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Stand by the Republican Party.

The Republican Party was organized for a special purpose. It has achieved great success, partly through its own skill, energy and strength, and partly through the fanatical madness of its enemies. But its mission is not yet ended, any more than the war was ended after the capture of Fort Donelson. By carelessness and neglect we can soon lose all we have gained, and be beaten so badly that it will be as hard work to succeed again as it is for Hungary or Poland to assume their old places in the rank of nations.

It is the just boast of Republicans that they fight for principles rather than for spoils, and hence one reason why the party — as such — is less compact and more easily disorganized than the spoils hunting slave Democracy. In city, township, county, and sometimes State elections, Republicans are often induced to neglect their party ticket on the ground that no principles are directly involved in the result; it is only a contest between men, or a question of official patronage. This is true only in a limited sense. As every act of life has an influence on our future well-being, so the most insignificant township election has its influence in moulding the policy of the country. Our enemies understand this and set accordingly. Take up one of their papers and see how industriously ever small election they carry is paraded as a "great Democratic triumph." No matter if local or personal interests turned the scale, it is used to aid the party elsewhere, and it does aid it. Every Republican who thus, for any cause, votes for a Democrat, confers an aid, whether he intends it or not, on that rotten party. Every Republican who votes for some "Union," "Citizens," "People's" or "Tax-Payer's" ticket, weakens his party thereby and benefits his enemy. The latter never concede anything, or abate their bitter partisanship. Their masses are ruled by leaders, and the leaders by their love of profit or distinction, to which their pretended principles are only the stepping stone. Republicans make principles the end of their efforts, office only the means to the end. Hence every time we abandon our organization or allow an election to go by default, we show that we are careless as to our principles, or entertain a very narrow view of what is incumbent upon us as soldiers or a great and glorious cause.

We would very cheerfully abandon national politics in city and township elections if our enemies would do it also. We would like to see good men chosen, who would administer the local laws without reference to party questions and for the best interests of their localities. But all such efforts on the party of Republicans in times past have been repelled with scorn. Even when the national life is threatened the voracious maw of Black Democracy is open wider than ever — like thieves at a fire or pick pockets at a funeral, they say by their acts that "now is the time for our harvest." We had enough of "union tickets" last year. Democrats accepted them only where they had everything to gain and nothing to lose, and even then party drill kept the mass aloof. See the result in Ohio, where the Republicans had to elect their Democratic nominee for Governor, and where the Democratic "Union" members refused to re-elect Republican Ben Wade. See in our own State where the Democratic "Union" Conventionists, elected by Republican votes, went the whole hog for the infamous Peter Funk constitution by which the ignorant Democratic minority of Egypt is to rule the enlightened majority of the State for the next twenty years. That is what comes of "Union" tickets — of union with men who helped the slaveholders openly as long as they dared and are now attempting to do it secretly. Until they show more loyalty than they have done in the last ten years, and until they offer to lay aside their party organization in local elections, our judgment most emphatically is against any and all tickets bearing upon them the names of men who do not fully assent to Republican principles in all their length and breadth.