Summary

The Republican editors argued that the "lords of the lash" controled the Democratic party and conspired with weak-kneed Northern Democrats to lower tariffs. They traced the results right to Franklin County pointing out that the number of furnaces had declined significantly since the repeal of the Tariff of 1842. The Democratic party, "Locofocoism," according to the editors, was completely wedded to the "designs of pro-slavery fanatics in spreading the accursed institution."

EXCERPT:

"The reason why these and other furnaces have ceased to be used is, because there is no disposition on the part of our Locofoco rulers to give American mechanics and working me a chance to compete with the low-wages operatives of Europe."

"The whole policy of the Nigger Democracy has been, for years, to crush out Free White Labor and substitute the unpaid toil of negro slaves in the places accustomed to be filled by white sons and daughters of industry, who regardless of the sneers of the oligarchy, voluntarily prefer to work with their own hands for an honest livlyhood [sic] to living in idleness, supported by the sweat and toil of a despised, abused, persecuted race of helpless, hapless beings--poor, ignorant Africans."

Full-text web version of newspaper

"In the first half of 1860 Republican editors in Franklin's Repository and Transcript attacked slavery as a violation of nature that stole from the workingman the fruits of his labor; they focused mainly on slavery's potential to undermine free labor."