Rensselaer Gazette, Volume 3, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 March 1860 — THE “IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT." [ARTICLE]

THE “IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT."

While the monarchies of Europe are plodding along in the beaten track of ‘ precedents,” it is the province of the United States to carve out fer itself a hitherto untrodden path through the wilderness of dogma, ideas and principles hourly being evolved, or rather brought to light, in the brains of her millions of free-thinkers. While the statesmen of the Old World are lookin backward for landmarks emblazoned along the pathway of time by tiieiy ancesters, by which to govern the people; it is the province of the people of ‘he New World to look forward along the pathway of human progress, and therefrom evolve principles for the direction of their statesmen. These two systems of government are ever contending for the supremacy, in every civilized nation; but the more is this observable in absolute monarchies, where occasionally the progressive element—the people—try by force of arms to throw ofl'the aristocratic, the conservative chains that are coiled around them.

It is only within a few years that this aristocratic element has shown itself in our midst with any degree of power. A Government that was of itself an original idea, was but a sorry plan to introduce worn-ous systems; a nation whose fundamental principles of confederation recognized the equality of all mankind was but a sorry system for au aristocracy to be buih up under, and attempt not only to lead but coerce the masses. But to-day these two elements stand arrayed against eacli other in our government, with almost the iil feeling o! the feudal times. Each have entered the Congress of our nation with a principle indicative of the class from which it emanated and whose interests it is intended to subserve. Each of these interests—each ol these elements is repre- j sented by one of the great parties of the j day; thus, while the Republican House has j before it a bill to provide a homestead for every free white man in the nation who is homeless, and while “free homes for the homeless” will be inscribed upon every Republican banner during the coming canvass, the Democratic party will he found laboring—it may be silently, in the free : tates — insiduousiy, and as efiectively as now, for the irdorseinent of the principles of“niggers for the nigerless” by the people of the United States.

i “Free homes for the homeless!” Free j : from the blighting curse of slavery; free from j ; the withering simoom thut has swept over | every Sta.o where a slave lias trodden; free j • from the curse of that not much less evi!— j the land speculator; free, peculiarity, to eve- ■ ry houseless, homeless son of Adam who longs for an “abiding interest” in the world | which God gave to the race. What more glorious object could engage the attention of the people’s legislators? What would tend more to elevate the masses; to spread free schools all over our Western prairies, than to put a free man on every quarter section of : the two thousand millions of acres of the then free land! Place, in comparison with this, the pet scheme of the Democracy, the aristocratic element of our Government, as foreshadowed i in the action of the Democratic members of j the Senate, in February, 1859, who choked down the Homestead bill with a bill for the acquisition of Cuba, and the more recent action ot the same Honorable gentlemen in passing the following resolution before a caucus meeting, with only two dissenting I voices—Douglus and his man Pugh: “Resolved, That neither Congress, nor a i Territorial Legislature, whether by direct j legislation, or legislation of indirect and i unfriendly nature, possess tbs. power to anI nul or impair the constitutional right of any | citizen of the United States to take his slave ! property into the common territories; but it ! is the duty of the Federal Government to afford for that, as for other species of property, the needful protection, and if experience should at any time prove that the Judiciary dees not possess power to insure adequate protection, it will then become tise duty of Congress to supply such deficiedcy.”

Here, then, are the two opposing elements of our government brought face to face in in the Congress of the United States, each advocating the principle that will tend toward its own advnncem; nt —“Free homes for free men,” ay the people—rthe progressive element; and a “Slave Code for the Territories,” by the Aristocracy—the conservative element. Between these two principles, the people of Indiana will be called upon to choose in October next, and again in November. “Free homes for the homeless” is engraved all over the Republican standard by every action of the party. In that in Feb., 1859, it passed the House, every Republican voting tor it except one; in that it is now again before that body, having been introduced by the Republican Committee on Territories, of which Mr. Grow is, Chairman; in that it was introduced in the Senate in February, 1859, by Doolittle (Rep.,) and on motion of Slidell, (Dem.i) was choked down to give place to the Cuba bill; in that the State Republican Convention of Indiana, in Fehruary, 1880, indorsed the action ol the House. So lias many other State ar.d county Conventions; and it is now one of the acknowledged principles of the party lor the campaign of 1860, and every succeeding campaign until they get control of the government and accomplish it. The resolution presented above is copied nlmost verbatim from the late message of the President, and has thus far been indorsed by the highest Democratic authori-

ty, and may therefore be considered good Democratic doctrine. Men of Jasper county, which side of the “irrepressible conflict” will you lake! Will you indorse “free homes for the homeless,” for the sake of Northern Freenjen—Northern laborers, or will you vote for a “Slave Code for the Territories,” at the nod of Southern aristocracy!