Cincinnati Daily Press

The Republican Standard.

The Gazette winds up its effort at defining Republican principles by the more convenient generalization that Mr. Bates comes fully up to its standard of Republicanism. But the slight inquiry which we instituted brought the Gazette to a declaration against the admission of another slave State out of our own territory, and against the acquisition of any foreign slave States which were to have the control of this domestic relation. This, certainly, is not Mr. Bates's doctrine. The article in the St. Louis Democrat, which is generally accepted as official, especially repudiated the doctrine of "No more slave States," and, in his letter, he declares, that when a State is admitted, she should be "the sole judge of her own Constitution." Also, Mr. Bates says, in regard to the territories, that "The National Government has the power to permit or forbid slavery within them." What is "the power to permit?" And what difference is there between the power to permit and the power to protect slavery in the territories? Does not one necessarily follow the other? Is this anything but the doctrine of congressional protection of slavery in the territories? And yet the Gazette says Mr. Bates comes fully up to its standard of Republicanism.

Is it not more than a little doubtful whether there is any standard of Republican doctrine, and does it not grow mythical when it is sought to be defined.