Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1884-08-20
Mr.. Dingley's Speech.
AT THE GREAT Meeting AT STRONG on THE
18TH

AT THE GREAT MEETING AT STRONG on TIE
18TH.
/ Congressman Dingley, on taking the chair,
spoke substantially as follows Fellow re-
publicans, ladies' and gentlemen: We stand
10 day on sacred ground. Thirty wears ago.
on the 9Th of Aug 1854, almost on the very
spot where now stand. the republican party
Of Maine was chrlstened and held its first
delegate convention as district organization
bearing the name which marks il as the party
of freedom, justice and equal rights.
Two years before, N 1852. in the adJon
ing county Of Oxford the first blow had been
struck against the arrogant power of the
Bourbon democracy, by the progressive tenn
p-rance and anti-slavery wing of that party,
led BY such sterling men as Hon. John j.
Perry, Sidney Perham. Alden Chase, Hiram
Hubbard and the late Hon. Noah Prince, X
). Stevens, DR.. I. II. Brown. DR.. Mitchell
and others The immediate occasion of this
action of tine progressive and temperance
wing of the democracy, was the re-nomina-
ton by the Oxford county democratic con
vention of two senators who had opposed
Gov. Hubbard because he had signed the
Maine Law of 1851 which was passed by a
union of temperance democrats, wings and
free sellers. The little fire kinded on the
inspiring hills of old Oxford extended the
next year (l553) into every county in the
State, and led to the famous mass conven-
ton of independent democrats in Portland.
which put that old war-horse, Hon. Arson 2.
Morrill,, in nomination as an independent
democratic candidate for Governor against
Albert Pillsbury, the regular bourbon demo-
cratic candidate.
When the slave power fully developed
their purposes by forcing the democratic par
ty to repeal the Missouri compromise on the
Both of May, 1854, in order that Kansas and
Nebraska might be opened to slavery, the
rising feeling of resistance to its oppression
found in Maine a political field already white
for harvest of freedom. The ii 900 DEM
Greats who had voted for Arson 2. Morrill, at
the election of 1853, nine,tenths of the
wings and all the free sellers, found them
selves in full accord on the overwhelming
national issue of resistance to the extension
of slavery and the scarcely less exciting
State issue of resistance to the aggressions
| of the dram shop.
| 1t was inevitable that men who thought
alike on the great issues of the day should
drop their old party associations and names,
and come together in one organization and
under a common name. Parties which live
and become power are born not made; are
welded by common principles and Identical
| aims and not by desire to obtain the offices
/ So il came to pass that the three political
organizations in Maine composed Of men who
/ thought alike. although meeting at first in
separate county conventions, inevitably came
| TO unite on common nominations, and/a com
mon platform of principles, But it was in
| ',.S Areeuo",'''!h9 county VI r,'uA'i" 'Aa'
| 'his P'ac'icai u"lo, "hiC" eNls'eu !" every
! county III M"lne' ot'"eeh Tree ueinocTats,
''ee s0lNis anu '"''-'i''eis ""lS' "'St iouhu
expression III one con'ehtion' nominating
canuldates as one organization, anu formaily
announcing that henceforth they would stand
shonlder ID shouiner as lne ne" party OF
tr'eHon' whose anne shoulu De the 'eP"3'
car party
do not propose to detain YOU, my friends,
| by rehearslng the events OF that August day,
wears ago. when the ireedom-!ovlng voters of
Franklin county assembled In this beautiful
vlIiag" IN three separate conventions as mem
bers OF three dlsunct parties. and comparing
notes through committee discovered what
all knew before, that they were OF one mIrd
and one aim, and OF right ought to be one or
ganlzation and one party.
In imagination can see SUCH true men as
j. Is. Morrison, }. w. Porter, }. q. Hoyt,
Avian Currler, Sewsli cram, w. ii. JosseIyn,
I. NJ. otnDos, >. ~. Irescott, y D ialoot,
| j. II. Willard, b. +. Eastman, Seward Dill,
John Tltcomb, Robert GoodenoW, A. u.
Wheeler, j. ). Swift, y l.. Currier, T. NJ.
Garcelon and others-some still living and
with us here to-day, and others gone to their
reward,-coming out OF their respective con-
ventlons and uniting IN one convention and
one organization IN yonder hall.
After selecting .. ). Currler as president.
and appointing other officers, and before pro-
ceedlng to business, ON motion OF MaJ. John
ii. willard OF wilton, as the record publish
ed in the Pennington Chronicle goes, lit
was voted with enthusiastic reclamation, that
the party created by the union OF the three
conventions, bear the name OF the republican
party
The noble men VINO thus took the initiative
IN actually Organizing the new path OF tree.
dom ana giving II the name OF republican,
when three months oetore congressman IS
raei Washourn. Jr., OF Name, had suggested
as proper designation OF the unorganlzed
opponents OF slavery encroachments, Guided
oetter thah theF knew. lhir'E years nave
passed since the republican party was organ
Aed- lhese thlrtv years nave covered more