New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1875-11-28
THE SOUTHERN REPUBLICANS.

THE SOUTHERN REPUBLICANS,
Though we can see no reason why any
affix should be necessary to the proudes
tit lie that civilized man can assume, We
yet prefer the qualification of a politica,
genus by specification of the species tC
the unnatural and hybrid varieties pro
duced by combining incoherent, uncon.
genial and even antagonist natures by
the political fusions with which we have
been lately familiar. What else but @
short, weak and evil existence could arise
from attempting to combine Democracy
and Conservatism? True Democracy is
the unlimited will of the people expressed
and acting through powers prescribed by
the people to the people. If under such
expression the people sin, the people suf-
fer There is no outstanding and re-
served discretion on this earth which,
under pretense of superior prohity or dis
erection, can assume to protect the people
from the people themselves. True De-
mocracy is conservative or radical as the
people deem, but nothing that the people
can formally do rises into an unjust ex-
cess, or falls into feebleness 1t is exactly
what it ought to be, when established b.
their majority and adjudicated by their
courts. The action Of the people is re-
publican and right. Not right, perhaps,
in the opinion of an eccle starch at Salt
Lake d Avignon; not right, may be, &C.
cording to the rule of king, of prince,
earl, marquis or minister, but right ac-
cording to the only stan dard which can
be applied to the people who have de-
creed the act. The will of the American
people is neither radical nor conserva-
tive; it is right. If the powers of the
earth think otherwise, let them, as they
have often tried to do, repeal the act.
With this centennial the united republic
can say to such foreign reformers, in the
words of the brave old Scotch ballad:
Ny name it is little Jock Blliot, and VIVA daur
There is no prefix nor suffix needed to
the term Republican, nor is there any
difference in Principle between Repub-
licans in one part of the Union and an
other
The term Republican is not new to the
South. The Republican party arose in
the South. 1t received in the South its
first impulse, fought its earliest battles
and established the principles upon which
the government is to-day administered.
Federalism, as it was represented at the
beginning, was different from the Union
ism of to-day. The doctrine attributed
to Federalism was an undue authority in
the executive, tendency to establish or
ders, obedience to the money power, a
restriction ct freedom of speech and of
the press, distrust and dread of the peo-
pie and an unwillingness to extend to the
oppressed of foreign countries the blessed
asylum built by the revolutionary fathers.
The great fight was against the alien
and sedition laws OF 1898. jefferson was
the Republican leader, and thousands,
from Maryland to Georgia, formed the
the Republican party. Jefferson, Madi-
son, Monroe, Clay, Calhoun and Crawford,
were Republicans. The term Demo
crat" was stigma attempted to be fixed
upon them in the battle of 1898, because
they were charged with intentions or con-
sequences as bloody as those first perpre-
trated by the French Democrats of the
revolution. The issue of the sedition
law was eminently republican. 1t turned
on the rights of persons. The executive
claimed, under that law, the power to
arrest and punish citizen for words per-
sonally offensive, spoken or written of
the President. That the name Repub-
lican was the title of the party of Jeffer-
son, in his first election, will be sufi-
GENTLY shown by extracts from the His
tory (Hildreth's) of the United States.
1uo hepuUllchnb throughout every part
OF the Union say that it was the irresistible
Influence and popularity of General Wash.
ingt0n. played off by the cunning of Alex
ander Hamilton, which turned the govern
ment over to antl-Republican hands John
Adams), or turned the Republicans chosen
by the people into anti-Republicsns.
Of the election of Jefferson it is said:
The returns of the electoral votes came
gradually In, from which at last it became
certain, not only that the Republican ticket
triumphed as had been generally expected,
but 1t was far from being so agreeable to
most members Of the Republican party
that Jefferson and Burr had both received
the same number Of votes.
The Republican party defeated the Fed
eralists, and fixed the principles of the
government that were never departed from
until after the term of John Quincy Adams,
himself Federal convert to Republican
doctines. An effort was then made to per-
vert the administration to Federalism by
for General Jackson the right to
execute the laws of the United States as
be understood them, and to defend in the
President discretion in the administra-