The Portland daily press., 1867-10-23

wednesday morning. Oot Der 10, 1901 a
Ii akAEM EgA gHa&W NsaE s7Hi
Impartial Suffrage she Vita, Principle.
:" 1 have heard itpreached,r quoth Sancho
Panza, " that God is to be loved with this
kind OF love, for. Himself alone, without one
being moved to it by hope of reward or fear
OF punishment; though for my part, am in
elined to love and serve Him for what He is
able to do for me- Many OF the leading pol
iticians of this perverse, generation are as lit
tie disinterested in establishing their relations
with things terrestrial, and especially with par
ties, as Don Quixote's squire was in his allie
glance to Heaven. There are Republicans
who want the party to repudiate negro suf-
frase, because, forsooth it will otherwise fail--
disintegrate-breakd down and go up the river
of saline properties from which some OF its
predecessors have never returaed.t Why do
those men belong to the party? Evidently
because it has been a successful party. To
their minds. success is The essence of the
thing, while what are really the weightier
matters, impartial suffrage ani equal rights,
" '..'Si Siy SoiifSLiSiIt
catchwords, useful in organizing masses OF
people to elect them TO office and feed aud
clothe their rascal carcasses at the public ex-
pense. To them constitutional amendments
having for its object the strengthening and
enlargement OF the democratic elements OF
the government, is an amendment providing
that Jones shall continue in the post Office !;
the Civil Rights bill, statute establishing
the great principle that Smith must be "pro-
vided for" The Tenure of Office bill differs
from other enactments only in the verbal rec
'ognition in its tit.eof the fundamental idea
OF their political philosophy, for, to them, all
bills are tenure of Office bills. 9snY ~ h..
II would not be at all consistent with fact
to represent these thoroughly selfish Republi.
can leaders as numerous, for one of the st rong
est and most active and persistent elements
that constitutes the party is made up from
the old Aboltlonsts, who were so disinterest-
ed in their sentiments that they committed
political suicide every year with never failing
cheerfulness. The masses OF the people fol
low the lead of their truef statesmen, whose
Wow ID Hub bOusuCu ny
walls They had as lief a party called Demo
cratic would succeed as party called l,epub-
lcan if it is only the election of particular
men TO Office that Is at stake. They know
that the Republican party without impartial
suffrage in its platform would be the play of
Hamlet with not only the Prince of Denmark,
but Polonius, Laertes, Ophelia and all the
other characters, except the proiane and irrev-
erent grave disgers, left out 1t wonld be an
association of American citizens, with its To-
cal and national committees, its newspaper
organs, its funds for party purposes and its
leieetioneering machinery, and nothing else.
Its platform would be simply, Resolved, that
we must retain control of the government /
With the abandonment OF Impartial suffrage
would also come abandonment of the whole
scheme oil reconstruction which Congress has
proposed, and, logically, a withdrawal of all
those projections and safeguards which have
been thrown around the negro while he is yet
unable so take measures for his own safety
The opposition party could do no worse Il
they regained the ascendancy Ifthere must
be this retrogression, let it be at the instance
OF party whose late history needs only this
to make its infamy complete; but let the par
ty of great moral ideas" be true to its faith,
even it by SO doing it insures its own over
throw. 1t will then be at least historically
grand, and sure of a speedy restoration, while
irretrievable ruin is equally sure to oyertake
il il it undertakes to exclude from is platform
all OF true religion and true philosophy that is
embodied therein. o. isls