The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-09-20

friends take pattern by Ohio, and wake up the
sluggards. The gain OF Pennsylvania would
give the Democracy substantial cause for hone
in the next Presidential contest; and should
1t be carried with halfdisguised repudiator
at the head of the successful ticket, the dam
age to the public credit would be deplorable.
There are not quite three weeks of working
time left but great deal may be done in that
period. While we have no fears of the result
we repeat the suggestion that it will require
hard work and constant vigilance to secure the
victory which is clearly our due
The President aud Congress DisgrRcIne
stttutiOnRl Party.
From The ~ y. Herald
He who is always under the influence of un-
reasonable prejudices and bad temper, who
suffers his conduct to be guided by whimsical
likes and dislikes, rather than by his iudg-
ment, and who at all times is ready to engage
in the undignifed strife of epthets, to contend
in vile phrases and exhaust the vocabulary of
personal abuse-such a man will scarcely
retain the respect of his associates in any grade
Of life, and will be peculiarly fortunate if he is
not sooner or later ruled out of all company
that has any lingering sense of what is decent.
As it is with individuals and in ordinary social
intercourse, so it is with men and bodies of
men in higher relations. Between the Presi-
dent on one hand and Congress on the other
there has ragged too long already an unseemy,
undignifed, altogether disgraoeful contention,
that is only different from the ill-natured quar-
rels of common life in being worse, since in
the one case the parties to vile dispute could
only degrade themselves, while here the coun-
try also must take portion of the opprobrum
the very national name must be dragged in
the mire. AT least, unless the people of the
country shall show that they are outraged by
the spectacle shall protest against the dis
graceful conduct of President and Congress
together as manifested in this pitiful quarrel,
and shall indicate unmstakably the disposi-
tion to rule such parties out of the nations
councils, this war of President and party must
stand as the characteristic conduct of our
higher political life and as the nations dis
grace.
An undue license of speech was INDUCED on
the floor OF Congress in referring to Mr. John
sons course in the attempted reconstruction
of the Southern States; and the peculiarly
violent and virulent radical leaders assailed
not only the acts, but the motives of the Pres-
dent, in terms more fitting a bar-room brawl
than Congressional discussion. This was an
unworthy departure from the dignity of par
liamentary usage. Words thus spoken an
noyed and irritated the President, and he so far
forgot the decorum of his high position as to
exhibit himself to the country writhing under
the smart of that irritation. His vindictive
speech in reply will be memorable in our his
tory as the first speech by which a President
of the United States ever deliberately showed
that he had no conception of the proprieties of
his office. Congressman in both houses showed
but too great readiness to descend with the
President to the lowest level disputation can
take, as if moved by the instinct that teaches
the'cur to heal his wounds with his tongue. So
from one point af degradation to another the
miserable quarrel went, and all the factions
developed their games from one side to the
other of this difference The impudence and
the atrocious principles of the radicals, who
concealed their minority in Congress under
the noise of this dispute, had full scope. BY
this dispute the Republican majority, that was
conservative and inclined to mild measures,
was driven to accept the measures OF the radi-
Gals for fear of seeming to side with the Presi-
dent in what was made to appear his quarrel
with the whole party. Even the next to
idiotic Copperheads, who thought with a
Machiavellian fancy, that by voting with the
/ radicals, and helping to carry their extreme
measures, they might frighten the country,
even they fell in t. be the mere tools of those
who started the fight, and the political senti-
ment and tone of that quarrel affects the way
in which politics are discussed ever since. The
latest speech of the ice-President of the
United States outdoes the most violent of the
Presidents own diatribes; and not long since
the same distinguished politician deliberately
proposed the overturning of the old established
order of society.
Must we go on thus from bad to worse, and
follow to its last result the direction given to
political events by the disgraceful quarrel Of
lhe President and the factionsf Is there nc
stopping place short of absolute national degra
dation There is but one way to effect g
change. The moderate and sensible people,
the respectable masses of the Republican party
that vast indefinite body OF thinking meI
that form the nation and cannot become the
tools of the factions-these must come out
boldly, openly, and distinctly, and declare
against the radical faction, the so-called con
servative faction, the Copperhead faction, anC
the President with the rest. They must throw
over all the parties to this quarrel that have
disgraced the nation and turned public atten
tion aside from the great important issues o
the hour They must form a new party
around new men, or around men not com
mitted to the perpetuation of disgracefu
strife. They must take up the men of tn,
war, the men whom the factions in this quarre
have driven to the four winds. Let the peopl,
now vote in the coming elections against tn,
radical tickets everywhere, and pile up il
Pennsylvania and New York a great majorit,
that shall tell in no equivocal way that the.
have opened their eyes to the nations danger
And upon the strength of such majOrities, upoi
the confidence they will give to the people il
their own power, this masses may rally rount
some one of the country's great leaders
around Grant, Sheridan, Sic1les, or Mcclellan
and form a party that will demolish al
radical or other opposition to the peoples will