Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1886-09-30
For the HERALD.
The Republican Party and its Would-b be
Successor.

For the HERALD.
The Republican Party and its Would-be
Successor.
Our third party Prohibition friends
lay great stress upon the alleged simil-
arity between the present position of
their party and that of the Republican
party at its origin. The similarity is
delusion and a snare. If, as they as
sert, the history of parties in the past
IS about to repeat itself, let them study
political history with an unprecedented
eye and then reason intelligently and
Understandings. The spirit which
created the Republican party was
plainly manifest in the Declaration of
independence, and if the discussions
that transpired in the Constitutional
convention nearly century ago are
carefully studied, it will be found that
that same spirit was more plainly APP
parent, that it was continually cropping
out in the debates, and that it was
simply question of time as to when
the Republican party, or one with
similar purpose, would DO formed.
Everybody understands political econo-
my sufficiently well to know that it
would have been the hight of absurdity
to organize an anti-slavery party at the
beginning of the present century, al
though, leaving out the question of
slavery which was kept beneath the
political horizon at that time, the under
lying principles of the old Federal party
and the present Republican party are
substantially the same.
The Republican party was not organ
lied until nearly seventy years after the
adjournment of the Constitutional con.
vention, in which occurred what NAV
be considered as the origin of the great
political discussions of slavery. In this
convention were consummated the first
of the numerous series of compromises
on the slavery question. The original
draft of the Constitution itself placed
the first restriction upon slavery in
negatively prohibiting the foreign slave
trade after certain date, and in the
apportionment clause practically recog-
nized slave as being equal to at least
three-fifths of free person, thus leav-
ing it an open question as to whether
he might not, in time, become equal to
five-fifths of free person. Notwith-
standing the strong anti-slavery senti-
ment which existed in the minds of a
not inconsiderable portion of the people
from the very foundation Of the govern
ment, no anti-slavery party with any
degree of responsibility in regard to
numbers was formed until after nearly
three-quarters of q century of public
discussion of the question. There were
anti-slavery parties organized, ii is true,
but their fate simply demonstrates the
fact that there is nothing to be gained
by attempting to force principle, how
ever worthy and commendable it may
be, upon the people before they have
been educated to such point as to be
to great degree conscious of its
worthiness. AS early as 1889 conyen-
ton of AbolItionists nominated presi-
Dental candidates who received about
1000 votes, and thereafter various pol
itical parties, with difference in name
but with "a similarity of ideas, were
organized, but all were consigned TO
an early grave for the simple reason
that they were born too soon.
The Republican party was not
launched upon the sea of material ex-
istence until the way for its success had
been paved; not until generation after
generation, in the sections of the coun-
try where discussion would be tolerated
and where private gain or loss was not
q factor, had been educated on the sub
ject of slavery restriction and abolition;
not until the public were in such a
frame of mind as to be capable of rea-
soning intelligently and of looking upon
all sides of the question at issue with
some degree of fairness. No attempt
was made to introduce any radical idea
which was new and untried. The main
object of the party was to endeavor to
keep things as they were-to prevent
the further extension of slavery. The
idea of abolition was simply matter
of growth within the party and that
growth was very much hurried by
political necessity. Nor did the Repub-
Iican party begin its career by trying
to kill off another party SO as to subslst
and grow by feeding up on the nutri-
tious material eeft in its corpse. OF
course, the Republican party did obtain
its material from the ruins of "a defunet
party, but that party, l. G. the Wing,
was thoroughly disorganized and dead
before the Republican party was born
and the latter simply supplied its place.
VIC iIOo1 VI 10
hibitionists are not so far lost to all
sense of logical conclusions as to assert
and believe that the Republican party
is dead or that there is any reasonable
probability of its early demise. If, as
the Prohibitionists claim, there is an
abundance of the right kind of material
in the Republican party out of which
to form Prohibition party, and if the
circumstances of the birth of the former
is to be taken as criterion in the
science of party manufacturing, we
must logically conclude that the tenn
perance people should work within the
ranks of the Republican party. as the
anti-slavery people did within the ranks
of the Wing party, until the party either
takes up the cause of Prohibition or
quietly dies as the Wing party did,
leaving corpse that viii develop new
life by a change OF its cognomen. If
there is found to be any virtue in Pro-
hibition one of these two things would
no doubt result. If Prohibition is an
utterly impracticable, visionary scheme
it would soon meet It's fate. The idea
that the present course of the Prohibit