The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1866-03-29
THURSDAY, MARCH 20, 1856.
Dem Ocratic Duplicity.

JnaJ party WHICH, Ill Ju6 LNOIJuS OppOSSu JUG
Administration of Mr.. LINCOLN have been
very much raised by the supposed sympathy
OF President JOHNSON with the views they
take as to the Federal Constitution, and the
powers of the Executive and Congress under
it. They did not vote for Mr.. JOHNSON.
They, in fact, regarded him as renegade
from their ranks. They charged him with
infidelity to his lifelong principles as a Demo-
crat, and denounced him as atflliating, for the
sake of personal ambition and advancement,
with the enemies of the Union and its organic
law. They could not, in their blind and mad
zeal for State rights, and their coalition with
DAVIS and TooMBs and SLIDELL in their
absurd and wicked assertion of those rights
against the unity of the nation, discern that it
was possible for a statesman to be true
Democrat, and yet oppose secession and dis
union.
They cared more for State sovereignty than
for national sovereignty; tor the authority Of
a single member of the Union, than for the
authority Of the Union; for the integrity Of
one Commonwealth in a confederation of
thirty odd, than they cared for the central
Federal power, dignity, and safety. They
were weak and wild and wicked enough to
risk the destruction Of all of the States, in
trying to protect few of them against a
purely imaginary design of the general Gov
ernment to encroach on the least Of their
reserved prerogatives and liberties. Hence
they opposed the election of Mr.. JOHNSON as
Vice-President, supposing him to be hostile
to the Constitution and he Union.
But what a change do we now witness!
The Democratic party are now the chief
eulogists of the man who, only little while
ago, they were so free in abusing as an apos-
tate and traitor. They claim to be his prin-
cipal friends and supporters, as they are, in
deed, foremost in the ranks of his adulators.
The reason of this strange and sudden altera-
tion in their tactics obviously is the lattering
presumption that Mr.. JOHNSON has turned
his back on the Union party, to which he
owes his present position, and has resolved
to throw himself, with all his immense patron
age, into the arms of the very men who
grossly vlifed him less than year ago as
deserter from their ranks. There are certain
recent speeches and acts of the President on
which they evidently build their expectations
that he has gone back on those who elected
him, and is gradually feeling his way to the
commission of double act of treachery in
his political career. Democratic editors have
written glowing panegyrics of Mr.. JoHNsoN's
veto of the Freedmens Bureau Bill, }" and his
celebrated 22d of February speech. All such
incense from the nasty cauldron of party
politics, no matter who may stir the pot, or
over whose fires it may be made to boil, the
nCstrils of true and brave and wise patriot
will instinctively turn away from in disgust.
The President we hope, means to do right, no
matter how his own political friends may now
differ as to the justice and soundness of his
views; ard in that respect he is entitled to
general regard and confidence. But we are
greatly mistaken in our estimate OF his char
acter and real purposes if he does not disap-
point all the calculations of that party which
denounced him because of his adherence to
the Constitution and the Union during the
Rebellion, and now hope to win him over to
their side after the Rebellion is crushed, and
they find it no longer safe and polite to sympa-
thize with secession and treason.
1t must, however, be confessed that not
few even OF the conservative Republicans"
here and elsewhere, have been alarmed by
what they conceived to be a too generous dis
position on the part of the President to let
the Rebels up too easily and restore them to
their full rights in the Union without suffi-
cient guarantees for their good behavior and
honest loyalty in the future. Indeed, some
even apprehended that Mr.. JOHNSON was
being biassed, unconsciously, in wrong
direction, by his natural affections and pre-
JUDGES as a Southern man. On this point,
however, we do not intend to express an
opinion, because we would not be misled our
selves or mislead others in judging of
Presidents intentions and conduct by ap-
pearances only, or on such slight grounds at
least as his action has yet supplied.
1t is much more agreeable to trust to
The integrity OF any one until there
is clear and indisputable occasion to
Withdraw confidence; and this is especially
true where, as in the case of Mr.. JOHNSON,
there is abundant evidence to show that the
confidence once reposed was not reposed with
but good and substantial reasons. The obvious
policy, as well as duty, of the Republican"
party is to continue their faith in the personal
honesty and political principles OF the Presi-
dent, until he has forfeited it by a clear VIOLA
4io,, ov both f. and in the meantime, to con-