The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-11-11
sPxRxT OF THE PRHss.
Editorial Opinions Of the Leading Journals
upon Current Topics-compiled Every
Day for the Evening Telegraph.
NEW YORK IN NATIONAL POLITICS.

NEW YORK In NAIlONAb POLlIlOS.
From the World
We cannot dissemble our solcitude lest the
Democracy of other States should be too slow
in learning, what they mast ultimately learn,
that the party cannot regain its ascendsncy in
national affairs by attempting to extract nu-
triment from the husks and chef of defunct
controversies of past era. 1t Is mark oil
dotage and senility to
.chew on wisdom past,
And totter on in blunders TO the last
Our predecessors were wise because they
were SO little fettered by old and venerable
traditions The two greatest party leaders
we have ever had were Jefferson and Jackson;
men unlike in every other feature of their
characters, but resembling each other in this,
that no two men were ever more completely
emancipated from blind Difference to trans
mitted opinions. 1t was this which so pre-
eminently fitted them for political leaders
in a Young progressive country, which is
constantly outgrowing the garments of child
hood. jefferson was man of refined
tastes and extensive culture, loving science
and literature, addicted to philosophical in
quiries, counting and courted by men of
genius: and yet no man of studious habits
was ever so little of pedant Being himself
great and original, what he sought in the old
fountains was not so much their particular
ideas as familiarity with the processes by
the wants of their epoch. 1t was the cardinal
principle of his political philosophy that
every generation of men is adequate to its
own occasions that the dead possess no just
empire over the living; that it is a sound de-
duction from the principle of human equality
that present actors in human affairs are as
capable of judging what suits them
as their predecessors were of their wants and
necessities. 1t was favorite idea of his that
,11oh 70 ha
vised and remodelled once in eighteen years
that being the period he assigned to the
active life of each generation. His robust
and fruitful mind scorned the servile idea
that the men living on the earth we're not as
competent to find the ideas they needed as
their dead progenitors He held that reason
could stand alone without authority to prop
it. %He was accordingly bold innovator.
What he was most anxious to transmit to
posterity was not his own ideas of govern
ment, but the independent spirit which
judges of occasions as they arise, and trusts
to its own sagacity to cope with them.
General jackson, an unlettered man, and
warm admirer of Jefferson, imbibed this
spirit of robust independence. A born leader
of men, it was not in his nature to bow to
mere precedent. He found q great weight
of authority in favor of the United States
Bank; but he boldly vetoed it, and denied its
constitutionality. He overturned the practice
of his predecessors respecting removals from
Office. He defied decision of the Supreme
Court respecting the Georgia Indians. The
popularity of his mind was to act on his per-
ception of what was suited to the circum-
stances, believing that himself aud support
ing nation were more competent judges of
present exigencies that wise men of the past
who did not foresee them, 81, too, am q
painter, said celebrated artist conscious of
his genius and the progress of government,
like that of art, depends upon men who emu
late the originality, instead of slavishly
copying the ideas, of their dead masters.
The chief obstacle to the success of the
Democratic party at present is the adherence
of large section of the Democracy of the
agricultural States to an order of ideas in
herited from the administration of President
Buchanan. President Buchanan lived be-
fore the deluge Even in his own time he did
not represent the popular sentiment of the
country. Senator Douglas, who had greater
mental independence and quicker sympathy
with popular instincts, was the real leader of
the progressive Democracy. Had he lived he
would have saved the party from some grave
mistakes, and the country from heavy Gala
mites. His-mantle fell upon the Democratic
leaders of New York, but their ideas have not
had the ascendancy which he would have
given them had he retained his position in
the Senate, and thus kept the ear of the
whole party. In New York, where his ideas
have prevailed, the party has been successful
while in the States where the Democracy have
stagnated we have encountered a series of
defeats
The Democratic party has lost three Presi-
Dental elections by gross mismanagement
and glaring mistakes. In every one of these
the Judgment of the New York Democracy
has been overruled,-at Charleston, in 1860
by the fatal rejection of Douglas as a candi-
date at Chicago, in 1864, by a damaging
platform which the candidate was constrained
to repudiate in his letter of acceptance; and
at New York, in 1868, by forcing the nomina-
tion upon a reluctant statesman against his
own deliberate Judgment, and running him
on a financial policy against which he had re-
Gently delivered powerful arguments. Gov
ernor Seymour himself, as is we'll known
thought the interests of the party required
the nomination of Chief-Justice Chase. In
this he rather outstripped the tendencies of
New York sentiment the prevailing wish OF
the New York Democracy being the selection
of candidates who would strengthen the party
in the October elections in Pennsylvania and
Indiana; no good judge of politics having
any hope that we could elect the President il
we lost those States in October. 1t was an
Ohio movement, not New York movement
that thrust the nomination on Governor Sey
mour, and put the party in the incongruous
attitude of running an anti-greenback candi
date on a greenback platform, and associatine
an open advocate of Judge Chase on the same
ticket with the author of then recent letter
in conflict with all Judge Chase IS ideas New
York would have been proud of the honor O
supplying the candidate, if the platform an(
associate had not repudiated his known idea
and handicapped him for the race. The De
" III