The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1869-08-08

Judging only by the present attitude Of
parties it might bo supposed there Was no diff
ference Of opinion among the American people,
but that we were all in harmony on every sub
ject of national thought. No strife appears be-
tween parties, no opposition OF principles, but
party activity is all given to striving which
one may Guido the other by going to greater
length in the assertion of some common and
accepted view Of public policy. Such definite
grand division of the people said absolutely
yes, and the other as absolutely no, to some
proposition, does not exist. Here is the case
of Cuba before us. II is the present vital
topic aud the only subject Of national delibe-
ration that has arisen in the Presidency OF
General Grant. If we suppose the President
studying party utterance to know how on this
subject he may shun the advice Of those de-
string the failure Of his government and best
act in sympathy With his supporters, we must
suppose him in q sore puzzle for on one hand
are the democrats, who, coming together 10 say
their bitterest thing about him, can calculate
no worse gall than that he delays the recog-
milton of Cuba TO take his holiday, and on the
other are the republican orators of the last
session Of Congress denouncing Spanish
dominion ia the island with fluent
energy, and the whole republican
press that regards recognition as foregone
conclusion, aud seems only to wait that the
government may open its eyes on an inevitable
necessity. On the Alabama claims there is
the same agreement. No democratic orator
in his extravaganza against England will state
our case more strongly than did the radical
| Sumner, and the Fenian democrats themselves
are not more positive for the rights Of Ameri-
can citizens abroad than are the strongest re-
pubIicans in the Senate and the House. Here
is even the radical doctrine Of negro suffrage
that the democrats are taking TO as ii it were
their own invention.
How are we to explain this nullity of polti-
Cal difference? Are we so near TO the standard
of national right as our century sees it? Have
we so purged our social system of evil that
there is no grand vice, no gigantic iniquity,
| oppression or injustice for the destruction of
| which the enthusiastic and earnest will gather
on one side with resolute will and the intere sted
assemble on the other for equally resolute de-
fence? For differences that are merely politi-
cal the people do not care. A subject to 20
| deep with them, to take hold of the very Lille,
must have in 1t an appeal simply to the good
| or bad Of human nature. And people hav-
ing such history as ours and bred as our
people have been, with revolution in the very
J fibre OF the BRAIN acting less from tradition
and precedent than from phio,ophic
standards of right, will stop at no
extremity in the plucklng out an abuse
though protected by all law and con-
secratedin the prejudice Of generations. Just
in proportion as people bestir themselves
with energy in view Of great argument 80 are
they passive and indiaerentto small disputes and
permit these to fall to professional mon gers of
such ware. In this Is the explanation of our
present position. Slavery was an evil 30 great
that By comparison vita II we aeem 70 be