has been attempted within a century in any part of the world. It has sprung up like a mushroom in a night, without cause or reason, and is founded on the prejudices rather than the reason of the people. Wherever it has spread its baleful influence, violence and riot and bloodshed have been the result. Election grounds have become the scenes of lawlessness hitherto unknown to us; mobs of armed men, instead of the unbiased votes of the citizens, have been used as the means of deciding elections. Some of the best and most patriotic of our citizens are denounced by the folly and bigotry of the Know-Nothing mob, and every man is proscribed who will not assist in proscribing those who are obnoxious to this secret order.

Before the advent of this bigoted organization, election riots were comparatively unknown. It is fair to assume that to it, and the course pursued by its members, are chargeable all this lawless violence and confusion; that to it are to be attributed all the blood shed and lives lost. The organization itself, we say, is the primary cause of this foul disgrace: and will the American people-a law-abiding race-stand calmly by, and see the outrages of the last few months repeated ad lilitum? We say that the order is founded on popular prejudice, and no circumstances or combination of circumstances can excuse or palliate its unconstitutional action. Forgetting, for the moment, the advice of Washington, and Jefferson, and Jackson, the American people have suffered a party to rise up and flourish in their midst, whose policy is civil proscription for opinion's sake a doctrine directly at variance with both state and national constitutional rights, privileges, and provisions.

To this party, so anti-republican in all its teachings and actions; which proscribes, for the sake of religion, some of our very best citizens; which declares no man fit to become an American citizen unless born on American soil; which ignores the precepts of Washington, and withholds rights guaranteed by the Constitution to this party, composed of all the fagends and factions which, like parasites, have for years hung on the skirts of the two great parties which have divided the country, the Whig party, the only one approaching to the Democratic in strength and numbers, has lately succumbed; and against this most unprecedented combination for the establishment of anti-republican views, feelings, and legislation-for the dismemberment of the Union, and the destruction of the Constitution in this motley gathering all these parties are found no party but the Democratic has dared to raise its

voice, and it alone is found in hostile array, ready to do battle for truth, and justice, and the natural rights of man.

Such is, at this moment, the proud position of the Democracy before the Union and the world. It is found now, where it stood under the leadership of Thomas Jefferson in 1800, battling for the same rights, opposed to the same heresies, and devoted to the same undying, imperishable fundamental doctrines. Viewing the past and the present, have we not an undoubted right to be proud of our position before the country?

Judging from the past and the present, what is likely to be the future of this great party? Have they not erred, who have written that the Democratic, as well as the Whig party, was virtually disbanded? Has not the wish been father to the thought? Can the party ever die so long as it carries out faithfully the principles it professes? Vitality, aye, immortality is inherent, and so long as it avoids the foul contact of debasing factions and dishonest bargains, though it may occasionally be defeated, it can never be destroyed.

"Truth crushed to earth will rise again,
The eternal years of God are hers;
But error wounded, writhes in pain,
And dies amidst her worshippers."

Having carried the country successfully through so many crises, may not the same party be confidently relied upon? We have an ever-abiding faith in the integrity and intelligence of the American people, and we believe that although they may be, for a time, led astray, when once they see their error, they are ever prompt to rectify mistakes. They are impulsive, act sometimes hastily and without due consideration; but, generous to a fault, they could never, as a body, do political injustice to any one.

Reasoning from these premises, we have been, from the first, convinced that the Democratic, or liberal party, could never adopt the doctrines of the Know-Nothings; and that although that organization might flourish for a season, yet that it must fall before a more just and enlightened policy. Measures may, and often do change, but principles are eternal. They can not be changed or modified-they must be abandoned utterly. Doctrines and measures may be wrong and may be modified, but the principle is the foundation upon which the superstruc

ture must be reared.

