"As the smoke of battle rises from the field and reveals the condition of contending parties in the late great struggle, we are reminded of a duty, in the performance of which we may give offence, but which our independence prompts us to discharge, or forego the pleasure of pointing to the moral of the result. This moral is constituted by the fact that the people of Pennsylvania have fully vindicated their local interests, and hereafter the labor which comprises their wealth and strength, will be recognized and respected in every part of the Union. There is no denying the fact that a certain class of men were actively engaged in efforts to suppress the sentiment in favor of this labor. There is no concealing, also, the truth that an effort was made to stifle the voice of labor in favor of its own elevation and protection, for the purpose of gratifying a base lust for money by appeasing a Southern slave oligarchy and attracting the trade of the South to the doors of certain warehouses in the city of Philadelphia. The merchants of Market Street arrayed themselves against the mechanics of Pennsylvania, and they have by this time discovered not only their mistake, but the difference in the power and will of men when actuated by pure and patriotic motives. The mechanics and working men of the Keystone State appreciated Pennsylvania's wants and necessities. They believed that the result of the Gubernatorial election involved the prospects of free labor all over the country, and actuated by this faith the threw aside all selfish feeling or grovelling fear, and struck a noble blow in vindication of themselves and their toiling brethren throughout the Union. It was the Union of labor against a combination of all cliques - against the united efforts of the leaders of all parties - against the force and power and patronage of the federal government, and in defiance of the threats and denunciation of imported federal officeholders, traversing the State from the lakes to the rivers, retailing base slanders against the men and measures of the Republican party, and insulting decent men with the grossest assaults on their interests and cherished institutions of independence. When a people are actuated by such a love of freedom, when labor rises thus gloriously to its own vindication, and when a State thus greets her sister States, and assured them of her devotion to their compacts and their union, it certainly teaches a moral which there is not mistaking, and a lesson which will never be forgotten by those who have sought to compromise free labor by making it subservient to slavery.
All honor, then, to the working men and mechanics of Pennsylvania! All honor to the people, because they have triumphed over the politician. This is the summing up of the result. Opposed by the leaders of every clique and combination in the State, tempted by the money of New York and Philadelphia merchants, threatened by the vindictiveness of a crazy federal administration, environed and slandered by apostate and traitor, the people have triumphed - REPUBLICAN PRINCIPLES HAVE BEEN SUSTAINED AND VINDICATED, AND THE RIGHT OF LABOR TO PROTECTION ESTABLISHED AS PART OF THE JUST POLICY OF THIS GOVERNMENT. And this is the moral, as we discover it, in the result of the Gubernatorial election of Pennsylvania!"
"Never before, in the history of this country, was the necessity of a political party organized on the principles of Republicanism more paramount and apparent. We have arrived at a juncture when it becomes necessary to define and declare what are the rights of labor, what is the meaning of liberty, and who are entitled to the uses and benefits of the resources of this hemisphere. The Democratic party is not able longer to meet the issues of the age - its leaders have been corrupted by power, as the aristocracies of Europe are made imbecile and overbearing by the privileges of birth - the cliques which heretofore rallied to its support have been attracted from its organization as their center, and now roam in the political marts in quest of purchasers, or come into furious collision as they cross each other's paths of plunder. Thus contending and thus arrayed, the cliques that oppose the Republican party do so because every success of that party lessens their gains and curtails their power. The Republican party accomplishes these great objects in its struggle - the curtailing and lessening of a corrupt gain and power has had a tendency to render that organization radical - but it is the radicalism induced by the fanaticism of those by whom they are antagonized, and made necessary by the importance and stupendous character of the crisis in which the whole country is involved. The conservatism that attempts to elevate free labor to the right of holding free territory has proven abortive too frequently when opposed to the meek zeal of the slavery propaganda. With the advocates of slavery there is no compromise when in a majority - their concessions are only made when they cannot rule - and their radicalism rules whenever they are in a majority. The acquisition of all the territory we possess, from the purchase of Louisiana from the French, to the warlike wrestling of California and New Mexico from the Spanish, proves how ardently they protect their own peculiar institution, and how little they are for the real progress and wealth of the country, or the improvement and elevation of the labor which prompts and produces that progress and wealth. It proves, too, that the influence of the slave power antagonizes every other influence of moral or political good, seeking the prostration of the powers of government to its benefit, and leaving no effort untried that promises to consolidate their own powers, while it diminishes the power of all free influences on this hemisphere.
The Republican party now struggles to meet and defeat the opposition of this slave influence whenever it shows itself beyond the limits where its own compromises confined and declared it forever remain. It not only struggles to prevent the extension of such an influence, but its highest aim and object is to improve and elevate free labor. Every act of its existence proves the truth of this assertion. The integral principles of its organization all tend to the attainment of such an object - and when once that policy is fairly established in the government of this nation, our national peace and prosperity will never be interrupted. No sane man will deny that all the evils that religion and civilization ever suffered sprang from a system of human bondage. Slavery has impeded the development and progress of civilization in every clime while it has dimmed the bright glory and corrupted the pure spirit of religion wherever it has been recognized. If it is not a noble work to struggle against such an institution, then is all effort for principle idle labor, while truth and justice and religion are only the sign manuals of the exclusive few, for the purpose of oppressing and degrading the unfortunate of every race. If it is not a noble work to stay its spread, and prepare for the gradual emancipation of those who are bowed down by its yokes, or groan beneath its lashes, then are human efforts for humanity useless and futile. If it is beneath the government to bend its energies to benefit labor, then is government only a theoretical compact for the use of the strong and the abuse of the weak. But all these presumptions have been dissipated by what we have a right to term the radicalism of the Republican creed -- radical when humanity suffers from injustice - radical when labor seeks protection - and radical when the peace and harmony and perpetuity of this Union are threatened from an intestine or a foreign foe. And for these principles we struggle."