American citizen. [volume] (Butler, Butler County, Pa.) 1863-1872, 1865-11-29

to be most unwilling to learn, and that is,
that nothing succeeds in the long run in
America but principle. The plan of
governing by arrangements, compromises,
fictions, concealments, and SO forth, has
been tried for ages in Europe, and has
there succeeded fairly. Social and polit-
ieal devices based ON great wrongs, and
setting moral laws at defiance, have, for
reasons too numerous to specify here,
achieved considerable degree of success
But the two conditions which more than
all others have contributed to thei- sue.
cess-popular ignorance and submissive
ness, and the force of tradition--are here
totally wanting, and the Democrats par
ty has come to grief simply because the
leaders refused to recognize this differ
encc. With all their abuse of Europe
and professions of exemption fiom its
influence and from the yoke of its ideas,
and loud proclamatious of Democratic
feeling, the Seymours, Vallandighams,
and Pendletons are European politicians
and measure the public by the European
standard, popular sagacity and conscience
1t has taken them a long while to find out
their mistake, but we presume they have
found it out.
These recent defeats are but il'ustra-
tions of the truth that in our politics not
only is honesty the best policy, but that
tits difficult, if not impossible for any
public man to rate too highly the class
of motives by which our public is actua-
ted In other words, he is pretty sure
to come out best in the end who acts as
if the people, instead of being selfish,
timid, parsimonious, despisers of ideas,
or as it is the fashion to call them,
"isms," we're chivolrous, oper-h -handediad-
mirers not of what seems likely to pay
best, but of what, In their very best
moods, they think most nearly right, in
the highest sense of the word.
One effect of the result of the elec-
tions will undoubtedly be to give greater
elucidity to Mr.. Johnson's ideas of what
the North requires as settlement. This
is all the more important, because We
think the events of each day make it
clearer and clearer that he means to do
right, and that his alterations from the
straight road, whether real or crooked
ways. The dislike of the loyal States to
halfway measures might, perhaps, have
been revealed more strongly, but still it
has been revealed The vote of lost Tues
day was solemn confirmation, as solemn
as could well be uttered, Of all that has
been uttered and done for truth, and free
dom, and justice during the last four
years. All that is to be feared now, it is
/ plain, is too great crcdulty, too great dis
position to rely upon professions and fine
words, where written contracts or formal
enactments can furnish the only security.
As to the Democrats themselves, we
do not fattcr ourselves, and we do not ad
wise the public to do so, that we have got
rid of them. Where change has cone
as it has here, what might bo almost call
ed the animating principle of our politi-
cal system, We are not likely to have, as
in older countries, anything which can
be fairly Called a q" Conservative" party,
and the Democracy cannot be converted
into such a party. The two great divi
sions of our political world will consist
hereafter, not exactly of the knaves and
of the honest men, but ofthose who think
the great laws OF morality are good polit-
ical guides, and those who think they
are for political purposes of little or no
consequence. To this latter party, under
whatever name it may be called, or for
whatever purpose it may be organized,
the debris of the Democratic party is
sure to belong. We may rely upon it
that wherever we can see body of men
rallying around an abuse with fair
chance of defending it successfully, Mr..
George 7. Curtis and Mr. Horatio Sey-
mour and their associates will be found
in the midst of them, With their hands
under their coat-tails, showing that to
touch it would break up the framework
of society. That the Democratic party
was not simply the pro-slayery party,
but the party Of rascality and corruption
has, in fact, been thoroughly proved by
tho strenuous opposition it has always
offered in this city to the work of muni-
| cipal reform Nation. ~