The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-06-08


phers who could never have enough of his
conversation and common sense. Il will do no
harm for Americans in Paris to remember that
they are the cOuntrymen of Benjamin Franklin.
Political Parties - Time for Another
IRA of Good FeeIimg.D
From the Times
There was halcyon period during the Pre-
sidency of James Monroe, which has always
been known in our history as the oera of good
feeling" 1t succeeded the great agitations
connected with the admission of Missouri as
slave State into the Union. The true home
bred feelings of all the people resumed their
ascendancy. All sectional and party dissen-
slons were hushed, and merged into broad
and deep national spirit. Anger and DENIM
citation gave place to hearty goodwill and com
plaisance; distrust and gloom to universal conf
denCe. The result was decade of unexampled
prosperity and progress.
What we now most of all need is another sucb
epoch. All things invite us. The old super
sttion is true enough that only the rust of the
spear can cure the wound its point has made.
but already there is plenty of rust. The very
delay Of reconstruction for which so MANY
good people have grieved, and so many bad
ones sworn, has given us great deal of time
which has been very serviceable as an ano-
dyne. Whoever is most responsible for this
delay, whether President Johnson or the
Southern people, the fact none the less remains
that it has gradually, while we scarcely
thought of it, assuaged the old rankings. and
prepared for the best kind of restoration. In
stead of tearfulness for our present condition,
we should have thankfulness; instead of
curses, congratulations.
We have escaped fearful dangers and are
vastly better off, at this time, than we had any
reason to expect. During the Rebellion every
thn,,f f,ht tf,1, 4 Id.
its direct brunt All history testiies that in
such civil conflicts there is a peculiar danger
in the wild rage of the baffied storm, in the
incalculable heavings of the after swell, and
the tumultuous lashings of the cross seas. All
can recall how near the liberated colonies came
to going to the bottom after their revolution.
Half of the annals of England are taken up
with the fearful laborings of her ship of state
after such revolutionary crisis. 1t is even
yet tossing violently, thirty years after such
an insignificant affair as the Reform agitation.
The civil war we have passed through is the
mightiest on modern record. Mightiest for its
interests involved, for its passions excited for
its forces engaged. The bare sight of it at a
safe distance cOnfounded the world. Every
where the wisest and the coolest exclaimed
with one voice that we must certainly go
down. And all men now agree that the wonder
is, not that we are still ON an uneven keel but
that we are afloat at all: not that there is vet
heaving beneath us, but that there is the
dimmest prospect of smooth sea beyond us.
Sure there ought to be enough in this won
derful good fortune to open our hearts to every
happy and benign every trustful and magnani-
nous feeling.
We should rejoice and take heart, not only
for dangers escaped, but for new advantages
secured. We are forever rid of slavery that
hereditary curse which cankered and inflamed
our whole system, and was apparently bevond
ara rid nf 81
contempt between the two great sections of
the country which was perpetual source of
unjust judgments, and perpetual stimulus to
unfair dealing. Both sections have come out
creditably from the sharpest of all earthly
ordeals, and each has learned to respect the
other. The desperate tug of war has brought
out quslities on both sides little dreamed of
before, and such as belong only to the very
best stuff of humanity. In the face of the
immense sacrifices of treasure and life made
by the Northern people for the flag of the
country, no Southern man can again mistake
them for crouching wOrshippers of Mammon-
for craven underlings. In the face of the fiery
dash and iron endurance of the half-clad and
haltfed Confederate regiments, no Northern
man can again look upon his Southern coun-
trymen as Gasgon breed, bereft of all
manhood by selfconceit and self-indulgence.
living only by brag, bravado, and buster
The names of 'tire-eaters" and ''White trash"
hdNC DcCI 6ApullSSO lOI6N6T from Lne Northern
vocabulary; and never again shall we hear
Southern lips hiss out the appellation "mud-
sills." All such contumelous terms have
perished forever in the blaze Of this war. They
are as extinct as the gadfy which drove 10
mad. We are entitled to expect hereafter, in
the discussions between the sections a style
of speech COMFORTING with natural respect and
patriotic PRIDE and beftting the gravity of the
interests committed to their care. In the old
mood this was morally impossible. The con-
tempt which, according to the Indian proverb,
''pierces even the shell of the tortoise" cannot
but be fatal to anything like calm and fair de-
liberation.
That we may have another "era of good
feeling, " there must be cessation, not only
OF sectional controversy but ofparty animosity.
There is no good reason in the world why a
bitter party spirit should be continued.
Livery difference of opinion is not difference
OF principle. We have called by different
names brethren of the same principles. We
are all Republicans, all Federalists." So
spoke President Jefferson in his first in
augural address, at the close of one of the
hercest party struggles in our history. II is
the true lesson of this day-a piece of pristine
patriotism and wisdom never more needful
than now. The war ended long aeo-it is
high time that the party feuds il excited
should also have an end. Every one of the
great questions connected with the war
whether military or civil, has vanished. For
any practical bearing, not so much as the
shadow of one of them remains. The old sub-
iects of dispute have been gWant undar l. a.