Year: 1859




We showed, yesterday. that the Lecomp-
ton leaders of the South (the Democratic lead
ers of that section are different favor an aris-
tocratic more than democratic form of gov
ernment From Senator Hammond, of South
Carolina. down to the member of a South
Carolina or Georgia or Mississippi legislature,
the sentiment is the same-Lecomptoni be-
lieves in removing power from the masses of
the people, and concentrating it in the hands
of the few. who claim the right to dictate
to the people at large. Senator Ham
mond and his followers say, that the equali-
ty of the different classes of society in the
North is unnatural and must inevitably be
productive of discord that the only perfect
condition of society is where the relation ex
lists of master and slave, in an absolute and
unqualified form that in the North the la
boring classes are not in complete subsection
to the upper classes, (think of that, the upper
classes y and that consequently laboring men
sometimes intrude into the ranks of their bet
ters ("betters" as these men term them) claim
ing offices, influential positions and political
distinctions which the lower classes, 1.-THE
slaves) cannot aspire to in the South. The
laboring classes of the North are thus com
pared to the slduss in the South


1t is time that this notion of Lecomptonism
were taken out of the conceited would be
aristoeracv who entertain it. This govern
ment is founded upon the principle that all
men are free and equal and especially that
all free white men are equal. Our Federal
Constitution recognizes no distinctions be-
tween the poor man who works for his living
and the rich man who employs him. Equal
power is accorded him at the ballot box, and
he is eligible to the highest offices within the
gift of the people. The poor printerboy,
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN or the once obscure shoe
maker, ROGER SHERMAN, or the son of the
New Hampshire farmer who worked his own
lands with his own hands, DANIEL WEBSTER.
or the poor Mill Boy of the Slashes, HENRY
CLAY, could, under our free system of govern
ment, aspire to and reach the highest posi-
tions in the country. But, Lecomptonism, as
interpreted by Hammond, ct id onne genuS,
would wipe out and obliterate all these great
natural Rights of Man, as recognized by our
republican Constitution, and establish those
hateful and unnatural distinctions which have
existed in England and Europe since the feu-
dal ages-distinctions which arbitrarily as
sign the man of intellect and superior moral
nature to q condition of serfdom or eyerlast-
ing virtual servitude to his inferior in all the
attributes that constitute true manhood, be-
cause the one is rich and the other poor the
one nobly and the other obscurely born-ds
tinctions which make property and not inteHi-
gence, money and not the man, the voter at
the ballot box.


Lecompton leaders at the South think so
meanly of labor at the North, that they talk
about the ins,trrection of the laboring classes
against the other classes of society, and pre-
diet the time when the working men will
rise and put down, by bloody revolution, tie
so.called(by Lecomptonites) aristocratic class
es. Now, the sooner these psuedo aristocrats
lShIu blub ldOOAlu hAOi III VIC ANOA bh oAO Ou
perfect equality with professional or non
laboring men, the better. Our form of gov
ernment and the structure of society in the
North admit Of no such determinations, and |
the readiest answer to such an assumption is
a word of denial and blow of resentment.


The times are indeed becoming dangerous
when men are found in any portion of the
country, denying the full and perfect equal-
ty, in all respects, of American citizens; de-
claring in the very Senate of the United
States that the free white laborers of the
North are no better than the negroes of the
South. and that the only difference between
them is that the white men may "intrude"
themselves into position and the ranks of
their "superiors," while the black men are
kept under by imperative legal disabilities
Suppose such a sentiment should generally
prevail; suppose that the North should final
! ly become infected with the contagion sup
pose she should even have Representatives in
Congress imbued with these notions, how
long, think you, it would be before we should
have legislation directly antagonistic to the
interests of laboring classes, and subversive of
that equality which now exists so perfect
| ly in all the ramifcations of society in the
Free States? How long before we should
have property represented instead of men ?
How long before we should have labor de-
graded to a species of serfdom, and all sorts
of political privileges removed from the reach
Of the masses of the people2 1t does seem to
us that it is time for the people to arouse on
this subject, and TO let the TORIES of the pres
ent day know and feel that the spirit which
inspired the Revolutionary Heroes and Faith


ers Of the Republic, when they barred their


swords to assert the Rights Of Man, still beats
warmly and invincibly in the bOsoms of their
descendants


TROUBLE WITH THE INDIANS IN OREGoN.-A
few days since, we published by telegraph the
news of the massacre of five men by the In.
dians, near klamath Lake. A correspondent
of the Siskiyou Chronicle writing from Jack.
sonvlle on May 9th, says that the company
which started in pursuit of the Indians was
commanded bv John Uillman and Henrv