Holding, with Novalis, that the Christian religion is the
root of all democracy and the highest fact in the rights of man, we
regard the New Testament as the true political text-book; and believe
that, just in proportion as mankind receive its doctrines and precepts,
not merely as matters of faith and relating to another state of being,
but as practical rules, designed for the regulation of the present life
as well as the future, their institutions, social arrangements, and forms
of government will approximate to the democratic model. We believe in
the ultimate complete accomplishment of the mission of Him who came "to
preach deliverance to the captive, and the opening of prison doors to
them that are bound." We look forward to the universal dominion of His
benign humanity; and, turning from the strife and blood, the slavery, and
social and political wrongs of the past and present, anticipate the
realization in the distant future of that state when the song of the
angels at His advent shall be no longer a prophecy, but the jubilant
expression of a glorious reality,--"Glory to God in the highest! Peace
on earth, and good will to man!"

For the party in this country which has assumed the name of Democracy, as
a party, we have had, we confess, for some years past, very little
respect. It has advocated many salutary measures, tending to equalize the
advantages of trade and remove the evils of special legislation. But if
it has occasionally lopped some of the branches of the evil tree of
oppression, so far from striking at its root, it has suffered itself to
be made the instrument of nourishing and protecting it. It has allowed
itself to be called, by its Southern flatterers, "the natural ally of
slavery." It has spurned the petitions of the people in behalf of
freedom under its feet, in Congress and State legislatures. Nominally
the advocate of universal suffrage, it has wrested from the colored
citizens of Pennsylvania that right of citizenship which they had enjoyed
under a Constitution framed by Franklin and Rush. Perhaps the most
shameful exhibition of its spirit was made in the late Rhode Island
struggle, when the free suffrage convention, solemnly calling heaven and
earth to witness its readiness to encounter all the horrors of civil war,
in defence of the holy principle of equal and universal suffrage,
deliberately excluded colored Rhode Islanders from the privilege of
voting. In the Constitutional Conventio