The Bedford Gazette

An Appeal to all Liberal Minds,

President Pierce has spoken for the Democratic party, in his last annual message, on the great questions of the day, and he has also spoken for thousands of patriotic Whigs, who have resolved henceforward to wage uncompromising warfare upon secret political parties, pledged to the proscription of religious belief on the one hand, and to the disfranchisement of all citizens of foreign birth on the other. On this issue, although the message does not go out of the way to rehearse the current arguments of the day, it assumes a position alike unequivocal and impregnable. The flag of the equality of the States and the equality of individuals is bravely unfurled, and all who believe in these cherished doctrines should at once rally under its folds. Let not faction or fanaticism deceive itself, that that flag can never be permanently prostrated. When the delirium of the hour has passed away, the ranks over which it waves will be found decimated, perhaps, but unbroken and confident: and when those who are about to assume command in the several States in which they have recently been victorious, shall fall to pieces of their own accord, because there is no element to unite them together, then the party that stands up for these doctrines will re-assume the power which fanaticism will have disgraced.' Well is it for the country that we have now in the Presidential chair a citizen who so boldly avows his resolution to stand by the imperilled rights of conscience and universal equality. Well is it for the nation that this citizen does not forget the sacred guarantees of the past, or the glorious hopes of the future. While he stands firm we have a leader: and we prophesy that the time will soon come when those who resist present combinations will find themselves once more in the majority in all the States of the Union.

Apart from the repulsive exclusion enforced by this new order, apart from its unmanly and anti-republican secrecy, one of its achievements is calculated to inspire almost universal indignation and alarm—we allude to its studious proscription of some of the purest statesmen of the land. If Gen. Washington were now alive, and avowed his celebrated "letter to the Catholics," he would be discarded at once. Jackson would be disfranchised because he was the son of an Irishman: Jefferson would be repudiated for the pledges of his inaugural address: and that earlier patriot, Roger Williams, would be outlawed because he dared to announce and to suffer for the holy principle of religious toleration. Take the trophies of Know-Nothing vengeance already secured. Joseph R. Chandler, of Pennsylvania, a Whig of distinguished ability, was remorselessly sacrificed for his religion "in the house of his friends." Following this connexion, look at the result in Massachusetts. Two of the most esteemed and efficient representatives in the present Congress, leading members of the Whig party—we mean Charles W. Upham and William Appleton—have fallen before this unsparing proscription. In the Democratic party, that which we note as an exception in the Whig ranks, becomes the inexorable rule. Men who have reflected lustre upon the American character, whose experience, learning, and devotion to the country, have made their names "household words" such men have fallen before the tempest of prejudice. But proudly do they bear themselves! You would take them for victors, not victims. They feel that they have gone down in a good cause, and they know that their banner still waves.

When those who have been misled into opposition to such men as these fully recover from their delusions, they will start with amazement at their own work. They will find that in losing their old and well-tried servants, they have gained a host of reckless demagogues—the mere traders of politics, the mere charlatans of fanaticism. It is right that all men should aspire to a station in a free country: but the day that sees this great nation permanently transferred to the hands of men who have no claim upon the people but that of being able to flatter a popular prejudice—that day will be a dark day in our history, for it will be the starting point in our downward career. You cannot ignore high talents, long services, ripe experience, without wounding yourself and your country. There is no Democracy in elevating men unfit for station, simply because they have never been able, till prejudice took the place of reason, to attain position. These are truths which it would be madness and treason to conceal. When the men who have been overthrown in this storm of proscription shall return to their homes, and mingle with those who have aided to swell the storm, it will not be long before they will find public opinion returning to its accustomed channels. Their own services will be "freshly remembered" and fondly recalled; their wrongs will be so many arguments for their restoration to power: and the errors of their successors will arouse, in all breasts, sensations of shame and remorse. The hour will soon be here. Let us be patient. Let us confide in the leader who avows a persecuted principle, and stands for the right in the midst of inflamed antagonisms. The tempest is not yet over: but there is a bright spot in one part of the horizon, at least, which shows that the sun is not yet blotted from the heavens. It tells us that the Democratic party still survives!—Washington Union.