Rensselaer Gazette, Volume 3, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 September 1859 — Why Germans and Intelligent Laboring Men are Republicans. [ARTICLE]

Why Germans and Intelligent Laboring Men are Republicans.

Tl-e German Republicans of Wheeling, Va., gave a musical serenade on the 29th ult., to Senator Caldwell, who lives three miles and a half from the city, to signify the great gratification which it gave them to Itarn of the honpiable p sition which nad been recently tendered him, and which still more honorably and manfully he had accepted, in the ranks of the great Republican party.” “ No wonder,” said the Senator in reply, “ that you Germans and other laboring men, feel an interest in the progress and in the final ascendency oi the principles o: the Republican party. It is emphatically the party of the white laboring men in this country. While the Democratic party is the favorite party of the aristocratic element in our Government, while it promotes the interest and follows the dicta of the oligarchical body of Southern s uveholders, to the prejudice of the in:erest of free white workingmen, the Republican party lias made the Interest of our workingmen, of our small producers in the soil and in tiie workshops, its fundamental basis. It was a nuzzle to'him bow any man who wrought with his hands, ami wiio valued the dignity of the sweat o- his brow, could waver in his choice between the principles of the two great parties. Free labor never could be honorable, never could command that respect to which it was entitled, whenever it was discriminated against, as between it and slave labor. Whenever it was degraded to the level of compulsory slave labor, or as it had been by the Democratic party, subordinated, it must partake of the degradations of slave labor. Every man ought to be able to see this. The great principles of the Republican party were the same that Henry Clay had contended for in his life time, viz: encouragement to the labor of free white working men, whether tillers of the soil, mechanics or manufacturers. So plain were these facts becoming in the eyes of the people, and so tired were they now of the disasters and prostrations which have been brought upon the industrial interests of the country, through the principles of tI)C Democratic party, that they are about to rise up in their strength and hurl their oppressors from the places which they have so unworthily occupied.”