The triumphs of the Democracy are not yet ended; and, in

our opinion, the greatest will be the success of our principles in the next decisive contest to which we shall be called. Our future will be as brilliant, as our past has been successful, and our present honorable. We have a great work before us; and, this time, America expects every man to do his duty. The country has seen enough of Know-Nothing violence, misrule, and intolerance; and we are convinced, that, on the very first opportunity, they will give abundant evidence of a return to that calm and constitutional state of mind and feeling, which will insure that tranquillity and harmony so necessary to our safety and well-being. We argue thus from two causes: first, from the innate and inseparable antagonism of the Know-Nothing creed to republican institutions: and, secondly, from the many previous evidences of a return to sober reason and first principles, upon this and many kindred subjects. We appeal from Philip drunk to Philip sober; and we have no fear of the result. A short time for reflection, and a slight examination of the matter in controversy, must conclude in a judgment in favor of the Democracy and its doctrines.

Although some, from whom we had expected better things, have been led off in this unhallowed crusade, and others have lent to infatuation and intolerance the influence of names once potent for good, we do not know that we have much to regret. It has afforded a chance to estimate the actual value of the deserters. It has tested the gold and discovered the alloy. It has purged the party of a class of politicians who professed Democracy for the sake of office, and who, whenever the majority seemed in the hands of another party, straightway that party became the object of their love and the shrine of their devotions. For the rank and file, who have been deceived and betrayed, there is still hope, and we welcome them back; but for him, who has been even a subordinate leader, we have no pleasing anticipations-his baseness is without excuse for his treason there is no pardon.

The party may at all times well dispense with such men. Having sown the wind, let them reap the whirlwind. Should they desire to return like the prodigal son, after feeding on the husks and garbage of disordered politics, though all that is in the house should of right belong to the elder brother who remained faithful to his father-let them be received! For the lesson and the example may be beneficial. The nausea and disgust they have experienced may possibly have purified their views, and eliminated the virus of their political constitution. Be this as it may, the combined forces of frenzied fac

tions and factious fanatics will, in their next encounter, meet a determined and resolute resistance-resistance from a party whose principles can never die-eternal and omnipresent-always battling against privilege and tyranny, whether in a despotism, an autocracy, a monarchy, or a republic- true to the people and the cause of the people-sustaining and supporting them in their rights, and never deserting them, until they become false to themselves.

A PARABLE FOR A PEOPLE.

BY C. G. ROSENBERG.

I.

In the dust sate a weeping Queen;

Dishevelled was her hair,

Shattered her golden crown;
Rent was her robe of green,

Her glowing bosom bare,

Her jewelled breast-tire trodden down
Into the cold, bleak earth on which she sate-
Still beautiful, although so desolate.

II.

A broken harp lay near her on the earth,
From which the wind struck ever and anon
A wailing tone-

The thin ghost of the ancient joy and mirth
Of its abundant song;

And as the wind bore the sad notes along
Upon its wing,

They seemed across that desolate woman's eye,
Like some still darker cloud upon a winter-sky,
A deeper gloom to fling.

III.

I thought the young, the full of health and blood,
Came to her, proffering their strength and might;
And the lone woman hoped again, and stood
Up from her grief, and in the sudden light,
Flashed from the glancing glaive,

Her clouded brow once more grew glad and bright.
Woe to the beautiful and brave!

On the gallows-tree they swung;

Earth with their crimson blood was red-
Their funeral-wail the raven sung--

The brave and young were dead.
She cast her down again,
And she moaned in her pain,
And wrung her hands in her despair,
And beat her breast, and tore her hair;

And a great sound

Came from the ground

And the wave and the heaven, and murmured round;
And thus it said:

"War is meant for foreign foe,
Not for those in language kin;
Struggles breed but deeper woe,
That in unnatural strife begin."

But there came a rushing blast
While that solemn murmur rose;
O'er the broken harp it past,
Shrieking on its angry way,
As a sudden tempest goes.
Not a word or syllable
By that uncrowned one was heard.
There she lay,

In her anguish, where she fell,
Motionless as modelled clay;

But that her bosom stirred,

She might have seemed as dead as they

For whom, but now,

She tore her raven hair and beat her breast of snow.