, 1880-08-09

Mr.. Jefferson said If the time shall
come for writing the epitaph upon this
country, it will be: "A people who lost
their own liberties in the attempt to en-
franchise the negroes" How near we
have come to that time it IS fearful to
contemplate; and he who imagines that
the peril has past, gives small heed to
the political philosophy taught by cur
rert events viewed in the light of hsto-
ry, which teaches by example. 1t will be
remembered that the party under whose
rule the war was inaugurated-a minori >
ty party-was by lineal descent and in
heritance the successor of this old Fed
eral party, the hereditary enemy of De-
mocracy, monarchical by instinct and the
open advocate of Capitalization and spe
cial privileges, identical with the policy
now avowed by the Republican party
under the name of nationality that
under various disguises, popular aliases
and false pretenses. all OF which failed to
seduce the people, it finally combined
with every element of faction, fanaticism
and disturbance in the land-abolition-
lists, disuuionists, communists, anti-pa
pists, protectionlsts, prohibitisnists, free>
thinkers and religious proscriptionists-
as purely sectional party, limited in
its avowed policy by geographical lines
defining the boundary between the free
and the slave States, under the pretense
of resisting slave aggressions, for which
not the slightest cause had ever been of
fered with opposition to slavery as its
ostenslble, and political power its real
nation being inevitable to its success
While disclaiming as party organiza-
tion any hostility to the Union or inten>
tion to invade the rights of the States
under the Constitution, every argument
and appeal was aimed against the Union
as it then existed, all calculated to fo-
ment sectional prejudices tending direct.
ly to disunion or civil war, and every
State which came under the control of
this party passed acts nulliylng the Con-
stitutional guarantee for the rendition of
fugitives from labor, and their popular
speeches and campaign documents were
replete with invective, denunciations and
threats against the people Of the South
Every avowed disanienist in the North
was identified with that party, and when
it came into possession OF the Federal
Gov ernment every representative of the
party voted persistently against every
measure OF compromise proposed to avert
war and save the Union, though seventy
members of Congress, of the same party,
had the year previously severally sub
scribed their names to document de-
claring in terms: Down with Slavery or
down with the Union;" and had inscrib-
ed upon their parry banners: The Union
cannot exist part slave and part tree.''
This Is in brief the history of the Re
publican party previous to the war, and
clearly proves that it was not Union
party in any Constitutional sense of the
term, that its purpose was to dissolve the
Union, not for the benefit of the slaves,
but TO perpetuate its own power in the
North by getting rid of the South and
this would have been accomplished but
for the Democratic party, the only party
in the North devoted to the maintainance
of the Union under the Constitution 1t
is true, that but for the Republican party
slavery would not have been abolished,
neither would there have been any civil
war or threatened dissolution of the I'm
ion. 1t is just as true that but for the
Democrats the Southern Contederacy
would have been established with slaves
ry perpetuated, and the people of the
North would d today be ground under the
iron heel OF Federal despetism. In fight
lnS lor the Union Tue DeiHoCTdls vi lHe
North we're fighting fof their own liber-
ties. and now they have common cause
with the people of the South in the mu-
tual defence of municipal rights and per-
sonal Liberties against Capitalization, on
ly another name for imperialism.
The most OF US remember how. during
the war, when hundreds of thousands of
Democrats were at the front, fighting for