The Bedford Gazette

"Americans Must Rule America."

This is the captivating, yet specious, motto inscribed upon the banner of the proscriptive party which glories in the cognomen of "Know Nothings," in order to swell its ranks from the ignorant and unsuspecting in the community. This looks very fair and patriotic; but did it never strike any one behind this rallying cry of the new organization was concealed the most aristocratic principle ever promulgated in this free land—that within the petals of this fair rose lurked and rankled the deadliest poison?—

Be it remembered that the whole meaning of the motto—“Americans must rule America”—upon which the new party is founded, is the exclusion of adopted citizens from office—nothing more. The opinion entertained by these patriotic gentlemen then is, that those who will fill the various offices in this Republic are the rulers and not the servants or agents, of the people—that the office-holders are our masters, and their constituency bond slaves—thus ignoring and setting themselves up in opposition to the whole theory upon which our republican system is based. Was this the idea of Jefferson and Madison, and their immortal compeers, who, fresh from the perils of the Revolution, repudiated the "divine right" of Kings to rule, and laid broad and deep in our glorious constitution, the foundation of civil and religious liberty, and the inborn right of the People to govern themselves? Was not that precious blood spilt in the "time that tried men's souls," the price paid for the establishment of self-government and the great dogma of popular sovereignty? And are we to be told now, by this new school of political philosophers, after realizing, for over half a century, the proud position of a representative Democracy, that the maxims of our fathers were a fiction and a failure—that we must prepare our minds to acknowledge an aristocracy of office-holders—whether they be Congressmen or drunken policemen—with power to do as they list, beyond and above responsibility to the people, who make them such?—

Out upon such cringing sycophants and parasites, who are unworthy to breathe the free air of this free land—who have not learned the first lessons of Republicanism—and who are not entitled to the proud name of American citizens.

There is neither point nor force in the application of the precept that "Americans shall rule America," and it only falls from the lips of turbulent and base demagogues, as a cheat to delude their gullible followers. Americans have always, and always will rule America, as long as our laws, National and State, remain as they are. So long as the elective franchise is extended to the poor as well as the rich—so long as the doctrine of "no taxation without representation," is asserted and maintained—so long as religious tests are kept from our statute books—and men are left free to worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences, with "none to molest or make them afraid"—we need not tremble for the subversion of our liberties, and Americans will continue to rule America, thro' their accredited agents, be chosen from all the walks of life, and from all religious persuasions. But if in an hour of madness and folly, the people, inflamed by Sectarian prejudices and bigotry, (the most dangerous to the peace and tranquility of a State,) should introduce the deadly Upas tree of Know-Nothingism and Religious proscription into the councils of the nation, to overshadow the land, and blast and wither the wholesome pristine vigor of our institutions, from that moment we may date the downfall of the Republic.—Pennsylvanian.