Year: 1861




Some of the Republican papers raise their voices
in holy horror against the few members OF their
party who opposed the atrOciOus and reasonable
abolition resolutions offered by crazy IOvejoy in
the House of Representatives. A desire is ex-
pressed by them 10 have their names exposed to
the people, as if their act, instead of being patri
otic and creditable, entities them to infamy and
prescription. Nero played the fiddle while Rome
was burning. and there is no objection to Repub
lican newspapers indulging the delusiOn that anti
slavery is alive and vigorous and in condition to
carry future elections. Where the enemy fools
himself, he ought not to be undeceived; but, If
anything was necessary To convince Democrats
of the wickedness of AbolitiOnism, and the crimi-
nality of abandoning their party organization un-
der the specous pretext thatt is necessary for the
safety of the country, this conduct Of many Re
publican journals united to the vote of sixty-twO
Republican members in favor of all Loveoys
resolutions, and large majority in favor of the
first of them, this conduct, we say, will do IT
has done it, and the old watch fires of the party
are kindled afresh, ready to burn out AbolitOnism
from the land.


As party the Democracy have always held
the Republicans fully as responsible for the
mischiefs which preceded the rebellion as the
fire eaters of the South. As followers of
Stephen A Douglas. we were with Crittenden
and other patriots who tried 10 avert the distress
and horrors of civil war. While Chandler, of





while Hickman and Blair stood in the path of
the country's peace because of personal petty
spites; while Lovejoy, Charles Sumner, and
othero negroites, clamored for no union with
shareholders, the Democracy were willing to
give such reasonable assurances to loyal men in
the South as would retain their confidence in
the justice Of the North, and thus disarm JEFF.
Davis, Yancey and the other traitors We
knew what the result would be. We under
he hicb WI a
people, one country, from the St. Lawrence to
the Gulf of Mexico We knew that we could
not escape this destiny, and we preferred to
achieve it through peace rather than at ths point
of the bayonet and through rivers of franicidal
blood. We were defeated. Actual war Was in
augurated in the nation, and rs loyal citizens we
took our position by the side of the Govern
ment, although it was administered by the Re
publican party We encouraged our men to
swell the ranks of the Federal army by tens of
thousands. We were even willing to suspend
the ordinary action of party, not because our
principles were inimical to the Union; not be
cause we must cease to be Democrats before we
could be patriots; because we knew the proscript-
iveness of the abolition spirit and felt that, with
ordinary party opposition, it would be lashed into
the utmost frenzy of fanaticism, and would give
the conduct of the war an intense partizan bias.
This position was scarcely assumed before it was
untenable. The booming of the guns of Fort
Sumter was answered by calls for Republican
conventions, and the defeat of Democratic loyal
lists in every locality where Republican power pre-
dominated A mob of green deaths head Re-
publican and anti -Democratic militia generals
the Banks, Buffers, Pierces, Schencks, Hurlburts
and others-were appointed to command our sol
diers. The removal of Democrats from Office
was clamored for by the Republican journals, and,
with short respite, continued by the administra-
ton. Even the death of our great leader, the
immortal Douglas, was ciutched at with indecent
eagerness as an opportunity for partisan appoint
ment; and now, 20 cap the climax, sixty two Re
publican Congressmen have voted for the Love
Joy resolutions in gross, while a majority of thir
ty-seyen of them carried through the House the
first of them, by which the slaves of southern
unionists are put upon the same basis as those of
secessionists. In a word, the Republican press,
and the Republican marty in Congress and
out of Congress are determined to forco
us either to reopen the old issues, or to
behold the villainy of abolitionism assume
unopposed ascendancy in the nation. This we
will never consent to. We will uphold
the Government but will never be dragged at the
feet of the Republican party makeweight to
their consequence, chorus to sing the burden of
their praise To the principles of that party We
are deathlessly opposed We believe them now,
as we ever have believed them, unconstitutional
and detrimental to the public safety. Secession
has committed Oy ert treason, and therefore should
be struck down; but secession in its most frenzied
moments has never hated the Constitution and
the Union so fiercely as the Greeley and Lovejoy
school of Republicans, and the men who, in Con
gress the other day, sustained the resolutions OF
the latter Neither in the past nor present posi-
ton of the Republican party do we find any hope
that they will abandon, or even suspend during
the war, the dogmas which we deem pernicious;
and proudly feel that in tais trying crisis of the
nations history The first great step TO devoted 10y
atty is to assume the principles of Stephen A.
Douglas-of the great democratic party. In this
spirit we cheerfully render honor to. the handful
of Republicans who rose above the trammels OF a
wicked fanaticsm and voted against the majority
by which their party adopted Loyejoy's abolition
resolution They did right, and, as their party
in Congress is so strongly against them on this
vital point. why do they not follow the same con-
science which dictated this vote, and cast their
lot with the conservative Democracy. who would
have acted in the same manner2-Chieago1m Times