"It is very well for effect political organization, after their power and glory have departed, to deprecate the practices for the propriety of which they have always contended while clothed with power to make those practices subserve party ends. But that this late awakening to virtue and righteousness is at al indicative of true repentance and a determination to lead a better life, is not at all certain.
It does very well for the free-trade Democracy to raise the cry now, that the subject of Protection should not be made the hobby of any party. It is the practice of that party to cry up everything that can be made useful in winning success, and to repudiate the same whenever it fails to put power and the public purse at the mercy of unscrupulous leaders. It does very well; but it looks very like demagoguism.
The flexibility of the principles of the Shamocracy is proverbial. In `44 it was loud-mouthed in favor of Protection in the mining districts of this State, while, at the same time, it was ultra free-trade in the South, where Protection is not favorable to slave labor. In `56 it trained under the banner of `Free Kansas,' in the free soil districts, while it swore by the Dred Scott Decision and incipient Lecompton south of Mason and Dixon's line. Experience has demonstrated fully, that there is no villainy to which it will not resort for the satisfaction of its inordinate lust for power and plunder, as well as that there is no virtue with which it will not seek to disguise itself, the while it plots the destruction of the liberties of the people.
Therefore it is, that just at this time its organs and its leaders are filled with holy horror and indignation because the Opposition manifests a disposition to make Protection to Home Industry an issue in the campaign of 1860. That nay party should presume to undertake the advocacy of Protection is, to them, a presumption without precedent, as well as utterly indefensible. It will not do, say they, to drag this important question into the arena of partisan strife. Their true reason why it will not do to make it a party question is left for some one else to give; and if the reader will bear with us a moment, we will try to give it briefly.
Since 1854, that party has had no strength in the North, and to-day it presents such a spectacle of demoralization as is not often witnessed in the ranks of a party wielding the public sword and dispensing a nation's patronage. The election of James Buchanan lent it a factitious vitality only. It is not probable that it could carry a single Free Sate to-day, with all the lever power of patronage at its command. The truth is that its entire dependence is placed on the disunionists of the South, who, if united, can wheel every slave State into the Shamocratic line. But this strength is not is unconditional. It can count upon that strength and support only so long as its dough-faced leaders obediently fetch and carry for their Southern masters. With the first symptom of rebellion the lords of the lash will abandon these cringing leaders to their fate, and the last remnant of the once great and powerful Democratic party will disappear forever.
The great care of that party now is, that the aid of its free-trade and negro-breeding allies may not be forfeited. Its engineers very well know that if they dare to champion Protection, a division of the party must take place on Mason and Dixon's line. Such a division would be death to the hopes of every doughface - irrevocable death, for, as just stated, modern Democracy has not strength in the Free States.
The Southern States have no immediate interest in a tariff for Protection; their citizens are not largely engaged in mining and manufacturing as are the citizens of our good old Commonwealth, and do not desire to engage in those pursuits for obvious reasons, which, however, will suggest themselves to every thinking man, and therefore need not be mentioned here. Knowing this, the leaders of the party in power dare not make common cause for Protection in their journals or in their platforms of principles.
And thus that party stands before the country clamoring, through their Southern masters, for a Protective Slave Code in the Territories, and not daring to espouse the cause of Protection to Home Industry. The excuses of its organs come too late. It has put itself on record in Pennsylvania."
Hatred of every species of oppression is characteristic of a free-born people. In proportion as Labor rises in the scale of respectability and honor in a community, will the sentiment of that community, be arrayed against the abridgement of personal, political, and religious liberty without just cause. To enlighten men is to make them uncompromisingly hostile to artificial distinctions of caste; for knowledge gives breadth and tone to the perceptions, and inspires judgment with sentiments of justice.
The free schools and libraries; the various societies for the diffusion of useful knowledge, and more than all, perhaps, the free press of the North, has bred an inextinguishable hatred of oppression in the Northern heart. And this hatred of oppression cannot be exorcised by tyrannical edicts; nor can it be rooted out except at the cost of the mental, moral and physical liberties of the people. We rejoice that this is so; and we are proud to know that nowhere in the world is labor awarded so great honor as in the NOrth. If labor be the foundation of national prosperity and happiness, it should be awarded the highest place in public esteem.
It is not enough to say that Slavery degrades labor; it outlaws labor from the fold of respectability. The laborer, seen in his true position, is the creator of national greatness. Degraded by the system of Slavery he becomes the creature of individual selfishness, a mere machine in the hands of a mercenary aristocracy. It is this fact, revealed by reason and observation, which underlies the inextinguishable hatred of Slavery now so patent everywhere in the North.
Can a charge of sectionalism be made and sustained upon this controlling hatred of oppression in the Northern mind? We deny it. A sentiment so powerful for the elevation of Labor everywhere, cannot be section. The interests of Labor in South Carolina nd in Pennsylvania are identical. Strike a blow at the interests of Labor there, and the concussion will be felt throughout the length and breadth of the country. These interests are so interwoven with world-wide interests, that any indignity put upon them, degrades every vocation in so much(?). Such is the testimony of experience, running through centuries of time.
Therefore, the charge of sectionalism urged against the Republican or People's party, by the enemies of home Industry, are false. If a war against free trade and the spread of Slavery be war upon the South, then our party is guilty. But we deny that a war against these wrongs is a war against any section, or a war against the constitutional rights of any State.- Superficial observers may declare that it is a conflict of interest. But he who looks beneath the surface of things will find that there can be real conflict of interests in a government like ours, while its purity remains unsullied.The interest of each individual is the interest of the community of which he is a member; and the interest of one State is the interest of every State in the Union. Slavery is a curse, no matter where it prevails. It curses not only the slave, but the master as well. The Republican party does not propose to remove it from the States where it exists by law; but it does propose to resist its extension over the public domain, by every constitutional means.
In the same spirit of justice to the interests of the many, it proposes to throttle free trade until it shall loose the grasp which has paralyzed the Industry of the entire country. It proposes to do battle for both of these great objects until they shall be attained. From these positions it will not be driven by the charge of sectionalism, preferred by journals supported out of the corruption fund at Washington; nor will it be frightened from its high purpose by the howl of disunion. The rank and file of the People's party are prepared to do right, and abide the consequences.
The Shamocratic party has waged a bitter war against the laboring man for twenty-five years. Not content with snatching the bread from his lips, it now proposes to make the working man the property of the Capitalist. We shall see how that proposition will be responded to by the working men next fall.