New Orleans daily crescent., 1866-11-09
TgF FIECrI0Ns.

The elections for.this year are now over,
The general result may be summed rp in
ew words. The Republicans have carried /
every! thing in the Northern States; have
maintained their ascendency in the various
States, and their predominanee IN Congress.
A few states are yet to hold elections for Con-
but these will 5pr. .ol,ably only con-
firm the results already o,etained. The Re-
publican majority in the next House Of Rep
resentatives viii be as large as it is in the
present House. That it will be asSvindictiVe
as intolerant, as oppressive, as regardless OF
Justice and of constitutional rights, as auda-
cieus, as revolutionary, as unscrupuous,
there is too much reason to believe. But in
what manner these qualities will be mani
Eested, in what form of aggression they will
be displayed, into what practical shape they
will finally crystalises cannot now be
accurately predicted. Indeed the effect
Of these elections may be to urge
the actual Congress into some course of pro-
ceedinc more consonant with the ultra views
of the masses of the Republican, party than
is the constitutional amendment. For some
time it has been plain that the amendment
was used only as a convenient electioneering
device an expedient by which the Republi-
can party might be held together during the
period of transition to a more pronounced
policy of consolidation and by which it
might be enabled to resist the influences
which for season appeared to menace its
| integrity. This object has been achieved, and
the result will be another illustration Of the
faulty of the expectation that conservative
/ opinion can ever materially modify the
| opinions, or practically check the course OF
an essentially revolutionary party Bound by
party ties, and overcome by a superstitious
reverence for party forms, the so-called con-
sergative Republicans have assisted in the
triumph of policy which they profess to
deprecate and condemn. They have persuaded
themselves that they can hereafter prevent
| the development Of radical schemes by acting
within the organization Of the Republican
party and that they will be able to force that
party to adhere to what they consider the
mild and clement programme Of the constitu-
tional amendment
Yet, even before the elections, radical
| thought had taken much wider range, and
exhibited tendency to pass barrier which
had been erected more for the purpose oi
keeping recusant members within the party,
than as permanent limit to radic&l designs
and purposes. Almost every prominent organ
almost every orator Of the Republican party
repudiated the idea that the Congress in.
il +o,dod 41,o o,,,o,, 7 ,or+ &c ~, ofa,, In Al.
South, involving any sort of compact Oh
guarantee. 1t was simply a something de-
manded by the dominant party, but not, by
any means, all that the dominant party in
tended to demand It is undeniable that
this idea pervades the masses of the Republi-
can party, and that it has obtained decided
ascendency in the results of the recent cleo
tions The so-called conservative Repub-
1icans will soon see that they have been of no
use, except to secure the triumph Of radi-
calism by their votes, and that their opinions
viii be suffocated by the rising current of
ultracism.
In a very short time the Republican party
will drop the constitutional amendment and
will insist on some other settlement which
may promise them greater advantages, and,
at the same time be more logically consistent
with that mode Of thought which regards the
Southern States as simply territorial adjuncts
Of the North, inhabited by politically amor
phous communities, destitute of rights, and
destined solely to be made over again in the
likeness of New England, so that, as Wendell
Phillips expresses it, the nation may become
homogeneous, and its constituents run to-
gether like drops of water. " This is the logi-
cal development of the Republican theory,
because the Republican theory is onlyia wide
generalization of New England ideas, New
England opinions and New England aspira-
tions. If this theory is to be finally defeated,
and the country saved from the procrastean
fate to which it is devoted by the New Eng
land school, it must be saved by general in
surrection of thought, in the Middle and
Western States, against the dominion Of New
Englandism. Such moment may come;
perhaps it must come; but there seems to be
little hope Of it just at present.