Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 August 1876 — PROFESSION OF FAITH. [ARTICLE]

PROFESSION OF FAITH.

, . / 11 <■' ' After waiting until al! of the parties and factions into which the people of the United States are classified politically, have met in conventions, adopted platforms, and nominated candidates for the various offices to be filled next fall by popular suffrage; after waiting until these candidates have indicated in their letters and speeches of acceptance the lines of policy which they purpose to follow in the event of their success at the polls; after careful comparison of these enunciations after mature deliberation upon the probable results to the nation with either adopted; after reviewing the history of parties and the record of men—with pride, prejudice, self-interest, and every unworthy passion or motive restrained as much as possible— The Union is now ready, as an independent newspaper, to announce Its decision upon the men and the measures which figure prominently in the present political campaign. Perhaps no person who reads this article has given the subject of the issues which separate political parties at the present time closer scrutiny, or more careful study, than the writer. Perhaps, no one of them is surrounded by such a network of social and business complications. Probably none are so -peculiarly situated with reference to local political interests. And none are likely to be so directly, so immediately, or so permanently affected in business by any decision they may make. The Union can recognize in the field only two parties that have any prospect of success. These are the democratic and the republican partiaa— There is no probability that the independent-greenback party will carry a single state. Choice must therefore be made between republicanism and democracy as represented by .their traditions, their records, their tendencies, their platforms, .and their candidates. Believing this The Union pronounces unequivocally for the republican party, preferring its success to the success of the democratic party. It prefers the election of Messrs. Hayes and Wheeler to that of Messrs. Tilden and Hendricks, the triumph of the republican state ticket of Indiana to that of the democratic, ahd the election of Major Wm. H. Calkins to represent this district in congress rather than that of Dr. Haymond, unpledged as the latter is to any policy, creed or principle except that of winning in a race for office. And to secure these results The Union will labor with zealous industry.

As it is well known among the people of Jasper county that for two years past a bitter antagonism has been expressed by this paper to the republican party, or rather to the policy of its management, during which period The Union has acted in the role of a disorganizer, on account of which blows were struck by it and returned by individuals, newspapers and the local republican organization—with a libel suit for damages of 110,000, originating in this defection, now pending against it in the courts—with by far the largest and most valuable portion of the county public patronage controlled by those who are oppbsed to the republican party —with political sentiment so nearly equally divided that aprominent republican publishes in the Indianapolis Journal that the vote will be close in this county —without doubt there will be some curious to know what has wrought this abrupt and radical change of policy. First, then, as was before stated, there are only two parties in the field Which have any show of success. These are respectively the democratic and the republican parties. As the campaign advances there is a strong and constantly increasing tendency to narrow

the contest down W two or three issues, most vital of which is the question of the character of our government—whether the United States are a nation deriving its existence and power from the people, or a confederation depending upon the caprice of communities and state legislatures for its permanence. This was the question of underlying importance to us as a people which precipitated the civil war. The controlling element then and now of the democratic party, at that time took the position that a state might secede from the Union at pteaaure, and the northern wing of democracy, represented by President Shichanan, declared there was no power under the constitution to prevent secession althongh it would result in national destruction. Upon this issue an appeal was made to the sword for arbitration. The southern states democracy became aggressors and struck the first blow at the government. President Lincoln commanded them to return to peaceful submission to the laws, they refused to do so, and he called upon the people to suppress rebellion and assist in enforcing obedience. With only a small number of exceptions the prominent men of the northern wing of the democratic party opposed this action of the president, and continued their opposition to coercive measures throughout the period of rebellion. This conduct proved the party, north and south, to be thoroughly impregnated with the doctrine of state supremacy, that mother of rebellion aud prolific parent of an evil progeny. At St. Louis last June this democratic party of “fixed and unalterable principles” —this ty sovereignly antecedents and revolutionary tendencies —adopted a platform for the campaign of this centennial year of our national existence, which in one paragraph claims to accept the amendments to theiconstitutiou of the United States as a final settlement of the controversies that engendered civil war, while in the Very next sentence a door is set up for the evasion of these amendments and even the way ispaved for their destruction should the democratic party come into power. They acquiesce on “in the equality of all citizens before just laws of their own enactment-” but in ail debates they denounce the 13tb, 14th and 15th amendments to the constitution which establish this equality as arbitrary and illegal. They con tend that these are not just laws, that they were not enacted by the citizens of the states wherein they have> direct application, but that they were forced upon them at the point of the bayonet by the action of the people of states where conditions of society render them inoperative and of no direct effect. Following the sentence before alluded to is another which warns “a free people to practice that eternal vigilance which is the price o.f liberty.” As no acts of the general government except the suppression of rebellion and the subsequent measures of reconstruction are complained of by the democracy as interfering with the operations of liberty we take these expressions to be a strong intimation, though masked by a multiplicity of words, of an intention on their part to reopen “the controversies that engendered civil war.” In confirmation of this belief is the .character of the men whom they placed in nomination for president ■and vice president, as shown by indisputable record. Both Mr. Tilden and Mr. Hendricks were prominent, leading, active anti-war democrats. In 1864 the former gentleman was a member of a committee on resolutions which declared in their national convention at Chicago that the war was a failure. The latter gentleman, in a public speech which he delivered during the presidential campaign of that year, boasted

