
and as the Republican party is entitled
to the credit Of both, it justly lays claim
to verdict of popular approval
There are many matters of detail in
which the Republican party differs from
the Democratic; but there is one radical
difference which, SO long as it exists,
will render the existence of the Repub-
lican party a public necessity. That
difference consists in the fact that the
Republican party believes that the
United States form a Nation with all the
functions of National Sovereignty,
while the Democratic party regards the
Federal Government as mere league
between the States, which are each, in
its view, sovereign and independent.
The Republicans believe in the indisso-
lubility OF the Union of the States.
whilst the Democratic party believes
that the Federal Government has no
power to protect its own existence or
prevent any State from asserting its in
dependence.
This is a difference which involves
the very life of the Government. When
the rebellion broke out in 1861, while
james Buchanan was still in Office as
President, he shrank appalled, from the
duty of preserving the Union intact,
and yielded to the advice Of his Attor-
ney General that there was DO power in
the General Government to coerce o
State. Had that rebellion occurred at
the beginning, instead of at the close,
of his administration, it would have
been at once successful. Under the
Democratic idea of State rights, Mr..
Buchanan would have been compelled
to let the Southern States go.
With the prominence at present
given by the Democratic party to its
one distinguishing doctrine of State
sovereignty, as opposed to that of Ma
tional Sovereignty, the advent of that
party to power in the nation would
naturally bring with it tie danger of a
second assertion of the right OF States
to secede from the Union. Our pre-
vious experience of the Inability OF the
Democratic party in power to attempt
the coercion of rebellious State should
certainly be sufficient to teach the peo-
pie the danger of entrusting the Gov
ernment to hands too weak or too un-
willing to protect it.
Should it ever become necessary,
hereafter, to assert the power of the
General Government to promote the
public welfare, in any matter OF general
concern, as, for instance, in preventing
local restrictions upon the free trans
portation Of persons or produce, or in
removing natural Instructions thereto
the Democratic doctrine, faithfully ad-
hered to, would prevent that party from
legislating upon it, Congressionally.
The National Government cannot, in
fact, be carried on successfully, nor can
the necessities Of people, with inter,
ests so great and so grand as those Of
the American people, be properly met
and provided for by any party holding
strictly to the idea that Government is
but federal league, of separate and
independent State severe gnties.
The Republican party of the Nation
stand now, as ever, by the rights OF Ia
Dor as entitled to the protection of the
Government; by universal freedom and
universal suffrage sustained by univer-
sal education; by the public school sys-
TEN, with the taxation of all for its sup
port, and opposed to any division of the
school fund Tor any purpose whatever;
by the common law of the nation which
interdicts third election TO the Presi.
dency; by a tariff so adjusted as to be
the least burthensome and most favora-
BILE to the interests of labor and industry
by the financial legislation which secu-
res free banking upon sound basis and
provides for safe and uniform currency
sufficient for the public wants; by such
revision of the patent laws as will re-
lieve industry from oppression and Sc
cure to the inventor fair remuneration;
by faithful execution of The laws, the
suppression of lawlessness, and the eli
forccment of the Constitution as it
stands; and by that general policy
which will preserve the Union intact,
whether assailed from within or with
out.
We are now entering upon the clos
ing year of the first century of Ameri.
can Independence; and it beEooves the
Republicans of Pennsylvania; who be-
lieve heartily net only in the words but
in the spirit of th' Declaration of In
dependence. to show their faith by
their works, and rally firmly and
unitedly to the support Of their prinei-
plies We counsel them in view of the
interests which are at stake, to forget
all their post differences; to organize ac-
lively and efficiently; to present none
but good and true men for local offices;
and standing firmly by what they be-
lieve and know to be right, demonstrate
their claim to public confidence. The
second century OF our national exis>
tence should begin as tie first one did,
by supreme devotion to Republican
principles, to which only Republican
administration, in State or nation, can
be or will be faithful.
The experience of the past furnishes
abundant evidence that the best inter
ests of people demand the continuance
of the enlightened and liberal course Of
Al. 7 : I