Mineral Point Tribune

Letter from Hon. Chester Loomis—The Democracy Overhauled

Ruseville, N. Y., May 2, 1856.

Messrs. Comstock and Cassidy, Publishers of the Atlas and Argus:

Finding myself unable to approve of the political course of the Atlas and Argus, I have to request that you will erase my name from your list of subscribers.

In early life I became attached to the principles of the Democratic party. My attachment to those principles has become stronger as I have grown older, and it is my purpose strictly to adhere to them as they have heretofore been expounded and maintained by Jefferson, Jackson, Madison, and Van Buren.

As I understand it, the fundamental purpose which originally led to the organization of the Democratic party was to maintain and extend free institutions. To effect such purpose, in the year next after the termination of the Revolutionary war, Mr. Jefferson proposed to Congress to prohibit forever slavery or involuntary servitude in all Territory belonging to the United States, and three years thereafter such prohibition was enacted by a unanimous vote. One of the declared objects for which our National Constitution was formed in the same year was "to secure the blessings of liberty," and to enable Congress to do this, ample power was expressly granted "to make all needful rules and regulations, respecting the territories &c., belonging to the United States." And Congress exercised such power repeatedly by prohibiting Slavery in the Territories, without its being questioned or denied, till within a very recent period.

Had the policy thus adopted by the founders of our Government, in respect to the Territories, been honestly adhered to, and carried out in the true spirit of the Constitution, the present alarming struggle for mastery between Freedom and Slavery would never have occurred. Slavery would have gradually and silently dwindled away, and eventually have disappeared from the Republic, without producing a perceptible shock. Free institutions would have taken its place, and resulting prosperity and rapid progress would have followed, promoting happiness and harmony throughout the nation.

In my judgment, the institution of domestic slavery is in its nature hostile and antagonistic to free institutions. Mr. Jefferson declared it to be "the perpetual exercise of the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and the most degrading submission on the other." It must therefore be impossible that these institutions can both be permanently maintained under the same national Government. The conflict between these opposite interests must continue until one or the other shall be destroyed.

All history and experience have proved that homogeneous institutions are indispensable to the peaceful existence of a nation. The founders of our Government well understood this truth. They therefore, with singular unanimity, early adopted a system of policy in reference to the Territories calculated to secure the ascendency and extension of free institutions.

But this policy has been subverted. Since the control of the Democratic party has been assumed by the demagogues now prominent as its leaders, many of the most important principles of the Jeffersonian Democracy have been expunged. Persevering efforts are now being made to incorporate new and opposite doctrines in their place.

The new tests of Democracy now presented would exclude from the party both Jefferson and Jackson, were they at this time on the stage of action. I can readily believe that politicians who are democrats in name only, will unhesitatingly subscribe to these new tests, but how is it possible for any one having any regard for the old landmarks of Democracy to accept them, it is beyond my comprehension.

For one I protest against them. I protest against the attempted changes in the Democratic creed. Regarding the new doctrines inculcated in the name of Democracy as false and unconstitutional, I cannot adopt them. I cherish an abiding faith that the great mass of that political party, in the ranks of which I have had an humble position for forty years past, will yet repudiate them; and that the policy of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and of all the founders of our Government in respect to slavery in the Union will be again restored. If my hopes in this respect shall be realized, the Union of the States will be preserved, free institutions will be maintained, and the vital interests of twenty millions of freemen will no longer be held by the General Government as subservient to the interests of about three hundred and fifty thousand slaveholders.

Respectfully yours,

CHESTER LOOMIS.