Republicans

“ In this State, to which I came in my earliest manhood, the Republicans are as staunch and true, as valorous and resolute, as can be found in any of the States. You have no advantage of us except in numbers. We welcome you all as Republicans. [A voice, "That's what we are!"] We believe that our party now advocates another great principle that needs to be established—made fast—put where it shall be beyond assault. It is a principle which has wrought marvellously in the development of our country since the war. ”

“ If we fail, if we fritter and fumble away our opportunity in needless, senseless quarrels between Democrats and Republicans, or between the House and the Senate, or between the South and North, or between the Congress and the administration, then history will rightfully judge us harshly. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Every party imagines itself the right party, and welcomes him joyfully to its bosom. Republicans love him, Independents worship him, while Democrats would endure even the Fifteenth Amendment for his sake. ”

“ The Republicans of the United States, assembled by their representatives in national convention, appealing for the popular and historical justification of their claims to the matchless achievements of the thirty years of Republican rule, earnestly and confidently address themselves to the awakened intelligence, experience, and conscience of their countrymen in the following declaration of facts and principles:
For the first time since the Civil War the American people have witnessed the calamitous consequences of full and unrestricted Democratic control of the Government. ”

“ It is probable that the men having the matter in hand will produce a sensible plan. They will have the sympathy and support of a constantly growing number of Republicans. The Republican party cannot afford to let this movement pass to the credit of the Democrats. If the Republicans in Congress are wise they will take it out of the hands of their opponents and carry it on themselves. If they do not do so in Congress, the Administration will have to do it alone, and to this end you will want at least one man in your official family who believes in it and understands it. ”

“ A new party, the Republican, came into being, as it were, in a day. The pro-slavery Whigs went to the Democrats, the anti-slavery Whigs became Republicans. Those who were neither one nor the other lingered on as the mere shadow of a party until the civil war broke out. A large accession from the Democratic ranks made the Republicans so strong that in their first presidential campaign they were almost successful, and in their second they achieved a decisive victory. ”

“ To this only those Republicans will object who desire to continue the existing abuses of party government and who find us as a stumbling-block in their way. But the friends of reform in the Republican party will welcome us as their friends and natural allies, as we shall be glad to consider them ”

“ Our fight was an open one: we know its issues; and have no reason to hide the light under a bushel. It was for State reform, revenue reform and civil service reform, and we had the right to make those issues as Republicans. ”

“ The Democracy of to-day hold the liberty of one man to be absolutely nothing, when in conflict with another man's right of property; Republicans, on the contrary, are for both the man and the dollar, but in case of conflict the man before the dollar. ”

“ At the time when the republicans of our country were so much alarmed at the proceedings of the federal ascendancy in Congress, in the executive and the judiciary departments, it became a matter of serious consideration how head could be made against their enterprises on the constitution. The leading republicans in Congress found themselves of no use there, browbeaten, as they were, by a bold and overwhelming majority. ”

“ Resolved, That, in view of the necessity of battling for the first principles of Republican Government and against the schemes of aristocracy, the most revolting and oppressive with which the earth was ever cursed or man debased, we will co-operate and be known as Republicans until the contest be terminated. ”

“ "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. ”

“ The Democrats, although they have been victorious, are discouraged and depressed and full of dread of what may happen; the Republicans, though beaten, are full of the sense of power, full of assurance in consequence of the first results gained, and full of confidence for the future. ”

“ A majority of the American people agree with me on this approach – including a majority of Republicans. We just need Republicans in Congress to catch up with their own party and the rest of the country. ”

“ And he shows that the one dominant fact in this contest is that the more closely the Republicans adhere to their essential policy, the worse must be the demoralizing effect, and, per contra, the more faithful the Democratic party is to its avowed principles, the more wholesome and beneficent must be its influence on the country. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This is deeply felt by all those members of the Republican party who are directly concerned in it. The foreign-born Republicans were drawn to that party by the irresistible force of principle and nothing else. No wing of the party has worked more faithfully and disinterestedly. ”

“ We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists. ”

“ The Democrats and Republicans will both try to catch you. Don’t let them catch you napping. Don’t become just fodder for political cannon. Form your programme and make all the parties adopt it. Begin in your home towns, begin at once. ”

“ As the Republicans obtained control of the states they altered the state constitutions so as to cut out all the arrangements that favoured property or class interests, and reduced political power to the dead level of manhood suffrage. ”

