The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1868-08-13
The Presidential Oampa,xn.


portant than all others-the history of the
radical party and the niger vote. For eight
years the republican party has been in power,
and the final results, as seen by the people,
are the arrangement Of all the machinery of
government an almost incredible corruption
in Office and weight in taxes that bears COM
MERGE and labor to the earth. viii the people
longer have patience with party that has
such history? This is the question of the
hour. Is there any fear in our future that
should move the people to trust this party
again even despite the fearful chance that it
may continue the same destructive career that
has already been so disastrous to the national
prosperity? Can any other party inflict upon
US evils worse than those we now suffer as the
consequence of radical misrule2 Reconstruc-
ton by system Of legislation that delibe-
rately FORCES calamity for whole people and
prepares the social ruin of ten States to secure
power to coterie OF politicians-this is the
political crime that stamps the radical faction
as utterly damnable before the people. Men
inquire what the faction would stop at that
and they know that 1t will not stop at any
thing sacred in the law and will respect the
rights of the people in the North as little as it
has done in the South. Does the name Of
Grant furnish any guarantee for the
future Of the radicals? The people are
not ready to believe it. Grant Is politi-
cally only promise and a. possibility. Re-
spectacle men are not willing to doubt his
honesty or his upright purpose; but these do
not always qualify for success in such strife
as he must control to save the people from his
party. He may prove capable; he may not,
and it is time when the people cannot trust
their future to such chance. Therefore the
doom of radicalism seems to be burned into
the popular brain, and on such reasoning as
we have limited the people appear to drift
toward what they regard as the least of two
evils, without faith in the republicans and
little hope in the democrats. Men on either
side count for little; it is the history of the
radical party that condemns it. Democracy
has bad history, too, but its sins are trivial
by comparison. If this faction ever desired to
reconstruct society it was in the interest of the
white man. The word taxation hardly occurs
in its history, and it never aimed blow at the
Supreme Court or sought to cripple the gov
eminent in the person of tho Executive. 1t
sympathized with the South in the war, and
that can be forgiven by people who are at
last coming to look upon the republicans as
the South looked upon them when the waf
began. IT. therefore, the history of the
democracy were darker than it is the history
of radicalIsm would be infinitely beyond it in
infamy. 1t is upon these broad views and judg-
ments of parties that the people move. The
common mind averages great results by pro-
cesses of its own. Isolated facts are forgotten,
this or that virtue or vice seems to pass away
but the balance of history is made up at the
polls, and Kentucky indicates the tendency.
If the reaction of the public mind stimulated
by the history Of the radical party does not
sweep the wno,e North the negro vote will be
of the first Importance in the struggle. 1t may
save the South to the radicals, but it may give
it TO the democrats and regarding the posi-
bility Of fairly divided North, Sambo may
indicate that the negroes may go very largely
with the democrats. Dull as we may con-
slider the whole race, they have seen enough
to be disguised with radical friendship,
and are certainly seeking political allies out
side that party. Negroes from the beginning
had determined upon their part of the alliance
with the radicals, and thus formed expecta-
tons that the latter could not meet. Confsca-
ton tells the story in word. Northern re-
straint on the dominant party, even its worst
moments rendered it impossible for 1t to carry
out the virtual compact; but the negroes will
not understand that. They only cherish resent
ment at the men who promised, but did not
perform. Confscation, by giving the negroes
real as well as political independence, might
have made it possible that they could sustain
a political opposition In the Southern States;
but without hold on the land this was not
possible. Without the power, therefore, to
make their political independence effective
with social facts, more cogent than radical
orators, forcing upon them that their interests
were identical with the interests of the people
among whom they must live; with q heart
breaking disappointment in view of this and
bitter readiness to visit their resentment on
those who had raised such high hopes only to
betray them, the niggers inevitably go over
to the other side. There is nothing strange
in this. 1t would be strange If it were other
wise, for they achieve political revenge and act
on the best view they can take of their own
welfare.
The case ofthe Presidency, therefore, judged
by the main facts seems to stand thus The
history of the radical party is such that the
people will not trust it again on any terms,
and this conviction threatens to give the North
to the democrats. If, however, this fails,
there is possibility that Grant may be beaten
by losing the whole South through the defec-
A.