The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-11-05
TIE DENocRATIc PARTY AND TIE LATE

Now that the presidential election is known
to have resulted in the defeat of the Demo-
cratic party and its candidates, that class of
persons who are always wise after the fact,
and who are gifted with the valuable faculty
| of predicting past events, will be swift to re-
veal their wisdom, and to demonstrate how
the defeat could have been averted 1t is the
peculiar gift of such people, after failure Of
their party, to constitute themselves detectives
of latent and unobtrusive error, and to pounce
upon reconcile but damaging facts, with a
view of proving that everybody else was
wrong from the beginning. The Democratic
party has its full share of these er post facto
prophets; and the opportunity for display
| of their wisdom will not be permitted
to pass unimproved. We shall be told that
the party committed blunders which were
fatal to its prospects; that it erred
in its candidates, in its platform and its con-
duct of the canvass. We shall be assured, by
implication, that the Democratic Convention
was composed of a set of senseless idiots,
who stupidity or recklessly rejected the chance
of victory which the excuses of Radicalism
one that the financial question was badly han
died, and by another that the financial ques-
ton was not made sufficiently prominent by
one that the reconstruction issue was not
pressed with sufficient strength /; by another
that the reconstruction issue was urged with
too much vehemence. These persons waste
their time, and devote their inquiring minds
to very useless, indeed very injurious pur-
pose and, as usual with those who look
backward instead of looking forward, they ig-
more that vast mass of facts and opinions
which necessarily assert themselves in a great
party, and, in comparison with which the
shifts and expedients which are afterwards
suggested, become Insignificant and inappre-
ciable.
1t is very easy to say that the Democratic
party committed mistakes but it is very diff
fcult to show that the mistakes which these
latter-day detectives attribute to it, had any
material influence on the result. All parties
are liable to err in adopting any particular
line of policy not dictated by the logical ne
cessities of its principles but these errors
are as likely to be committed on one side as
on the other, and, in the long run, their ag-
gregate constitutes general balance. These
are errors of expedient, errors of judgment,
errors of temporary policy, and they cannot
materially affect the relations of parties with
each other. But if it is asserted that the
Democratic party committed any serious, any
suicidal mistake in the recent canvass, such
mistake must have been involved in the de-
claration of its essential principles, and in the
attitude which it assumed towards the oppo-
site party. To assert this is to assert that the
Democratic party is wrong as to its princi-
Piles, and wrong as to the policy which it pro-
claimed. To say, therefore, that it commit
ted any fragrant blunder, is to say either that
its doctrines and its policy are wrong, and
hence that Radical doctrines and policy are
right or that it erred in proclaiming its doc
trines and policy !; in which case it could have
made no issue with Radicalism. The truth is
that the Democratic platform was the genuine
expression of Democratic opinion and
of Democratic thought. To attempt
to stide the utterence of that opinion
would have proved abortive; and even
could such an effort have been success
full the consequence would have been far more
disastrous than those which have ensued.
To endeavor to combat Radicalism without
making an issue with it would have been
as idle as to try to raise volunteers for an
army without cause or flag. The Demo-
cratic party has been beaten in the election;
but it has been beaten by the fraudulent and
fvrappicol dcfro obica,na,,f of fba ,1aooIo - |
Missouri and Tennessee, West Virginia and |
Florida; by the forcible exclusion of Virginia,
Mississippi and Texas from the electoral col |
lege; by the indisposition of the so-called |
conservatives of the North to aid the Demo-
cratic party in undoing the work which Radi-
eslism claimed to have accomplished, and by
the military prestige of the Republican can
didate. These elements of strength inhering
in the Republican party, were known to
exist from the beginning. 1t was
not reserved for the sagacity of
er post .faoto prophets to divine and discover
them. They were evident from the begin
ming; they constituted, indeed, the whole
available resources of the Radicals for the
canvass, and they used them, as was to be
expected, with remorseless skill. But care
full review of the canvass from the beginning
us that the Democratic party did
not commit any serious error, unless its error
consisted in being the Democratic party. 1t
boldly, fearlessly, honestly proclaimed its
principles and announced its policy. 1t
selected as its candidates men who repre-
'ented its views its desires, its feelings and
is aspirations, and then committed its cause
% the judgment of the people.
SOUTHERN PATENTs.-Col. Rufus r. Rhodes, SO.
icitor Of patents, No. % Commercial Place, off.