The Democratic Press

The Union---Where is It?

We are true Union men, say the Republican party. Of what Union are they true and faithful members? The old Union is no more, and no new Union has yet been constructed. The Union as it was included in its embrace the District of Columbia with its slave population; but as slavery has been abolished in that State, the old Union no longer exists. Now, we can understand the Democratic party, who are anxious to restore the old Union as it was, and we firmly believe that they would, to a man prove faithful to it-even to the "time of the end"--because it was a constitutional Union, based upon a legal compact, leaving all the States in the full enjoyment of their own local and legitimate rights-- rights of which they are now being deprived.

But the Union of which our political opponents are such earnest members or fruitful branches, exists at present only in their own fancy. They are not true to the Union as it was, neither do they seek its restoration. We only wish that all who shout, "we are Union men!" should be compelled to renew their oath of bona fide allegiance to the only Union of which the American people have at present any practical knowledge. We can understand the platform on which the Democrats stand, and we understand the kind of Union which Wendell Phillips and his friends would swear allegiance to. That is, a union of all the States, North and South, after the slaves have been set free, and the property of six millions of white people has been confiscated. But such a Union does not yet exist, and as there cannot be branches, without roots and a trunk to bear and feed them, so neither can there be true Union men, consisting of a Union which does not yet exist in America.

We believe there is nothing more dreaded by the gulled and weak minded portion--small portion, we hope--of the Republican party and the Abolitionists, than the perfect restoration of the Union as it was. It is not the safety of the Union, but a combination to overthrow it, in order that they may form a Union of which Washington and his compatriots never thought, that the Abolitionists are bent upon.

There never was, since the world began, such a cheat played upon an unsuspecting and confiding people, as this new dodge of "we are Union men."

Reader, ask these very logical men, "Pray, sirs, when was your Union formed? What are its characteristics? What does it embrace?" At present there is no real Union, embracing both North and the South, in America.

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