Franklin Repository

The great objection to the Republican party, which has been urged by the harmonious democracy, especially by the Southern wing of that party, or, to speak more plainly, that portion which hails from the sunny side of the Potomac -for every leading man and a large majority of the masses in the North are as completely southernized as if they had never breathed the pure air of freedom in their lives -is that it is sectional, while their party, the great democratic party, is National, and is not confined to North or South.

So great is the love for the American Union, as it is, which fills the bosom of every honest man in the North -and they, as lovers of the Union, are to be found almost exclusively in the ranks of the Republican party -that to raise a hue and cry against a party on the score of want of fidelity to the existing Union of States, has proven sufficiently powerful in its pernicious effects upon our party to defeat its candidate for the chief magistracy -putting into that position an infinitely more sectional man than our candidate. Having met with that amount of success by their false charge, they continue to reiterate it hoping thus to keep the advantage they have gained. To hear the disunion croakers, the Southern locofoco Congressmen, of both Houses, bellowing at the top of their voices against Sectionalism one would suppose that they were entirely too National to ever think of preferring the men of their own section to those of any other portion of the confederacy. Their acts and their professions, however, are so widely at variance that no person, however willfully blind, can fail to see the difference.

These Nationals have a controlling majority in the Senate of the United States, and could set an example worthy of imitation. If they were sincere in their opposition to sectionalism, they would, whenever an opportunity presented, show to the world that they, ensconced in their pure robes of Nationalism from the petty storm of sectionalism, were not to be moved from their high and holy purpose of knowing no North, no South, no East or no West; but their whole country.

How do the weak-kneed, loud-mouthed Nationals act when they have the power? An examination of the standing Committees will show the hollow falsity, and shallow emptiness of all the pretensions of these warped partisans who are constantly repeating the story of their abhorrence of everything like sectionalism.

The Senate is composed of sixty-six members. Of this number thirty are from Slave States, and thirty-six from Free States; yet, with this decided majority from the North in that body, the South, the Nationals, appropriate almost all the Committees of that body to themselves.--These are twenty-two standing Committees appointed by the Senate. These committees prepare for the deliberation of that body all the business which originates with the Senate. Of the twenty-two, the anti-sectionalists,(?) the haughty slaveocrats, have selected sixteen of their own number as chairmen. This, however, in them, is not sectionalism. Oh no, they are Nationals; all they do is for the good of the whole country. What matters it whether they give the North any of the offices or not? The North has no right to complain at any treatment, however indignant, which it may suit the self constituted expounders of the constitution to offer.

In the last Presidential contest the hue and cry raised by the horror-stricken democracy at the prospect of Fremont's election, was based upon the unparalleled sectionalism of filling both the government with Northern men -both from one section of the country. Then Sectionalism meant the exclusive appropriation of important offices by the people of one Section of the land. Now, however, the same thing is done by Southern Locofoco Senators, and not one locofoco newspaper from Maine to California makes the charge of sectionalism. What is the reason that they all become dumb dogs, which cannot bark, when they have a just cause against, and should denounce their Southern masters?

As will be seen by reference to the list of chairmen of all the committees of the Senate, published in another column of this paper, all the important committees -embracing Foreign Relations, Military Affairs, Finances, Navy, Territories, Commerce, Judiciary, Auditing Claims, Post Offices, Revolutionary Claims, Public Lands, Claims, Private Lands, District of Columbia, Indian Affairs and the Congressional Library are presided over by Southern men- those too who profess to be National in all their political views and actions, and express supreme abhorrence for everything like sectionalism.

On the other hand, but six of the Senate's committees -and they of no kind of importance- are headed by men from States North of Mason and Dixon's line. This case is a marked instance of the insincerity of these deceitful blusterers about the Republicans being sectional in their aims. What better right, under the constitution, or upon the principle of fair dealing, have Southern Locofoco Senators to claim and absorb all these important posts than have any set of men to fill up political offices with men from their own section of the confederacy? There can no reason be given, unless we admit -which would be untrue- an inferiority on our part -a want of capacity to discharge the duties devolving upon those who fill public places of honor, profit and trust.

The weak-kneed Bigler, too truckling to resent the indignity offered him by his Southern party friends, accepted the petty position which the lords-of-the-lash assigned him -at the head of the committee on Patents. To him above all others should the chivalry have given the position of chairman of the committee on Finances, if they had had any desire to escape the odium attached to what they have always considered a terrible political bug bear -the charge of sectionalism. They knew how much his State -Pennsylvania- is in interested in a revision of the present ruinous Tariff laws, and, if they had cared about relieving him from the odium which attaches to his subserviency to them and their "peculiar institution," they would have given him the position which would have enabled him to make a little show of friendship to his constituency. It would, also, have assisted them in claiming to be the National party of the United States.

The Union-savers have been accustomed for so great a length of time to charging upon others -and attaching odium to the same- all their own short comings, that they have become emboldened, and no longer strive to conceal their real character. They are the most exclusively sectional party in the Union, and have the audacity, in the face of their brazen acts of sectionalism, to claim to be the National party. We charged in 1856 that the only way that party could claim to be National would be declaring Freedom sectional and Slavery National. They, seeing the necessity for assuming this position, have taken this high ground.

--This splendidly equipped company of handsome men paraded, in full uniform, through the various streets of our Borough on the afternoon of Monday last. The object of this military display was to commemorate the battle of new Orleans. Col. F.S. Stumbaugh, the commander of the Chambers Artillery, put the company through their evolutions in person. The Col. is a fine looking officer and is one of the best tacticians in this part of Pennsylvania. Success to the Artillery and its gallant commander.