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NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

No. CCLXII.

MAY JUNE, 1878.
MAY-JUNE,

I.

IS THE REPUBLICAN PARTY IN ITS DEATHSTRUGGLE?

MR. JULIAN'S article in the last number of this REVIEW has an interest extrinsic to the subject and to the author, but derived from the relation of the author to the subject. De Quincey was neither a murderer nor an artist, but he ventured to discuss murder as an art. An older genius than De Quincey, who was an artist, it is said, became a murderer, that he might the more vividly portray on canvas the agony of death. It is not fair to conclude that Mr. Julian helped to murder the Republican party for the purpose of administering to his literary reputation. But, having for other reasons done his best to assassinate the party, he now aspires to see how much fame he can achieve by describing the contortions of his victim.

The article is a little broader than the title. It undertakes to sketch the birth-throes as well as the death-struggle of the Republican party. The author enjoys some advantages for discussing the first, which he lacks for treating the last, theme. He undoubtedly witnessed the birth of the Republican party, but it is not sure he has yet seen its death. He stood by its cradle, and may think he is now following its hearse; but there is reason to hope it is another vehicle he is trailing after.

The analysis given of the Republican party is nearly correct.

It was composed of fragments rent from other and preexisting organizations. The best of its constituent elements, we are told, was that contributed by the "Free-Soil party." A flush of enthusiasm is perceptible when the author refers to that organization. "No purer party ever existed than that which was composed of the permanent adherents of the organization."

That statement derives an air of probability from the fact that the reviewer himself entered the Republican party with that communion. And yet we hesitate to accept his estimate, for he seems to be slightly confused as to the identity of the Free-Soil party. He introduces it to us as the party born in 1848, and cradled in Buffalo. An ambition to appear younger than we are is quite common, but the Free-Soil party existed long before 1848.

On the 13th of November, 1839, a convention was held at Syracuse, New York, which nominated candidates for President and Vice-President, and which resolved:

"That, in our judgment, every consideration of duty and expediency which ought to control the action of Christian freemen, requires of the abolitionists of the United States to organize a distinct and independent political party embracing all the necessary means for nominating candidates for office, and sustaining them by public suffrage."

The Whig party held no national convention until the December following. The Democratic party held none until 1832. So it seems the Free-Soil party is almost as old as the Democratic party, and older than the Whig party.

From those three organizations the material was drawn which, nearly twenty years later, was welded into the Republican party.

There is but little profit in reopening the old debate as to whether the Whig, the Free-Soiler, or the Democrat, was the purer patriot. All discharged a manifest duty in 1856 when they ceased to struggle separately and hopelessly against different wrongs, and combined against the monster wrong of that time. It seems fair to conclude that all who did their duty then would have done their duty earlier had they known it earlier. But the extra quality of those who entered the Republican party with the Free-Soil brand is now asserted by way of excusing