The Wellington enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 1867-188?, 1882-04-12
An Apology for Being.

The Louisville Courier-Jotr7,al ex-
presses the opinion that as the promi-
nent issue which originally brought the
Republican party to the front Slavery
is '.as dead as Julius Cesar" there is no
longer any excuse for its existence. 1t
might better be said that, slavery being
dead, there is no longer any reason for
the Democratic party TO continue to
cumber the ground. If the Republican
party needed any apology for being the
dominating and conservative force in
American politics, it might possibly be
a sufficient answer to say that it is still
in the land of the living at the urgent
request and in obedience to the COM
mand of the sovereign people of these
States. Probably the versatile editor of
the Courier-Jou17:al never thought of
that, otherwise his great respect for the
win of the majority when properly ex-
pressed would have restrained his un-
warranted criticism.
The observation is often made that
the Republican party has outlived its
usefulness and ought to be dissolved. in
order that some more progressive and
useful organization may be permitted to
take its place, but nobody seems dis
posed to lead Off in the formation of
such party. Our own view of the case
is that the new party will come as spon-
taneously and as promptly as the Re-
publican party did whenever there exists
a real necessity for it. Political parties
in this country, as all past experience
proves, have never been manufactured
to order, but have been called forth by
pressing exigency of the times. The
Republican party was needed to abolish
slavery, but in doing that it became
responsible, in. a measure, for the well
fare of the people whose fetters it had
broken, and after it had slain the great
hydra, slavery, there still remained a
duty that it could neither shirk nor
delegate to other hands. That impera-
tive duty to stand between the black
man of the South and those who are
determined to oppress and wrong him,
is still binding on the Republican party.
Slavery is '.as dead as Julius Cesar" or
as dead as the Democratic party, but its
old virus has not yet been wholly elimi-
mated from the blood of the body polite.
Neither has the mission of the Repub-
licap party in other directions been full
filed. While abolishing slavery with
one hand, it had to strangle secession
with the other, and to fight the Demo
cratic party while struggling to main
tain and preserve the Union. 1t had to
reconstruct the fallen States, and to pre-
serve the National credit against the
united assaults of Democracy and the
| fat lunatics.
There is plenty of work already laid
out to keep the Republican party quite
busy for the present, and to furnish all
its morbid critics with an excuse for its
existence. 1t has its hands full in keep
ing the Democratic. party from raising
the mischief. 1t must abolish polyga-
my, even if it is against the protest of
forty-two Democratic members of Con-
gress, and keep that party from taking
the taxes off of whisky and tobacco.
The people viii see to it that the Re-
publican party shall be upheld and con-
tinued in power as long as the country
is threatened by the malign influences
of its arch enemy. = Chicago Journal.