“ The Republicans in Congress, and throughout the country, dissented from the President’s views, and thought the confederate states should be held in a territorial condition till Congress was satisfied that the rights of the freedmen were safe. The Democrats supported the President. At first, the provisional government and the general tenor of the President’s policy were favored by the Republicans ”

“ It may tickle you to know that I've had some flattering invitations lately to join the Republicans—not from the old guard, mind you, but from some of the young fellows who want to score results for policies, not politicians. ”

“ The old Federalists, on the other hand, had openly declared themselves in favor of a government strong enough to curb the unruly democracy. The National Republicans, or Whigs, having in great part themselves been Jeffersonian Republicans, mostly favored a liberal construction of constitutional powers, not with a view to curbing the unruly democracy, but to other objects, such as internal improvements, a protective tariff, and a national bank. ”

“ Let us show that, if the people abandon the republicans, the republicans do not abandon the people.” ”

“ What is to be the form of government in the future? hear some of my younger readers reply: “Why, how can you ask such a question? You are a republican.” “A republican! Yes; but that word specifies nothing. Res publica; that is, the public thing. Now, whoever is interested in public affairs—no matter under what form of government—may call himself a republican. Even kings are republicans.”—
“Well! ”

“ When Jefferson and the Republicans rallied to the Union and to the existing Federalist organization, the fabric of traditional American democracy was almost completely woven. ”

“ THE DEMOCRATS AND THE WHIGS The first phase of American political history was characterized by the conflict between the Federalists and the Republicans, and it resulted in the complete triumph of the latter. ”

“ But ambitious young men, chafing under the restraints of consecrated respectability, popular politicians, or as we might almost say the demagogues, the progressive and restless people and liberal thinkers enamored of French philosophy and theories and abstractions, were inclined to be Republicans. There were exceptions, of course. I only speak in a general way; nor would I give the impression that there were not many distinguished, able, and patriotic men enlisted in the party of Jefferson, especially in the Southern States, in Pennsylvania, and New York. ”

“ It is essential to such a Government, that it be derived from the great body of the society, not from an inconsiderable proportion, or a favored class of it; otherwise a handful of tyrannical nobles, exercising their oppressions by a delegation of their powers, might aspire to the rank of republicans, and claim for their Government the honorable title of republic. ”

“ The adoption by Jefferson and the Republicans of the political structure of their opponents is of an importance hardly inferior to that of the adoption of the Constitution by the states. ”

“ Here, indeed, we arrive at the point where we, looking over the hundred and twenty five years of independence, can see that the simple government conceived by the revolutionary republicans was a foredoomed failure. It was so because of: 1) the essence of government itself; 2) the essence of human nature; 3) the essence of Commerce and Manufacture. ”

“ IV. Independent Republicans seek good nominations through participation in the primaries and through the defeat of bad nominees; they will labor for the defeat of any local Republican candidate, and, in co-operation with those holding like views elsewhere, for the defeat of any general Republican candidate whom they do not deem fit. ”

“ The Republicans inculcate, with whatever of ability they can, that the negro is a man, that his bondage is cruelly wrong, and that the field of his oppression ought not to be enlarged. The Democrats deny his manhood; deny, or dwarf to insignificance, the wrong of his bondage; so far as possible crush all sympathy for him, and cultivate and excite hatred and disgust against him; compliment themselves as Union-savers for doing so; and call the indefinite outspreading of his bondage "a sacred right of self-government." ”

“ You do retain the song we set,
And how it rises, trips and scans?
You keep the sacred memory yet,
Republicans? ”

“ Our cause, then, must be intrusted to, and conducted by, its own undoubted friends—those whose hands are free, whose hearts are in the work, who do care for the result. Two years ago the Republicans of the nation mustered over thirteen hundred thousand strong. We did this under the single impulse of resistance to a common danger, with every external circumstance against us. Of strange, discordant, and even hostile elements, we gathered from the four winds, and formed and fought the battle through, under the constant hot fire of a disciplined, proud, and pampered enemy. ”

“ We shall put her on her Republican tack, and she will now show by the beauty of her motion the skill of her builders." "The Federalists," said he at one moment, [14] "wished for everything which would approach our new government to a monarchy; the Republicans, to preserve it essentially republican. . . . The real difference consisted in their different degrees of inclination to monarchy or republicanism." "The revolution of 1800," he wrote many years afterward, [15] "was as real a revolution in the principles of our government as that of 1776 was in its form." ”