Rensselaer Gazette, Volume 3, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 June 1859 — Political. [ARTICLE]

Political.

IN ICCCENN C’* isfift A IH;T¥« | We insist that that it is—not only a duty which Republicans owe to their party, but. higher even than this, to thei. country. Five years more of such m-srule as the Nation has groaned under for the past seven, would J cover it with such dishorn r, and so tarnish its escutcheon, that the title of “an American citizen” would lose the proud distinction it once possessed; and so tar as the rights of i Freedom are concerned, the united power of ' al! three branches of the G .vernment, Executive, Legislative and Judicial, arrayed as two ol them has been tor years, for their overthrow would probably, bv 1865, have | accomplished their subjugation. It is evi dent enough to watchful observers ot the political currents that the . De nocracy are resolved, if possible, to be united in 1860— that the imminent danger ot'defeat will alarm the jarrii g Tactions in their ranks into an assumed harmony in their endeavors to prevent the scepter ‘of power passing from them—that the most moderate Sou hern man, whom the Oligarchy believe or know they can use, will probably be presented as their candidate—thut the intended plans of the leaders will be kept in the background, and a pretended rm derat ion feined—butthat if victorv is again won by these hy; ocritical professions, as it was by their Popular Sovereignty and Fair Play to Kansas asseverations in 1856. they will see to it that, before another Presidential election, the new fastnesses of Slavery shall be so forfeited as to be impregnable. We are only reading the Future from the Book of the Past. In 1852 they carried Pierce into the Presidential Chair on their pro essions that Slavery aggitations should never be renewed in. Congress “on any pretext whatever;'' and the chief feature of his Administration, faithless to all its pledges, was the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and the Reign of Terror, of Prosecutions and Persecu ions in Kansas, striving to conquer the prejudices of its settlers against an Institution they hated. When the people were ready to pronounce judgment on Gen.. Pierce in 1856, the sagacious leaders of the party, haying finisljed their use of him, threw him overboard and nominated Mr. Buchanaq in his stead, who was commended to the people as a conservative Statesman,pledged to do justice to Kansas, justice to all sections ol the Union, who was out of the country when the Missouri Compromise was repealed,ai d would unquestionably avoid the errors of his predecessor.

The people confided in them again—elected him—and Lecompton, Dred Scottism. the re-opening of the slave trade, the stringent execution of odious laws at the North, while Southern men, taken in the very act of piracy, go free, a vast national debt of two hundred millions proposed for the strengthening of the slave power—these are the striking features es his administration. Could any man on either election day haVe pr°dicted the monstrous outrage which Democratic success on those day's was to give birth to? So also in iB6O, alth- ugh their fear of defeat will probably compel the Democratic leaders to smooth over and conceal their design*, their success will inevitably result in longer and more alarming strides in their pro-slavery descent. Thousand will not believe, as in past years they refused io believe, till the Oligarchy again r-move the veil and strike! But when they see the Lemon case between New York and Virginia still pending undecided in the U. S. Supreme Court, which has proved itself in the Dred Scott case, ready for any desired political decision—when they reflect that that case involves the right of slaveholders to bring their slaves into Iree States without let or hindrance, and that that Court has already prepared the way by d -ciding that the Constitution of the United States, (which of course overrides all State Constitutions.) gives this unrestricted privilege in the Territories—when they see the Democratic efforts to repeal our neutrali y Jaws, which would make our flag the flag of every bandit on every sea—when they bear the demands of Conventions in that section whose demands the present Democratic party never dare to ignore, that all laws prohibiting the infamous and accursed Slave Trade shall be not c.r.ly nullified as they are now, but aiso repealed—when they- have already heard the appeals of a Democratic President that lie should be clothed with the war-making power, and the Key of the Treasury also placed in his hand, to acquire "by the Sword or the Purse, more Slave Territory—the People will learn after 1860, if they give this party a new lease of power, that its leaders will fathom profounder depths of political iniquity than ever before. We hold then that Success is a Duty which we owe nut only to Republican Prin- < iples, t ut to our Age and Country—and that any concession, short of Principle, necessary to insure that success, is not only wise and expedient, hut also patriotic’and obligatory.

