Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1899-02-24
SPIRIT OF THE PRESS
FACTS AND OPINIONS GATHERED
FROM CONTEMPORARIES.
is 1T ANY LONGER THE PARTY OF LIN
nOI No

is IT ANY LONGER THE PARTY OF LIN
OOLN?
The editor of the leading republican pa
per of the period, and peace agent of the
present administration, has SAID IN care
fully prepared speech that should ire
sist the crazy extension of the doctrine
that government derives its just powers
from the consent of the governed to an
extreme never imagined by the men who
framed it," And he chose Lincolns birth
day, of all days, to give expression to
such sentiments.
Contrast them with what Lincoln had
to say on the subject. He believed that
the declaration of independence was in
tended to include all men, black as well
as white. and yellow and brown as well
as white. There was no limit to it as an
ideal toward which we were to strive.
There could be no "craZy" extension OF
it because every extension of it meant an
advance toward the nights of Justice and
humanity in government. He said in
one of his speeches:
They (the trainers of the declaration)
meant to set up a standard maxim for
free society which should be familiar TO
all and revered by all. constantly looked
to, constantly labored for and. even
though never perfectly attained, con-
stantly approXimated, and thereby con-
stantlv spreading and deepening its in
huence and augmenting the happiness
and value of life to all peoples of all
colOrs everywhere.
But this latter-day republican editor
says they meant no such thing. and he
agrees substantially with Judge Douglas
and Senator Petit of lndianna and other
champions of the slavedriver that the
Declaration is a "self-eVident lie, which
it would be "crazy" to extend.
Lincoln believed that the negro was
comprehended in the Declaration, and he
said that when you read the negro out of
the Declaration you classed him as
brute. But this leading editor of the
party that was LincOln's can find 30
place in the Declaration for the Cubans
or Porto Ricans or Filipinos, and the in
ference must be that he cassfies them as
something different from the "all men"
of the Declaration.
Lincoln said that no man was good
enough to govern another man without
that other mans consent. But Editor
Whitelaw Reid SAYS that we are good
enough to shoot and hold the Filipinos
in permanent subsection, without their
consent, without representation or voice
IN their government and without the
rights of citizenship in the country claim
ing their allegiance. Do you wonder,
then, that they fight?
Lincoln said that "when the white man
governs himself that is sef-government
but when he governs himself and also
governs another man. that Is more than
lf-government-tha is dispOtism."
But the editor of the New York Tribune
proclaims this essence of despotism as a
cardinal doctrine of latter-day republi-
canism.
Lincoln again said that when men be-
gan to deny the political equality of
men, they began to assert the natural,
moral and religious right of one class to
enslave another. And the editor of the
Tribune, true to the life of this observa-
ton, begins by denying equality to these
subject races and ends by asserting our
christian right to hold them permanent
ly in state of entire subsection.
Ye shall know all tyrants, present or
prospective, by this sign of reputation
of the Declaration. That is the first
step in the game of tyranny. Lincoln
recognized this, and speaking of the
''proneness of prosperity to breed
tyrants,n he said that the Declaration
had been moved in their way as a
stumbling block. Therefore, when you
see a man trying to get over that block,
you see man working along up the
road to tyranny. And when you see a
man striving to set aside the Declaration
in order to Justify and establish a
tyranny over people beyond the national
borders, you see man who will not OBJ.
iect strenuously to the spread of tyranny
at hone.
To the thousands of surviving con-
science republicans who followed Lin
con--who were drawn to the party by
the spirit of humanity which pervaded it
and by its great purpose to save and ex-
tend liberty to the poorest and meanest
within our borders-hOw must these
later declarations of party spirit and
principles appear? Or, have they, too,
in most part, been transformed into the
likeness of the slave-drivers whom the