The People's vindicator. [volume] (Natchitoches, La.) 1874-1883, 1880-10-23
Consistent Republication.

W uCu LII tIC SlAtCcutu CcutuIt tuC
Vicar of the parish of Bray. near Lon
don. who had lived through the reigns
Of Henry the Eighth, Edward the Sixth
and Mary and into the reign of Eliza
beth, was reproached with his frequent
changes of principle. he made this
famous answer: mot SO. neither; for
if l changed my rubrics l am sure
kept true to my principle. which is to
live and die the "Vicar of Bray"
Possibly Flanagan, of Texas, the Chi
cago delegate who frankly admitted
that he was after the Offices, can claim
descent from this ecclesiastic. Several
generations have had their proverbial
fun at the expense of that Vicar OF
Bray; and yet he still survives in every
member of the Republican party who
supported Fremont in 1856 and who
supports Garfield in 1880. Follow down
the political history Of any one Repub-
ican-and there are MANY such--who
has happened to be a delegate to every
National Convention of his party since
the first one that was held at Pittsburgh
in February, 1856. At this earliest Con-
vention such q Republican found HIM
self an opponent of 1.-the imposition of
test-osths as a condition of the right of
suffrage and Office" and on what he
called the centralizing and imperial
aims of the Pierce Administration
against Z" the right of q State to exclu-
sively determine its own domestic az
fairs and he also then found himself
opposed to 1.-THE use by the Federal
Government of Federal officers and
of the bayonet in originating and
aiding interferences with the free
dom of State elections. At the
Fremont Convention Of June. 1856,
such q Republican found himself de-
nOuncing the plea that "administrs.
tive right makes governmental rig ht, :"
and denouncing those spurious and
pretended legislative or judicial or ex-
ecutive officers who were then set over
Kansas and who were sustained by the
military power Of the Administration" "
In 1860 at the Chicago Convention such
. Republican was found pledging him
self to "maintaining inviolate the
rights of each State in ordering and in
controlling its own domestic institu-
tions according to its own judgment
exclusively, as the balance of power on
which the perfection and endurance of
our political fabric depended" He
was also there and then found denounc-
ing the enforcement of pretensions of
. purely local interest through the in.
tervention Of Congress and Of the Fed.
eral Courts. - well a. the unvarying
abuse BY the Federal Administration Of
power intrusted to it by . contiding
people" and denouncing as we'll 1.-THE
systematic plumber of the Treasury BY
favored partisans and the frauds and
corruptions at the Federal metropolis"
At the first Inauguration of President
Lincoln this Republican was found ap-
plauding these sentences of the insu-
gural address: 1.-The mystic chords of
memory stretching from every living
heart and hea, thstone all over this broad
land will yet swell the chorus of the
Union when again touched, as surely
they will be. BY the better angels Of our
nature"
At the Convention Of 1864 such . Re.
publican was found resolving to main
tain the integrity of the Union and to
prosecute the war until rebels "return-
ed to their just allegiance. At the
close Of the Democratic Convention of
August. 1864. such q Republican not
only forgot what the Republican Con.
had insisted upon, but sneered
1t that part Of the Democratic platform
which denounced the direct interior
ence of the military authorities in the
of Delaware and Maryland.
During 1866 the Republican party
urged the restoration of the Southern
States to the Union and supported the
measures of Thaddeus Stevens for re-
the Senators and Representa-
tives Of those States to Congress when.
ever the States modified and con-
formed their Constitutions to the new
amendments and their laws to the ~