Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 May 1887 — “Aye, There’s the Rub.” [ARTICLE]

“Aye, There’s the Rub.”

“I was also taught to believe that the Constitution of the United States was the bond of Federal union, written by our fathers with more than human wisdom; that it should be not strictly like an indictment, not like a bond framed by a usurer which a cunning Portia might construe away by subtle reasoning, but a charter of liberty, to be construed liberally, and so as to carry out all the objects of its founders.”— Sherman’s Keynote. Aye, there’s the rub. There, in one sentence, is modern Republicanism. The same sentence would have defined Federalism. And right there is where the two parties—Federalists and Democrats, or Republicans, as Democrats were then called —differed. And right there is where parties are divided to-day. It is all well enough for superficial writers and thinkers to say there is no material issue between Democrats and Republicans of to-day. It might just as well have been said at the origin of parties in this country. There are fundamental principles underlying the two parties. The one believes that the Constitution and the laws should and do represent the will of the hour; That whatever opinion prevails in a particular section of the country, or among a particular class, is the higher law, and that section or class are to be governed by it. If the Constitution conflicts with the views of any of the class, it is “a covenant with death and a league with hell.” The Democrats believe in a strict construction of the written Constitution. That is what the Democratic party is based on. That document is the Democratic platform.— New Albany (Ind.) Ledger.

In response to an inquiry Senator Kenna, of West Virginia, said: “Eighty-eight is still some time off, and many changes may occur. I believe, however, by that time there will be scarcely anyone to question the honesty, frugality, patriotism, and efficiency of Mr. Cleveland’s administration of the Government. He is the first Democratic President since the war. He occupies necessarily, as any Democratic President under the circumstances would, a sort of situation of experiment—l mean this in a political sense—in the eyes of the country. If he should maintain hunself, us I believe he will, from this standpoint, his renomination will be a political necessity to the Democratic party; and if the standard to which I have alluded should secure for him a renomination by the Democracy, that same standard will secure bis re-election by the country.”

Considering his heroic struggle in behalf of reform, Mr. Cleveland would seem to be entitled to a second tyrm. At the end of his second term he could not very well be a candidate for re-election, and he would be relieved of many embarrassments that have surrounded hisfiist term, besides having the benefit of his past experience.— Dorman B. Eaton.

John Bright has written a free-trade letter in which he says the reason that protection flourishes in some nations is that it is backed by an organized army, while the consumers are merely a mob. Protection in the United States, he says, is promoting a system of corruption nnequaled in any otntr country.