Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1882-03-14
CONC BAcx ON FIRST PBINoEpzEs.

GOING B4CK ON FIRST PRINCIPLES.
Since Horace Greeley, the great founder
of the Republican party, threw his inf1u-
ence-the strongest protest he could
make-against its longer continuance in
power in 1872, no event has occurred
which so forcibly illustrates the fact that
the party he did so much to make the
dominant political power in the nation
in 1860, has outlived its usefulness, as
the passage of the law by Republican
Congress, prohibiting the immigration Of
Chinese into this country-or their
naturalization by the courts-for term
of twenty years.
1t is significant and instructive Cir
cumstance IN the history of the Republi-
can party, that its first effort to discard
the doctrine of the higher law for that of
the constitution, should be confession
under the solemn form Of legislative ac-
ton, that call men are not born free and
equal, and endowed by their maker with.
certain inalienable rights, among which
are life, liberty and the pursuit of happi
ness This action of the representatives
Of the Republican party will not cbal-
lepge public attention so much to the
merits of the questions involved as to the
inconsistency of the Republican party on
the question of human rights, and the
vindication by its action of the opinion so
often expressed by its founders, that the
organization had survived it years Of use
fulness.
1t is not of SO much importance to en-
quire at this time whether a. fallacy lurked
in the shibboleth of the Republican party
under Greeley and Sumner-"That all
men were created free and equal"-as it
is to call public attention to the fact that
the Republican party under Arthur,
Grant, Logan and Sherman, has stultitied
itself in order to carry the States Of The
Pacific coast in the Presidential campaign
of 1854 1t has been said with much truth
and force, that this government s'offers
an asylum for the oppressed of
all nations" Judge fancy, In
the celebrated bred Scott decision,
conceded the right of the native African
to avail himself of the advantages of the
naturalization laws of this country. He
denied 10 the American slave this privil.
ege The invectives of the anti-slavery
leaders of that day against the great
American jurist for his opinion in the
III ha WI
interest in connection with the recent
action of Congress prescribing the citi-
zens of nation having the oldest civil
ization and the most skillful artisans and
scientists on the globe, as "having no
rights that white men are bound to re-
spect."
There are times in the history of nations,
of men and of society, when the assertion
of abstract principles of right and justice
when telling the whole truth-would be
detrimental to the public interests. Mr.
Greeley and MIR. Sumner lived to appre-
ciate the force of this truism, and Wen
dell Phillips is its most forcible living ex-
ponent. With the plank devoted to
human rights eliminated from the Re-
publican platform and the judgment of
its founders-that 1t has outlived its days
of uses ulness-staring it IN the face, its
disintegration, and final absorption by
more conservative political organization
is promised as one. of the events of the
early future.