The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-10-16

1t Is notable fact which viii be worth re-
membering hereafter, let the presidential
election 60 as il may, that the Northern Re
publicans have been conducting the campaign
with a studious evasion or suppression of
Radical issues which have constituted the
distinguishing qualities of the policy of their
party. They have not dared to urge unquali-
fed negro suffrage as principle obligatory
alike upon Northern and Southern States
Nor have they dared to defend negro supre
macy at the South as thing just in design or
beneficial in result and tendency. Nor have
they dared to approve the assumption by Con-
gress of authority to go, in the words of Thad-
deus Stevens, "outside of the Constitution, :"
for the purpose Of extruding or admitting, of
manufacturing or annihilating States, and of
changing at its pleasure the existing constitu-
tons and laws of States. Nor have they
dared to advocate the indefinite prolongation
of the Freedmen's Bureau, that leprous erup-
ton of a sick and disjointed time, that piece of
sham charity and actual robbery, which has
hampered industry under pretext of protec-
ton, and promoted idleness. beggary and
misery by its very prodigality. Nor have
they dared to justify Radical policy as Illus
trated in extravagant expenditures, in cum
brous, complicated and vexatious tax system,
in constant and alarming increase of the
public debt portending imminent bankruptcy.
Nor have thay dared to advert with common
dalton to the wild, furious farce of impeach-
ing the President for detection to his party.
They have exhausted every device for divert
ing public attention from these things; and
when bafied in this attempt they have tried
by every subterfuge to keep the responsibility
its candidates. The first indication of their
deliberate intention not to face any of these
issues squarely was afforded in the Chicago
platform, in the nomination of Grant, and in
the delphic expressions with which he ac-
cepted the nomination. Since then signs of
like import have continued to thicken and
as among them may be mentioned the denun-
ciatory or disparaging manner in which some
of the foremost Republican papers have
spoken of Butler and Ashley, Bingham and
Wade
Public opinion has extorted this much
homage from the leaders of the Republican
party in the pending campaign. They knew
that there would be no chance of success if the
party entered the contract wearing Radical
front so vulnerable to attack as to keep them
constantly on the defensive. They knew also
that there was but one electioneering expe-
dent in which they could hope to find the ag-
gressive force which the nature of the contest
demanded. And this expedient was an ap-
peal to the old war feeling of the Northern
masses. Hence the prodigious and unscrup-
ulous assiduity with which they have labored
to disseminate the belief that the Confederate
rebellion is not dead, but only sleeping that
it still lives in the Southern heart, as fierce
and rancorous as ever nay more, that the re-
bellious spirit necessarily breaks forth in the
and murder of Union men and
in riotous defiance to the federal authorities.
How systematically they have kept up this
battle cry may be judged from such passages
in recent editorial of the Chicago Tribune
as these: that "the Republican party hold
and maintain that the present contest is only
a continuation of struggle of which the war
was the first epoch, that " the present is the
second epoch of the war, and that "all loyal
men will readily remember that Wade Hamp-
ton, n. B. Forrest and Howell Cobb fought |
against Gen. Grant in the first epoch"
What then, would be the significance of |
the election of Grant under the banner which |
waved over the battle fields of the late sec |
tional war, and which should have reposed |
ever since in the national temple of concord |
In the first place, it would show that four
years had not given sufficient time for the fire |
of Northern animosity to die out, and for |
Northern suspicion to be supplanted by gem |
erous confidence. Under no other theory, |
could we conceive the Northern people to |
look without disgust and horror upon the |
stage trick of the Republican Falstaff, run
ming his sword through the dead body of the |
Southern Percy In the next place, a VIC
tory thus won by the Republican party which
Wendell Phillips, on account of its course in |
The present campaign, describes as ga party
without principles" could not, on the surface
1t least indicate the defnitive triumph of
he more distinctive principles and the more
extreme measures of Radicalism. But that
Radicalism would raise all its hydra heads,
md endeavor to seize all the fruits of the vic
ory, is not to be doubted.