Our neighbor of the Democrat having been schooled in the old Democratic party, where it was treasonable for the rank and file to utter sentiments contrary to the doctrine of its leaders, and being accustomed of late to hang his principles loosely on the N. Y. Herald and Chicago Times, is much exercised that a Republican sheet in Iowa should possess the independence to differ from the big or little Tribune of New York or Chicago. The Democrats of old were wedded to party; the masses were fervent believers in the blasphemous expression, “Vox populi, vox dei;” wherever their demagogical chiefs led they followed, satisfied that it was for the good of the party in which they could see no wrong. Principles? What cared they, or knew they of principles? The word “Democratic” involved everything and in their blind adherence to the name they forgot the substance; and at the last when all the old principles for which the party had contended against the Whigs had been shelved, and nothing but pro-slaveryism remained, many of them still thought they were contending for the same principles that Thomas Jefferson in his day maintained!
The Republican party is an organization of principles. It is of recent origin and composed of men from the Democratic, Whig and Anti-Slavery parties. It is a “one-idea” party, if you please, that idea being to further the interests of the country. When the necessity for the agitation of those political questions that so long divided the country had passed away and certain Northern demagogues of the Democratic ilk, began to bow the knee to Baal, to court the slaveocracy of the South, to advocate the extension of slave territory and to proclaim that slavery was national; good men became alarmed and resolved to form themselves into a political organization, the fundamental principle of which should be, opposition to the enlargement of the area of slavery, the proclamation of the great constitutional truth, that freedom was national and slavery sectional. Thus originated the Republican party; based upon the principle it follows the back of no leader, unless he be right. Any departure by the press from a straight line of principle becomes the subject of stricture by his brethren; hence, our neighbor is exercised when he sees any show of independence in a press that does not actually occupy the front rank in the Republican party. The right to think and speak for themselves, controlled by the principles and not by leaders, is something so new to our Democratic neighbor, that we are by no means surprised that he should regard any little exhibition of the kind, as almost equivalent to a split in the party, and rejoice as though he saw his idol once more enthroned in the affections of the people.
– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Wednesday Morning, April 23, 1862, p. 2
The Republican party is an organization of principles. It is of recent origin and composed of men from the Democratic, Whig and Anti-Slavery parties. It is a “one-idea” party, if you please, that idea being to further the interests of the country. When the necessity for the agitation of those political questions that so long divided the country had passed away and certain Northern demagogues of the Democratic ilk, began to bow the knee to Baal, to court the slaveocracy of the South, to advocate the extension of slave territory and to proclaim that slavery was national; good men became alarmed and resolved to form themselves into a political organization, the fundamental principle of which should be, opposition to the enlargement of the area of slavery, the proclamation of the great constitutional truth, that freedom was national and slavery sectional. Thus originated the Republican party; based upon the principle it follows the back of no leader, unless he be right. Any departure by the press from a straight line of principle becomes the subject of stricture by his brethren; hence, our neighbor is exercised when he sees any show of independence in a press that does not actually occupy the front rank in the Republican party. The right to think and speak for themselves, controlled by the principles and not by leaders, is something so new to our Democratic neighbor, that we are by no means surprised that he should regard any little exhibition of the kind, as almost equivalent to a split in the party, and rejoice as though he saw his idol once more enthroned in the affections of the people.
– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Wednesday Morning, April 23, 1862, p. 2
No comments:
Post a Comment