Year: 1859

At no period in the history of our country has
the Democratic purity ever been called to the
fulfllment of so high mission as at the present
una It's success will be the perpetuity Of the
Union Its defeat viii be the inevitable prelude
of he'dowufall ard ruin of our Government. For
more than halfa century it has carried us safely
through oil the political convulsions that have
threatened the safety of our institutions. All
along hepathway Of our history are strewn the
wreckAof other party creels and party organiza-
uons; bat above them still floats in pride and
triumph, the banner of Domocrscy. Over all op
position, it hns thus far worked out the high
destiny of the nation, preserved the Constitution
inviolate against all attacks from the machiuations
Of Federalism and the Blind fury of Fanaticism
But never before has it been called to a mightier
struggle for the countrys good never before
have such persuasive arguments appealed to for
concord and harmony of action No sane man,
who has read Alright the history of the Abolition
party, and watched its progress, can blind his
mind to the stern fact that its shout of triumph
would be the death kne of this Government
That party, in all its measures and tendencies is
lawless revolutionary, sectional and fanatical





obtained power, what would be the fruits of its
national success The planest provisions of the
Constitution have been violated Southerners
have been robbed Ct their property, and q law
passed for the protection of the thieves. Seward,
the great head and embodiment of that party, has
declared that there is gu irreconceabe antago
ni>m between free and slave labor, and that war
has commenced which must end in the destruc-
tion of either slavery or abolitonism. This is
the programme of this action That such is the
end and tendency of the Republican party and
that its success would be attended with complete
overthrow Of our present system of government, is
TOO palpable for demonstration. Such is the
enemy--now powerful in numbers at the North,
and secretly receiving aid and comfort from
traitors at the South-that the Democracy must
meet and overthrow, else this Union is at end,
and thelOorstitution becomes mockery and the
Government an engine of intolcrable oppression.
All our hopes IS a nation of freemen-all that
endears this Government to every patriot-the
Constitution, law and order-hang suspended on
the fate of the next Presidential contest. By
union and harmony-by a rigid adherence to its
ancient faith and, time honored prneiples-the
Democratic party, as the high priests of the Con-
etitudon can alone carry this country safely
through the menacng dangers that threaten
it from the lawless hordes of Northern fanatics,
and their secret allies, the Southern fusionists
Let it then be true to its former glory let dis
cord and chickering's cease in its ranks; let minor
difference be discarded and forgotten; let plant
itself firmly the Constitution, and raise high
its old banner of principles, beneath which all
true patriots may gather. The issue is made up
between these two parties, and every man must
choose between them. Disguise it as you may,
be that is not for us is against us. He that will
not be With the Democracy must be with Repub-
icanism. They are the only two parties in the
country and it is idle and foolish to talk about
forming a third until Republicanism is destroyed.
Such party would be but masked battery from
which the South would suffer; it would be but a
guerilla band to deploy strength from the Southern
secti.n by weakening the moral force of the entire
Union against our common enemy.