The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1868-08-06
The Dangerous State Of tho Countrywide
Prospect Ahead.


spective is picturesque with the ruins of one
more grand attempt to govern justly failing
through human passion. Seeming in the very
heyday Of life and the blaze Of glory, we are
treading recoverable steps toward calamity.
Our great political contest assumes a character
that Identifies 1t with the political contests that
blacken a hundred years of Roman history
Should the democracy win we perceive by its
declarations and by the spirit in which it re-
ceives every encouragement, such as the Ken
lucky triumph, whittier its victory must too
certainly drive us. But a little while ago 1t
assumed certain more or less gracious
humility. Now it threatens, and every indica-
ton that the people listen patiently or that
they seem to sympathize gives it countenance
and reacts in the boldness of its utterances.
And it is possible that it may win. Kentucky
goes for the democracy, it is true, by a
larger majority than in the last election,
but we doubt if it is safe to draw from Ken
lucky election on such fact any augury in
favor of the election of Seymour. If the ideas
that have given Kentucky to the democrats by
seventy thousand majority have hold of the
minds of the whole Southern people, as there
is all reason to suppose they may, and if the
craft that lately put Wade Hampton on the
democratic stump between two niggers shall
continue to temper chivalry, the South may 60
very largely for the Blair ticket, and the cleo
ton would be the closest possible contest. 1t
might be so close indeed, as to make the
result practically indecisive before the people,
and from a very close struggle, from doubt
full result, or from democratic triumph, would
flow new turmoil for the nation, new danger,
perhaps absolute anarchy.
Excitement rises in view of such possibili-
ties, and the passions Of partisans rise with it;
and we hear public men refer to their oppo-
nents in terms that point to the growing fury,
whose full height we contemplate in Marius,
Sylla and CHINA. What reason have we to con-
graduate ourselves that we are beyond the
possibility Of repeating those bloody pages of
political story? The greater humanity Of the
nineteenth century, perhaps. But before we
trust ourselves to that show us something
from antiquity worse than Libby Prison or
Andersonville, and wipe out the fact that
Paris less than century since repeated the
horrors of Rome with multiplied barbarity.
The Roman republic had its rebellion, as we
have had ours, and thought as we did, that it
was put down, when the politicians of the
dominant party settled the great land question
in their own way and established the State on
q new constitution. Alas! that end was only
the beginning of Roman troubles, and that
rebellion was only the first event in series of
civil wars and revolutions, which the men who
ived a hundred years later saw still in
progress, as Caesar and Pompey hunted one
another through the known world. France
also began in 1889 revolution that Is not
closed yet-that has had its phases of
democracy, monarchy and military empire,
and now only halts in despotism standing on
universal suffrage, great army and an enor-
nous debt. Great political throes, such as our
| rebellion and war, seem to leave nations cam
because they leave them. exhausted, and in the
| truce of that quiet the elements only gather
| strength to renew the fight. Our rebellion also
willappear in history as only the first of series
| of political revolutions, and the end may be
| anywhere. Mexico herself may be q respect
| able Power beside what the United States will
| appear when political anarchy has done its
worst. IL is for the people to determine
whether the storm of war shall reopen next
dency, or whether an immense majority for
| Grant shall lengthen the truce for four years.
| Nothing less than the moral effect of an
immense majority for Grant will quiet the
| nation, and this, as we say. will only lengthen
| the truce: for whatever the result our future
is simply series of strifes between these
embittered parties made savage by the blood
| of the war. With all her internal struggles
breaking her down Rome was still great
misunderstanding her arms, her political
system. her civilization over the world She
appeared to he no less prosperous than great,
and even when the struggle was over the
people thought they were still living In the
gories of the old republic, governed by the
Senate, with only an executive in the
Emperor. II was rude awakening from
and we also will awaken some day to perceive
ourselves in the same position. This or thai
party whichever may happen to be in power
will divert attention from its schemes by The
same splendid pursuit of foreign wars, by
the same system of subduing its neighbors,
until our dominion shall be nominally supreme
over the whole Continent and our civilization
laws and enlightenment shall penetrate ia
every country, laying the foundat on of State,
to be carved from the ruins of the grea
republic, as modern Europe was carved from
the Roman empire. We have entered upon q
career 10 which no nation Of the past was ever
able 10 stop midway.