The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-08-20
wbv the Democratic Party Opposes the
Reconstruction of the South.

arises from the fact that that scheme NJ once
snd forever breaks up the old status of South
srn unitv, by virtue of which the Democratic
marty was so long enabled to domineer over
the country. In the days before the war,
slaverv was the bond of union which held the
South politically together as unit. 1t was a
vast moneyed and social interest, which stood
as the one great centre around which South
ern life revolved. Politics had no other mean
ing and end to the Southern people than to
preserve, promote, and strengthen this one
institution. It was the source of their wealth,
the minister to their pride, the support to
their luxury-in word, the one great and
overshadowing interest OF their social life and
being The South, thus arrayed as a unit,
chose the Democratic party as its organ
through which to act. The problem of ruling
the country was simple enough 1t was a
consolidated South, reinforced by a divided
North. The Democratic party went into our
national elections with almost the certainty of
carrying every Southern State to start with.
1t only needed one or two Northern States to
make the victory complete. But one thing
was required of their Northern allies, and that
was fealty to the slave power. The result was
q political combination of exceeding strength,
and one which dominated the country almost
without interruption from the close of John
Quincy Adams administration to the inaugu-
ration of Abraham Lincoln. During all this
time the slave power really constituted the
Democratic party. The Northern wing sup
ported the slave power, because the slave
power, by its unity, enabled the party to
obtain. and hold political control of the country,
Van Buren,, PIERCE Fillmore, and Buchanan
were rs subservient to the behests of that
power as any stakeholder could have been.
When the Rebellion came, it was really
rebellion of the Democratic party. It's leaders
were the great leaders of the Democratic party
the men who for years had controlled its
nominations, filled its offices, and dictated its
policy. The secret of the support of the Re-
bellion by our Northern Democrats, commonly
called "Copperheads," was that they saw in
the downfall of the slave power the overthrow
of that peculiar combination which had ena-
bled the Democratic party to rule the country.
The Woods, the Vallandighams, the Sey-
mOurs, the Blacks, and that class of politi-
clans, saw that the logical result of national
triumph must be the destruction of slavery,
and with it the downfall of the Democratic
party. They sympathized with the Rebels,
therefore, not because they loved the country
less, but their party more. The loss of politi-
cal poVer was to them thing to be avoided
at all hazards. And this explains why these
men were so anxious during the war that
slavery should not be touched. They clung
to the hope that somehow peace might be
reached and slavery saved. So long as that
institution should remain, the bond of South
ern unity would hold, and the Democratic
party might hope once more for power.
We have in this the whole secret of that
peculiar phase of our politics during the war
which took the expressive name of Cooper
headism." 1t was simply Democratic parti-
sanship rising above all the demands of patri-
Otism, and vainly striving amid the general
upheaval to hold on to the elements of pre-
vious political power. The personal debdsenaent
involved in this position must be ascribed to
. years of unmanly and degrading subserviency
to the slave power, which had well-nigh obli-
terated in the minds of this class Of politicians
all perceptions of moral right and all instincts
of true patriotism. The laws Of the moral
universe are inexorable. Men cannot for
years worship fraud and violence and injus-
tioe, and at the same time preserve love of
liberty and a supreme devotion to country.
When the war was over the Democratic
party at once sought to establish, but on a
new basis, its old relations. Slavery, it is
true, was dead, but the Rebellion itself had
proved bond of Southern union equally
powerful. The first step TO be taken, there
fore, was TO restore the rebellious members OF
the slave oligarchy to political power in the
South, to make them the State, to the exclu.
sion Of the new elements which the abolition
of slavery had introduced into the body polite,
and by thus establishing an aristocrdcy in
every Southern State, to still have one domi.
nant and controlling interest that would hold
the South together in section nal opposition to
the rest of the nation. This was the essence o.
President JohnsOn's policy. He attempted tC
create Rebel GriStOcracy out of the old slave
oligarchy-an aristOcracy which would be held
in unity both by the memory of its past
tuiumphs and struggles, and by its present
exclusive rights and privileges in the mids
of nominal republicaAism. Each otat'
Covernment, B It was reorganized, wa
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