Radical Republicans

“ It is not likely that the Republicans will carry all before them without a check; but though one Conservative reaction may follow another, although time after time the Democrats may return victorious from the fall elections, in the end Radicalism must inevitably win the day. A party which takes for its watch-word, “The national good,” will always beat the Constitutionalists. ”

“ A nucleus has been established around which all shades of Republican opinion can rally with the good hope of destroying the despotism that has virtually ostracized the best Republicans of the State from influential participation in national politics. ”

“ In fact, no party desires good government. The first object of the reactionary party is to keep down the Republicans; the second, if it be the second, object of each branch of that party, is to keep down the two others. The object of the Republicans is, as they admit, égalité—but as for liberty, or security, or education, or the other ends of government, no one cares for them."'
It was the passion for Equality that made the Second Empire possible. ”

“ Republicans, if you claim the right to be severe on your opponents, you must be no less severe against yourselves. Let the Republican organization be a permanent investigating committee, watching its own members, and let it be understood that, if it is not a sufficient excuse for a scoundrel to be a Democrat, a scoundrel is, in your eyes, ten times more damnable if he pretends to be a Republican. ”

“ The Republicans?"
"Republicans or Anarchists, whatever they be called; the blind and immoral mob that has been misled by wretches to destroy their motherland."
"Look here, Dacre, do you really mean to say that Republicanism is immoral and unnatural?"
"Certainly; that is just what I mean."
"But look at America—the happiest, richest, most orderly and yet the most populous country in the world."
"I speak of Republicanism in England, not in America."
"But where is the difference?" persisted Geoffrey. "If the universal suffrage of the people be virtue in America, how can it be vice in England?" ”

“ I have used the word Republican because it is the name by which this atrocious faction describes itself. The assumption of that name is one of their crimes. They are no more Republicans than Royalists. They are the common enemies of all human society. God forbid that by the use of that word I should be supposed to reflect on the members of those respectable Republican communities which did exist in Europe before the French Revolution. That Revolution has spared many monarchies, but it has spared no republic within the sphere of its destructive energy. ”

“ The spirit of our American radicalism is destructive and aimless: it is not loving; it has no ulterior and divine ends, but is destructive only out of hatred and selfishness. On the other side, the conservative party, composed of the most moderate, able, and cultivated part of the population, is timid, and merely defensive of property. ”

“ We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans; we are all Federalists. If there be any among us who wish to dissolve this Union, or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated, where reason is left free to combat it. I know, indeed, that some honest men fear that a republican government cannot be strong; that this government is not strong enough. ”

“ The fact is patent, and the matter is clear as that the sun shines over the earth at mid-day—to the mind of every intelligent being who can see or read—that the opponents of the Republican party, in the guise of Ku Klux Klans, supported unblushingly by the “Union Democracy” of the country, and their Democratic allies, are the combined movers, operators, sustainers and abettors of this crusade, and that their first and last and continuous aim and hope is to weaken or destroy the Radical sentiment in the land. ”

“ Listening to the doctrines of expediency and compromise with pity, impatience, and disgust, they have everywhere broken into demonstrations of the wildest enthusiasm when a brave word has been spoken in favor of equal rights and impartial suffrage. Radicalism, so far from being odious, is not the popular passport to power. The men most bitterly charged with it go to Congress with the largest majorities, while the timid and doubtful are sent by lean majorities, or else left at home. ”

“ I mean those who, without any love for Rebels or their cause, are yet so fearful of being called Republicans that they refuse to support the Government. Can you justify yourself in standing upon such a platform? Is this a time in which to permit your old party animosities to render you indifferent to the honor and welfare of the nation? Are you simply in the position of a violent partisan out of office, eager to embarrass the Administration, and keenly on the watch to discover how best to inflame the prejudices of the populace against the Government? ”

“ But, faithful to the true Republican faith, there is not one among them who, for his personal advancement, would deprive any other human being of his rights.
Republicans, you are not exempt from the laws which govern political life. When a party once falls under the control of politicians who care more for spoils and plunder than for their plighted faith and the common good, or who are too narrow-minded to progress with the requirements of the new order of things, then it is time that such a party should pass through a process of purification. ”

“ On these great moral issues the Republican party was right, and the men who were opposed to it, and who claimed to be the radicals, and their allies among the sentimentalists, were utterly and hopelessly wrong. This had, regrettably but perhaps inevitably, tended to throw the party into the hands not merely of the conservatives but of the reactionaries; of men who, sometimes for personal and improper reasons, but more often with entire sincerity and uprightness of purpose, distrusted anything that was progressive and dreaded radicalism. ”

“ We have you by the throat and mean to hold you so.” If this be really the spirit of the Republicans in power the people will soon conclude that they are a public danger and a nuisance and ought to be got rid of at any cost. ”

“ On the one hand we are Republicans on principle, in that we demand a government in the interest of all and of no favored order, by the highest available capacity, without reference to birth, or wealth, or class. ”

“ And I venture to predict, that the time is not very far when those will be looked upon as the truest Republicans who did not hesitate to expose themselves to suspicion and vituperation and obloquy in order to relieve the Republican cause of this most intolerable burden—for the Republican party will be once more the party of independent men. ”