How shall that success be assured? We cotincel no surrender of principles, no > abandonment of our organization, no over-1 ture to unite with any portion ot the Oppo-. sition who may profess to be more pro-slave-ry thanthe Democracy themselves; but we protest, it it can be avoided, against there being again, as in 1856 a division of the Opposition in the States which are to decide the Presidential contest,and a renewal,thereby, of the lease of ill-used p«wer which our opponen’s have thus obtained. Hundreds of thousands of voters, not yet enrolled in our ranks, sympathize with us in our desire to prevent the extension of slavery beyond its present, limits; and, to be mor, particular, we allude to those men of whom Horace F. Clark. Ilask n.H i, kinan. Broderick. &.C., are the types on the • ne hand, and Edward Bates’ J ihn Bell, .L y Morris and Washington Hunt are the type on the other. Shull we foster and promote their union with us in the workol overthrowing the Dem >cracv, <>r shall we repel all union, und (ruin an ;er estimate, perhaps, of our own strength, hazard a success that with wise ccunceis is already in our grasp! Vv e differ somewhat from these ardent cotemporaries who demand the nomination oftheir favorite“representative man,” whether popular or unpopuh-r, and who insist that this must be done, "even it we are defeated.” We do agree with them in declaring that we shall go for no man who does m>t prefer Free L ibor and its extension »o Slav- Labor and its extension; who, th< ugh mindful of the imp rtiality which should characterize the Executive of the whole U .ion, will not fail to rebuke all new plots for making the Government the propagandist of slavery, and compel promptly and efficiently that horrible slave trade which the whole civilized world has banned as infamous, piratical as<l accursed. But in a Republican National ConI vention, it any man can be found, North, South, East, or West, whose life and whose avowals, rendered him unquestionably safe upon these questions, and who could yet poll one, two,or three hundred thousand votes more than any one else, we believe it would be both wisdom and duty, patriotism and policy, to nominate him by acclamution, and thus render the contest an assured success from its very opening. Ina word, if heroic old Zack Taylor were alive, although he might not be technically a straight Republican, we should most cheerfully tote for him for President, as we did once before. But to this another class of objecters reply,"we have a Republican majority elected to Congress, and have thus proved our power to elect any one we please.” But to this we answer, that ot the four battle ground ! Mates, two of them, Pennsylvania and New I Jersey, were carried last fall only by a union ;of the Opposition, and that the Republican I Senator gained in the latter State was the i fruit ot that union, but which a straight ReI publican issue w< uld invariably have thrown away. And Indiana and Illinois, the other two, were really about drawn buttles, though in each of these States we had the aid of a few thousand votes outside of our own ranks. Nor is it litterally true that the Republicans have secured a majority in Congress. Even with the two members from Minnesota, whom we hope for, the House can only be organized by the plurality rule, as in 1855, or"by a union of the Opposition. Out of 237- rqembers 119 is a majority; and there are elected thus far 104 Republicans, 8 North Americans, who will probably vote • with

them, (Carter and Briggs, of New York, NiXon and Stratton, of New Jersey,and Joy Morris, Verree, Millward and Wood, of Pennsylvania, all elected on union tickets,s and 8 anti-Lecompton Democrats (Davis, of Indiana, Adrain and Riggs, of New Jersey, Clark, Haskin and Reynolds, of New Yu.k, Hickman and Schwartz, of Pennsylvania:) not counting the 5 Douglasites of Illinois, and Montgomery of Pennsylvania, whom, as regular Democratic nominees, we fear will be found forgetting their anti-Le-comptonism at the door of the Democratic

caucus,-

St. Jo. Register.