not intend to take part in the war then in progress against the rebels, nor would he advise any body else to go where he did not. It is also a further matter of record that as a member of the United States senate Mr. Hendricks voted against each one of those “amendments universally accepted as a final settlement of the controversies that engendered civil war,” thus placing himself before the world in the attitude of opposition to such a settlement. With these facts before us the conclusion seems irresistible that the stale sovereignty, anti-cen-tralization sentiment is making an effort to obtain control of the management of the general government fur the purpose of securing through diplomacy what they failed to accomplish by forcible means. This is the great issue of the present campaign. All other questions are dwarfed by comparison and obscured in its shadow. If the United States are a confederation of independent sovereignties and not an indissoluble government of the people, then Mr. Lincoln, all of the loyal states aud every soldier who fought under the stars and stripes were in the wrong; and the southern states, Mr. Tilden, Mr. Hendricks and the peace democracy were in the right. If these were right and those were wrong, it would be no more than justice to make proper reparation; and every dollar’s worth of property which people of the south lost by the war should be restored with interest; every emancipated black man, woman and child should be remanded to slavery, or his market value with interest returned to bis owner; every southern widow and orphan made so by the war and everydisabled southern 'soldier should be placed on . the pension rolls; the widows, orphans and disabled soldiers and seamen of the north should be stricken from the rolls and compelled to refund what they have received from the public treasury; the national debt which uras incurred on account of the war should be repudiated, and the Confederate debt assumed; the I3tb, 14th and 15th amendments to the constitution and every congressional enactment for reconstruction ought to be repealed; in short, if it is admitted that the south was right and the north wrong in their positions upon the question of state rights we must turn back tho progress of American civilization sixteen years and re-establish the relative positions of the two sections as nearly as possible as they were in antebellum times. At present The Union is not willing to assist in making this experiment. It is not yet prepared to believe that the loyal people of the north were wrong. It cannot endorsethe doctrine that our government is a weak confederation whose perpetuity is at the merey of the caprice of sections, states, communities, or ambitious men lusting for pow.er, titles and wealth. Therefore it cannot consent that any act of its own, however insignificant the circumscribed field of its influence might render it, shall assist in promoting to commanding positions those whose sympathies appear to lie in that direction.

Let no person be misled by this announcement. Let no one imagine for a moment that The Union is a republican organ. In no sense .is it a partisan sheet. It is a newspaper, absolutely independent of f all political or other organizations. It looks to no party for favors, it depends on none for its maintenance. Its pioprietors alone control its columns and direct its; policy. It is published by them for them selves alone. It reflects the sentiment of its editor primarily, of others secondarily. Having no friends to punish, no .enemies to reward. With mo aspirations of a political nature, possessing muscular strength to conquer a living with a wood saw if necessary, he

ean afford to indulge in the luxury of free thought and free debate. If with this distinct understanding any person in Jasper county or abroad would like to become a patron of The Union’s, it will afford its proprietors much gratification to enroll his name on their books; if any naw receiving it is offended at tbia policy, or from any other cause desires to “stop his. paper” we have not the least objection to his doing so. till The action of the foreign affaire committee on the Venezuela swindle in reference to Mr. Orth, is worthy of praise. The committee ordered airreferences to Mr. Orth, in their report, to be stricken out, for the reason that Mr. Orth “has “from the canvass in Indiana. "—LaFayette Dispatch (Dem.) If the information received by The Union is correct, the action of the committee on foreign affairs in this Venesuela investigation is corrupt and partisan. With Mr. Orth out of the canvass their object has been accomplished, and the sham investigation will proceed no further. Those reform investigators dare not proceed any further with this case for fear of discovering two or three, or more, prominent democrats implicated with Mr. Orth. Rumor says that no less important personages than the Hon. Daniel W. Vorhees, candidate fur elector at large, on the Indiana democratic ticket, and Hon. S. F. Cary, independent-green-back candidate for viee president of the United States, both have peculiar personal reasons, for desiring tl uh investigation to cease. In deference to the wishes .of the Vorhees and Cary class of reformer nothing further will be done in the Venezuela matter while “the canvass in Indiana” is in progress. Oh! such glorious reform! Such saintly reformers!

If any democratic voter can derive pleasure from the proceedings of a convention run by a who would “see the democratic-party in heirfttjthfr “||an a pidgeon could fly iu a wefile”, before he would vote for one of them to fill any office in the gift of the people, a gentleman who declares he wont vote fpr Tilden, nor Hendricks, nor honest Uncle Jinimey Williams, a gentleman who “sot the megs to bust” every d—luded democrat who was before his convention for nomination —that is to siqy,. if any democrat enjoys such proceedings and.hives that kind of a boss, it is<Jus own private affair with which no other ma® has any right to interfere. It js one of those liberties of individual .conduct which should be uhvexed by -sumptuary laws.

There seems to be more tillainy in the Venezuela business than the country Was looking for. Qodlove B- Orth it seems w not the only person involved in this swindle upon ( thU little Republic, nor is h« tbs only guilty party. Prominent jmlitifiian* from Indiana seemed to have afmgor in the same pje, and been as deep in the mud as Orth was ip the mjre. Springer’s Cota: mjttee has received a ’bundle of letters and evidence of the most direct character, flout the t-rether of ex-Auditor Wildman, bf this State, which fully corroborates the evidrtice already token by (be Committee, besides disclosing the names of other parties in this State not heretofore named in connection with the gigantic swindle. Let us have all the light upon this nef*n> ious transaction, no matter who may be.involved, and if they are leading politician* who have beau treated by the people and plnced in public positions of honor and trust, let them be compelled by those whose confidence thev have betrayed imitate the example or Orth, and retire from pubs lie service,— Winatnac Democrat. You mean Mr. Daniel W. Vorbees, don’t you, doctor? and Mr. S. F. Cary? Let no guilty man escape. Gen. Judson Kilpatrick will apeak at Rensselaer in the interest of the republican party, on the 25th instant, and at the Walker school house on the evening of the 26th.