“ What shall be said of the statecraft, every act of which sows torments, discontent, or race hatred, and reveals a conception of republicanism under which the only privilege of the majority of the people is to provide the revenue, and to bear insult, while only those are considered Republicans who speak a certain language, and in greater or less degree share the prejudices of the ruling classes? ”

“ Yes, real Republicanism is certainly a very fine thing, and your real Radicals and Republicans are certainly very fine fellows, or rather were fine fellows, for the Lord only knows where to find them at the present day—the writer does not. ”

“ Their pet horror is the term "radical"; their ideal of heroic patriotism, the spectacle of a great nation which allows itself to be ruined with decorum, and dies rather than commit the slightest breach of constitutional etiquette. This insensibility to facts and blindness to the tendency of events, they call wisdom and moderation. Behind these political dummies are the real forces of the Johnson party, men of insolent spirit, resolute will, embittered temper, and unscrupulous purpose, who clearly know what they are after, and will hesitate at no "informality" in the attempt to obtain it. ”

“ The men in office are controlled by fears of the violent Republicans outside, whom they are powerless to keep under; and the Radicals are anxious to get into office to restrain these same violent Republicans, but hesitate because of the apprehension that they have not sufficient material force behind them. ”

“ The one thing to regret is, that the Republicans have not the courage to appeal to the national exigencies merely, but that their leaders are forced by public opinion to keep up the sham of constitutionalism. ”

“ Nine men out of every ten today—who would likely become affiliated with the new party—will, when questioned as to their political belief, generally preface their remarks by declaring, “I am a radical.” ”

“ And then there are the republicans—men of the real olden time, capable of sacrificing every thing that heart holds dear for a principle; such republicans as were our fathers in all, save their religion, and because lacking that, losing the chief element of popular control. ”

“ The men who controlled the last Republican Convention—if not the last, the most recent—are styled conservatives by those whose vision is circumscribed by certain limited economic interests; but they are the most radical of radicals, they have passed the red stage and are white with it. ”

“ I had always expected that when the republicans should have put down all things under their feet, they would schismatize among themselves. I always expected, too, that whatever names the parties might bear, the real division would be into moderate and ardent republicanism. ”

“ A glance at the doctrines of Radicalism will manifest their cardinal principle—destructiveness. So long as some common object for attack can be found, so long a union between the various shades and sections of Radicalism will exist. The moment their energies are summoned to a higher office, inherent divisions succeed, and a boasted political party with an overwhelming majority resolves itself into discordant and angry factions. Look at the picture of the Great Liberal party with its majority of 70 failing to execute its own task of Reform, and yielding office for two years to the minority. ”

“ The Republican party is on its way to destruction, unless you turn the switch and run it on a side track. And by all my love of my country—and it is next to my love of my God—by all my pride in the past, I feel bound to do whatever God will inspire me to do, to stop the ruinous progress of the Republican party and to save it. ”

“ That those who are concerned and their followers might be converted to the true Republican cause, and all true Republicans might be strengthened not to be deceived by secret and open servants of tyrants and by deluding and destroying spirits and sectarian ministers of darkness, I find proper to insert here the article which I wrote shortly after the Convention, but I did not find a chance to publish ”

“ He felt that true Republicanism is a torch—the more it is shaken in the hands of the people the brighter it will burn. He was transcendently fit to be the first successful standard bearer of the progressive, aggressive, invincible Republican party. He might well have said to those who chanced to sneer at his humble origin what a marshal of France raised from the ranks said to the haughty nobles of Vienna boasting of their long line of descent, when they refused to associate with him: "I am an ancestor; you are only descendants!" ”

“ Ours is a people’s government, a Republican government, in which the majority rule and ought to rule. And he is neither a good Republican nor a true American who refuses to subordinate his own opinions, his own preferences or prejudices, to the decision of the majority. This is the very foundation-stone on which the whole fabric of our government rests. Destroy it, remove it, and lawlessness, anarchy, civil war, are the natural and inevitable consequences. I believe in the right of the people to rule. ”

“ But they ought not to find sympathy with patriot citizens,—especially against the Republican party, which, in its open and unconditional patriotism, and in all its manifold works, is in marked contrast with the Democracy.
Fellow-citizens, in all this vast Union, whether as it was or as it is, there is not a single Republican in arms against the Government, or sympathizing with those who are. There is not a traitor among them. ”

“ The Republican party desires liberty, independence, and equal laws for all people; the Presidential party seeks to oppress the negro race, to degrade the white race of the North by depriving every man of his due share in the government of the country, and, finally, to subject all the interests of the Republic to the caprice, policy, and passions of its enemies. ”

“ "I know nothing that I may say can influence you," he said. "You have no souls to be influenced. You are spineless, flaccid things. You pompously call yourselves Republicans and Democrats. There is no Republican Party. There is no Democratic Party. There are no Republicans nor Democrats in this House. You are lick-spittlers and panderers, the creatures of the Plutocracy. ”

“ Every white man who dares to avow himself a Radical should be promptly branded as the bitter and malignant enemy of the South; every man who presumes to aspire to office through Republican votes should be saturated with stench. ”