The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-01-22
SYMPTOMS.


q veg shrewd organ Of the Republican party.
1t desires the success of its party; but it sees
that party success is every day jeoparded by
the very measures and the very policy in
tended to assure it, The Commercial may,
and probably viii, adhere to its party in spite
Of anything that Congress may do, but it can
not argue as in the following paragraphs with
out producing an effect on its readers:
II the majority In Congress could forget that
tere will be q presidential election next year,
| they world improve the chances Of the Repubh
can candidate. Ii is evidentthat the disorg anized
States of the South cannot be reconstructed so as
| take part In the election. Congress should not
| attemptto force reconstruction with the view of
obtaining Southern electoral votes. There will
be three votes lost in the North where there will
be gained in the South, by the process. What.
ever danger there may be IN entering upon the
next presidential election without the States that
were Of the Southern Confederscy must be en-
coUnieTed. Ii ID too late TO get them IN, in good
shape. Therefore count them ont, and plan the
campaign with them counted out. Then u Is de-
voutiy TO be wished that the election may be de-
cided beyond the possibility OF controversy 10 the
Northern States, FOR disputed presidential sue
cessiOn would mean not sectional war such as
We have had, but civil war-and we should be
MexicaniZed.
Tie majority in Congress are proceeding upon
the presumption that all the people who took
SiCes Nth lie lhlriy nlntl congress against tue
president are bound up, body and soul, IN their
caucus DEGREES. They are mistaken. IL was not
the policy Of the president so much the exceed.
ing indiscretion of the conduct and ute-ances OF
! Andrew Johnson that. in 1866 WAS disapproved
by the people in electing the FOTtieth Congress.
And now rev issues coming UP and
shadowing the things of yesterday. The elections
in 1867 showed that appeals to the war spirit
merely we've losing theiI efficacy. There is a po-
litical chaos. The people are not awed by the
hssty decisions of scared and passionate partisans
in caucus assembled. The want OF wisdom in The
Republican party management has already revived
the Democratic party, and it looms up formidable
in its prestige and discipline.
The following extracts are from recent edi.
torials in the New York Times. Though the
Times, like the Cincinnati Commercial, may
adhere at all events to the Republican party,
what it says against the course of the radical
extremists is calculated to impel many Repub-
icans to abandon the party permanently:
Reconstruction has put the Republican party
on its trial, aud the verdict must be against il, IT,
after two years expeTimentalizing, it cOnfesses
itself no nearer success than when it started.
The country has sustained il, so far, under belief
hat il would quickly d safely restore the integ-
Iity of the Union. With what propriety or conf
deHce. with what justice or deceney, will it be
possible 20 ask for further support, if the tolls
and devices of two years are declared by their
authors an ignominlous fsilure? What reliance
can be placed on the capacity what trust in the
judgment-cf Republican craftsmanship, ii il thus
repudiate its own hsudiwOrk?
party whose leaders trample on the Constitu-
ton, because itimpedes their operations, cannot
long retain the confidence of the country and
when their overthrow comes-as come il must
what will be the fate Of their policy? what the
upshot of their plotting and legislatng and usurp.
rg? These are inquiries which concern more
han Themselves, for they indicate the reOpening
Of he Southern question AID the recohstructing
lion ~
ness which marks TIE radical programme.
The Times, taken TO task by the Tribune for
assaitng the Republican party, endeavors to
eyade the arragnment by the plea that its at
acks were confined toShe extreme measures
of Congress, and designed in the interest of
he party. 1t says, for example:
Our structures have related to the action Of Con-
eress, past or impending, and are in the interest
Of the Republican party, not az All st 1t. The pont
we have urged above all others is that the course
Of Congress tends 10 keep the country divided
and the South desolate and slieDated: and we
have never ceased TO warn the dominant party Of
the dangers il incurred by assuming responsible
ties for policy pregnant with injustice and dis
akter.
This plea Of the Times is mere juggle of
words. 1t is very much as though a person.
accused of beginning picture, should plead
that he had no purpose to harm the picture,
but only intended to blacken the canvas on
which it was painted The fact is notorious
that ever since the rupture of the President
with the. Republican majority in Congress- the
party has had no expression and embodiment
with respect to public affairs except such as
Congress has given it. The quarrel with An
drew johnson, which commenced as a split
hafNr ha fba &
the party, ended in the secession.of hardly
more than corporal's guard of the former,
the remaider of whom, along with Mr. Ray
mond of the Times, covering under the par
tisan lashes of Stevens and Wade, and other
Republican leaders in Congress, skunk into
the camp of the radical organization to take
lessons in discipline from the drill sergeants
of the New York Tribune. But Mr.. Greeley
and his Tribune associates have not, with all
their zeal and diligence, been able to make
radicals after their own hearts out of these
captured fugitives. They are conquered, but
not essentially altered. They do radical work
under constant protest; constitutionally in
capable, it would seem, of pronouncing the
radical slogan and keeping step with the
When the Times excuses itself by saving
that it merely protests against the reckless
ness of the leaders in Congress, the drill |
sergeants of the Tribune are right, from their |
party standpoint, in charging that it is a de- |
serter in spirit, and in matter of fact SYM |
pathiser and co-operator, as far as prudence |
will allow, with the opponents of the Rspub- |
hcan party.
AS before observed, the Times may con- |
tinue to be nominally a Republican paper.
but it has the ear of a considerable number |
of Republicans who are daily influenced by |
its political utterances, who cannot pursue |
logically the direction of this influence with !
out ceasing practically to be Republicans, and
who have no interest in pursuing other than |
a logical course with reference to their politi-
cal impressions. |
About the same relation may be assumed |
to subsist between the New York Evening