The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1900-07-28

One of the spectacular effcts OF the He
publican National Convention of 1900,
conceived by Mark Hanna, was to exhibit
on the platform the surviving delegates to
the first National Republican Convention,
in 1856. One of these was Ex-Governor
Sidney Edgerton, of Ohio, and he wrote to
Mr.. Hanna, declining the invitation. In
declining Mr. Edgerton wrote a long letter,
in which he contrasted the Republicanism
of 1856 with that Of 1900, with the party
under the domination Of Hanna, Mckinley
and other false leaders. Below we give
some extracts, to which we invite the at
tention of Republicans, particularly
The Philadelphia convention of this year
will be made up of men in whose view
''the principles Of Washington and Jeffer
SON. are avowedly antiquated and far
out of date. 1t will vociferously uphold
and applaud the doings of an Administra-
-tion which, doubling in its own track with
in space of sixty days, has broken faith
with an innocent and confding people who,
by the hazards of war, had passed under
its jurisdiction--an act rightly character
lied by itself as the breach of "a plain
duty the command of the conscience
less and mercenary appetite for plunder
possessed by those by whom that Admin
istration was itself created, and which thus
is constrained to remember its creator.
1t will endorse policy which thus law
lessly put in motion has already begun to
bear the fruits of lawlessness in the pecula-
tions being perpetrated by our officials upon
those whom it appears we rescued from
one set of brigands only turn loose another
upon them, and it will denounce the indi-
vidual thieves, in apparent forgetfulness
that the thievery is but the symptom and
necessary sequence Of an irresponsible des-
potism. For government of peoples out
of side constitutional sanctions is, upon any
rational Republican theory, but despot-
ism; and it is SO not the less because it is
promised to be administered benevolent
ly'' and for the good Of the governed; the
fact that they are governed without their
consent puts the policy at war with the
Republican doctrine Of 1856 And SO,
being irresponsible at its source, the prin-
ciple Of irresponsibility permeates the entire
fabric, and stealing and spoliation by sub
ordinates follow as night succeeds the day.
Shortly before the convention of 1856 a
man Of some Prominence then and later
said:
ssWhen the white man governs himself,
that is self government; but when he gov
erns another man, that is more than self
government-that is despotism. =
What / do say is, that no man is good
enough to govern another man without that
other consent.
The utterer of these words was Abra-
ham Lincoln. Was he Republican or
not? Measured by the standard Of 1856,
plainly he was. Judged by the test which
will govern the Philadelphia convention of
this year just as plainly he was not.
The Philadelphia convention which you
ask me to attend viii, by its platform, ap-
prove the work of an Administration which,
claiming to have subdued the Sultanate of
Sulu, nevertheless is in treaty with its
Sultan, wherebyit guarantees the integ-
rity of his dominions and promises to pro-
tect him in maintaining his slave barracoon
and his harem of wives. And not only
has it thus given him immunity for his