Year: 1860

Apologies Of the Republicans.


Republicans find it necessary to
apologize for the existence of
their party, They are driven to
this by the increasing pressure of
the national sentiment againsttheir
sectionalism. They see that the
existance of such an organization is
hostile to the genius oftrue Repub-
| hcanism, which, as the word itself
Indicates, looks to the preseryQtiQn
of the Republic or Union as It came
from the hands of the fathers
The 'irrepressible conflict" doc
trine, which is the life and soul of
modern political and sectional Re-
publicanism, is seen to be in direct
antagonism to the Union and to
tend directly to revolution and dis
union. ..


One of the apologies that Repub-
licans make for their party is that
it is a necessity of the age. Accor-
ding to its Republican nurses, it
could not help being born, and fos-
tered into life and activity. But
those who gave birth to, and cher
ished the bantling, were, we pre-
sumo, voluntary actors in the mat
ter. This plea of necessity will not
do. 1t is an old and stale apology
for every species of fanaticism and
crime. The assassin claims that he
was hurried to the commission of
the dead by an irrepressible fate;
and the widest band of fanatical
ultraists who not against the peace
and good order Of the community,
claim that their movement is
grand, though sad. necessity of the
age. Republicans, in setting up
this plea of necessity, confess the
inherent weakness Of their cause,
and place their claim to popular
support upon an unsatisfactory and
untenable ground,


Another apology that Republi-
cans make is, that theirs is the on
ly party of freedom in this coun-
try. The same claim was set up by
their immediate progenitors, the
old Abolitionists, who surnamed
themselves "The Liberty Party"
Republicans are doubtless the right
full heirs to theprinciples and name
of the old Liberty party. The on


y difference is that they dare not
be so bold and explicit in the avow-
al of their doctrines as their anccs-
tors were. But what right have
they, as they now present them
selves in the field of American pol
itics, to be considered par excellence
the party of freedom? They say
they do not propose to interfere
with slavery in the States. Conse-
quently, they do not intend to en-
ter upon a crusade for the emanci-
patton of the enslaved in the South.
What then? They intend, if they
can get the power, to put a stop to
further extension of slavery. But
how is this to be done? By inter-
vention acts of Congress prohibit
ing slavery in the Territories
That is, in plain English, they
would take from the white men in
an organized Territory the liberty
of determining their own domestic
institutions for themselves, and
bind them hand and foot by an ar
bitrary act of Congress. This
would be limiting slavery with Il
vengeance BY making slaves of the
whitesin the Territories. 1t would
be a mode Of extending free institu-
.tions worthy this bogus Republi-
can party of freedom, by forcing
communities into arbitrary subjec-
ton to a legislative body in which
they have no representative vote.
This apology for their sectional ac-
ton, on the part of Republican
leaders, that they are laboring in
the holy cause of freedom, is mere
pretense and hypocrisy.-O Ohio
Statesman.