Preble County Democrat

The Republican Platform.

The platform of the Opposition, now composed of Black Republicans, Abolitionists, Know Nothings, Free Love Advocates, Infidels, &c., &c., the former action predominating: a bloody one and contemplates a bitter and unrelenting strife between the great sisterhood of States.

Senator Seward, of New York, is the distinguished exponent of this new principle of internecine war and bloodshed in our hitherto peaceful Confederacy; and as he is to be the Republican or Abolition candidate for the next Presidency, his programme becomes of immense importance to what he says in his celebrated Rochester speech, delivered short.

"The United States must, and will sooner or later, become EITHER ENTIRELY A SLAVEHOLDING NATION, OR ENTIRELY A FREE LABOR NATION. Either the cotton and rice fields of South Carolina, and the sugar-plantation of Louisiana will ultimately be tilled by free labor, and Charleston, and New Orleans become marts for legitimate merchandise alone; or else the rye fields and wheat fields of Massachusetts and New York must again be surrendered by their farmers to slave culture and the production of slaves, and Boston and New York become once more markets for trade in the bodies and souls of men."

This, then, is to be the great question at issue to be decided in the next Presidential contest. Stripped of all disguise, it means that the North, being the most powerful in numbers, shall obliterate negro slavery from the South and reduce the fifteen slave holding States to unconditional subjection and vassalage. This is the plain, meaning of Mr. Seward's declaration, for no sane man would ever think of seriously talking about the possibility of Massachusetts and New York and Ohio becoming again the seat of African slavery.

For seventy years this great country, composed of free and slave States, has existed under our glorious Constitution, each State being sovereign within its own borders, and left perfectly free to manage its domestic affairs in its own way. But in these latter days new light is thrown in upon us, by infidel philosophers and statesmen of New York and New England. Our sisterhood of States has existed in peace and harmony for two generations, and we have prospered and become great as no nation ever did before—the wonder and admiration of the whole world but this state of things is to continue no longer, if they get the sway. The wonderful sympathy of Seward and his coadjutors for the negro, would induce them to rend the Union into fragments, and deluge its fairest portion in the blood of the white race. Their policy, if successful, would make us a byword and a reproach among all the nations of the earth.

It is full time for the patriotic conservative people of the Northern States to look this danger full in the face. The times are portentous, and the danger imminent. The declaration made by William H. Seward, at Rochester is no empty, unmeaning one—he never speaks in that way, but always means what he says, and his language is full of the deepest significance. It is very evident that the great battle of the Union is to be fought in 1860. The Presidential contest two years ago was but a preliminary skirmish; the decisive conflict is to take place two years hence. The Democracy of Ohio will not shrink from the encounter, nor will our Democratic friends in the other free States. The triumph of Judge Douglas in Illinois is an earnest of that. His competitor for a seat in the United States Senate, Mr. Lincoln, stood on the Seward platform, declaring in his speeches during the canvass that the States composing the Union must either become entirely free or entirely slave. This was the leading issue made before the people of Illinois, and upon this they have given a verdict which will be heartily responded to by the Democracy of the entire North. We are fully prepared for the great contest.

A National Convention of gamblers is to be held in Chicago. The Democrat of that city says the city has been "fast filling up" with delegates from different States, sent to attend this convention. Alabama, Rhode Island and Minnesota were the only states remaining unrepresented, on Wednesday last, and delegates from those were on their way to the great meeting. Although this is a gathering of "hard cases" morally, the Democrat describes the personal appearance of the delegates as highly respectable: "A finer looking set of men we have never seen than they are, taken upon the average. They are all fat, and are well, very well dressed, with jewelry in abundance—and some of the men are said to be what their looks indicate, men of talents." Their Presidential ticket is not yet foreshadowed, but its composition, of course, will be selected from the most eminent Plugs.

The entire value of taxable property in the State of Indiana is about $153,000,000.