The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-10-19

wears more of power TO carry out their policy |
to its legitimate result, and settle society at |
the South upon a sure and lasting foundation; |
and we hold it to be of the highest importance
to the country that they should succeed in
retaining it for this period. No such trans
formation as we are now attempting can be
effected in year or two.
But no party can hope to retain power any
longer than the Republican party has retained
it, or long enough for the proper execution of
any such work as the latter has in hand
unless it can manage to keep pure and to con
fine its attention to one object. All parties
which remain long in Office naturally attract
the knaves to them, and naturally grow over
confident in their own strength; and the longer
they remain in Office the bolder the knaves
grow, and the more disposition there is to lend
the party strength-just as manufacturers let
out their surplus steam -power-to any little
lot of enthusiasts who apply for it and offer to
pay for it in noisy support. Now, no party in
America can count ON remaining in Office long
after it gets into this condition. A party, as
we have more than once pointed out, is not an
army. 1t is a collection of free agents, inhu-
enoed in greater or less degree by one idea,
and party organization can only be strong in
proportion to the ignorance of the mem
bers. No party at the North can ever be as
strong and compact as the pro slavery party
has been at the South; the Republican organ
ization can never be as perfect as that OF the
Democrats; and although it is quite true that
the more you spread newspapers and books,
the more Republicans you make, it is also
true that the more highly educated the Repub-
lican party becomes the more care Will the
management of it require, if the leaders do not
wish to be left high and dry, as they are to-
day in California, Pennsylvania, and Ohio
Intelligent and educated men can only be led
through their reason and through their con-
science. They will not 60 into battle for any
l.. e
critics, and thieves and it is well for the coun-
try, and well for the negro and we'll for every
body whose destiny is bound up in that of the
nation, that they should not. The loss of even
one election at such a crisis as this is of
course, great loss. We are sorry for it, but
if it helps to disabuse party managers of the
idea under which the Tribune says they acted
in Pennsylvania, that anything that is put
on the Republican ticket can be elected" if it
| convince them that to be sure of long tenure
| of power they must respect the popular con-
| science, we hold that the lesson, though bitter,
| will prove invaluable.
| We are no more afraid of the tide turning
| in the United States in favor of RESTRICT
| and political inequality, than we are afraid of
the rivers beginning to flow backwards. All
the forces of the age fight against privilege.
| But we are afraid of having the popular faith
| in honesty and integrity destroyed, and all the
traditions of virtue and decency wiped out, by
that most dangerous of all kinds of corrup-
ton, the corruption of men who profess to be
serving great moral ideas.
The theory which some Western papers are
propounding, that the elections have gone
| wrong because the country is disgusted with
the delays of Congress, is doubtless pleasant
one, but we do not know where any support
| is to be found for it in the history of the past
| two years. The esetreI1ae radioals have, no
| doubt, started good many alarming schemes,
but Congress has not adopted any of them.
All that the Thirty-ninth Congress did was to
claim for itself exclusive jurisdiction in the
matter of reconstruction. The first terms it
offered the South were as mild as any terms
could be- and it had, of course, to give the
South a reasonable time to consider and adopt
them. Even the Philadelphia Convention
could not say they were hard what 1t dld say
was that it was humiliating for the South to
have to accept any terms at all The present
plan was not resolved upon till after the South
had had year for consideration, and it con-
tains nothing but negro suffrage to make it
Objectionable to any Northerner who supported
the war and as to negro suffrage, it has not
been sprung suddenly on the party. 1t is
a cry two years old, which every Republican
journal or statesman has been steadily repeat
ing ever since the South produced its Black
} Codes in the fall of 1865 The question o.
negro suffrage at the North iS comparatively
novel question, and has probably not come
home to the great majority of Northern voters
and the way in which the OHIO Republicans
have treated it is certainly most discreditable
to them but the way in which the party has
been managed everywhere has not been sucl
as to fix peoples attention on the principles
of equal rights underlying negro suffrage al
the South and to make them sensible tina
this was-as the Springfield Republican wei
pointed out the other day-the only basis o
the party, the great reason for its existence
1t has been, on the contrary, managed o
talked of by many of its leaders for the las
year or two as if it was gigantic tactotum fo
the suppression of free-traders, drunkards
fornicators, Sabbath breakers, for the sprea(
of universal freedom, the better dis
3 tribution of landed property at tn
J South, and the production of general rise
9 in wages combined with a general shortenin
2 of the hours of labor, and, finally, for tn
l cheating of the public creditors. Some {
, the most extraordinary doctrines in jurispru
, dence and political economy ever heard of, i
= our day at least have been produced unde
/ the shadow of its standard by men claiming I
l lead it; and though the party as a party ha
> not given any formal countenance it has don
# enough to share in the discredit of them an
t it has at last fallen into carelessness, O
It worse, in making its nominations. But defea
o at elections does not mean its death. Tn
o party is not to be found at conventions or i
o platforms. It's strength lies in the ideas an
: aspirations of the best men and women /
America, and in these there is no change
u The late losses, so far from showing declin
u III the sentiment to which the party owed il
g origin, in our opinion shows that it is stronge
n than ever, for he is no true lover of edui
S political rights who does not love truth an