Rensselaer Gazette, Volume 2, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 October 1858 — THE ELECTION TO-MORROW. [ARTICLE]

THE ELECTION TO-MORROW.

Fellow-citizens: To-morrow you. will be called upon to decide at the ballot-box great and momentous questions—questions which will decide and shape the destiny of this Republic, for weal or woe, for" years to come. It is to be decided to-[motrow whether the State of Indiana will unite with the other free States of the North in rolling back the car of despotism and slavery, which has been making such rapid headway during the last four years. It is to be decided to-morrow whether Indiana shall be found, through her Representatives in the lower house of Congress, striving- to foster the curse of slavery on “bleeding Kansas,” and other Territories to be hereafter erected out of the vast domain of the Republic; or whether she will stand up nobly for the rights of the free white men—the working men—the “mudsills of society.” To-morrow is to be decided, so far as Indiana is concerned, whether the policy inaugurated by Washington, Jefferson, Franklin and Adams, is to be cars' ried out; or whether we will still submit to the usurpations of Pierce, Buchanan, Can-dle-box Calhoun and Bogus Bright'-—whether freedom is to be national and slavery sectional, or slavery national and freedom sectional—whether this great Republic is to go on prospering as in the days of Washington, Jefferson, Jackson and Clay, the beacon-light for the oppressed of all nations, and to which those fettered down by the chains of the despots of Europe look with longing eyes; £* . • or whether it is to degenerate into an immense slave oligarchy,riveting the manacles still tighter on the oppressed and down-tred-den. ’ . Freemen! We appeal to you to weigh well these matters, and then deposit your ballots as your conscience shall dictate, and for which you will be willing to answer to God for the consequence. Scrutinize the character of every candidate presented to you for your suffrages, and vote for no man unless you believe him to be honest and capable. Flingall partisan likes or dislikes to the winds, and select the men whom you know will serve the interests of their constituents the best. We say to men of all parties, as you love your country, vote for no man merely because he is the nominee of your party ;“t»ut vote for those only in whom you have the utniost confidence. If you will do this, and follow it up, we will have no corrupt political parties in our country, for they will know that the moment they stoop to fraud or trickery, in that moment they will lose the confidence «and support of the misses. The free and untrammeled liberty of the ballot-box is the greatest liberty which freemen can have, and they should guard it with jealous vigilance. Let not the cry “don’t scratch your tickets” deter you from doing right, but scratch every man, whatever party you belong to, if he does not come up to your standard of moral and political honesty. Freemen! Remember that if the Democratic State ticket, or Walker, McDonald or Snyder are elected, it will be heralded as another victory of Lecompton and the Administration. If but a tythe of the truth were known Concerning Mr. Buchanan’s management of the affairs of the General Government, and the frauds perpetrated upon the people of Kansas through the instigations of the Administration, the masses would desert the Democratic party by thousands. The President declared war against the j>eople of Kansas—took to his bosom the viper Calhoun and the notorious Jack Henderson, who did everything in their power to defeat the oft-expressed will of the majority in Kansas—he recalled Walker and Stanton, two honorable Southern men, because they endeavored to give the people of the Territory some show of fairness—he promised to the country that the people of Kansas should have the opportunity of voting for or against Jheir own Constitution, and that they should regulate their domestic affairs in their own way, and afterward endeavored to prove that he did not mean what he said—he removed postmasters for having the manhood to oppose the Lecompton swindle, while he retained others in office who were notoriously unfit for that position—he bribed Congressmen to- support Lecompton, by the promise of Federal patronage, who were wholly opposed to the swindle—he stooped so low in his vile career, that no transaction was too mean, no trick too dirty, no maneuver too contemptible, for him to perform in his mad attempt to subvert the i free institutions of the country-r-and he has attempted to force through Congress, by cracking the whip of party discipline, that

essense of corruption, fraud and villainy,the Lecompton Constitution. Freemen! We repeat, do your duty, and do it fearlessly, regardless of parly lines. Vote conscientiously, and all will be well.