The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-11-17
General Grants EIectiOn-The Prospect
for the Defeated Democracy.

From the NJ Y. Herald.
In the election Of General Grant the Demo
cratic party has suffered heavy defeat. In
the October elections they fought with the
resolution activity, and tenacity of General
Lee in his efforts to hold intact his lines
around Petersburg; but after the loss of Penn
sylvania and Ipdiana the Democratic rank and
file, like Lee when driven from his entrench-
ments, seemed only intent upon saving their
shattered columns from annihilation. The
managers of the TAmmany Seymour and Blair
Convention had presumed too much upon the
apparent political reaction of 1867, as in
lS63-64 they presumed too much upon the
popular manifestations of 1862. In each case,
in falling back upon the extreme Copperhead
idess that the war was failure, and that the
"Union as it was" must be re6stablished, the
Democracy undertook the hopeless battle of
the BouIbons.
Where are they now From their decisive
defeat and from all the circumstances OF their
position, they will be compelled to cast about
for a new line of departure and reorganiza-
tiOn, not upon the dead issues of the past, but
upon the living issues of the present time.
Their fatal mistake in the late canvass was
that they made it the fight of the REBELS Of
the South against the reconstruction laws of
! Congress. The Northern Democratic mana
gers in this were too fast i'll submitting to the
demands OF the Southern delegates of the Con-
! ventiOn, most of whom had been among the
! leaders of the "lest cause" Thus, in the
| Tammany platform the declaration that the
reconstruction laws OF Congress were 'unoon-
stitutonal revolutionary, null and void" we
had, only in other words, the repetition of the
Chicago platform OF 1864 that the war was a
failure, aud that we must have peace upon
any terms acceptable to the ex-Confederate
party of the South. In the face OF this bold
and revolutionary issue all the outrageous
doings for the last four years of radical Con-
gress, and all the vast schedule of corruptions,
blunders, frauds, wastages, and prot1igate ex-
penditures of the party in power we're eclipsed
and became secondary questions in the cam
paign. In word, the Tammany Convention
took the very ground desired by the Repub
licans, and the result is the overwhelming
election of Grant and Colfax and another Re-
publican Congress OF more than two-thirds in
the Senate and within dozen changes or 60
OF two-thirds vote in the House.
We may safely assume, then, that the
Southern reconstruction system adopted by
Congress, subject to the Constitutional
amendment, article fourteen, will stand. Gene
raj Grant in his famous correspondence Of last
February with President Johnson, which broke
the nose Of Chase as the radical favOrite, has
on the War Department imbroglio, left upor
record his position upon reconstruction. He
will, ss President, recognize the existing laws
and whatever notifications he may recon
mend in reference to the unreconstructed
States will doubtless rest upon the Constitu
tional amendment aforesaid. That amend
ment, among other things, pr0olaims all par
sons born or naturalized in the United State
citizens thereof and of the States in which thel
reside ON footing OF civil equality; that suf
frage and representation shall go together, a
each State for itself may choose; that certatl
parties guilty of rebellion against the United
= States shall Ne disfranchised and disqualide