The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-10-27
HOW THE DEMOCRATIC MAGNATES
MAY AVERT THE DOOM OF THEIR


ratification meeting in this city, in which
Governor Seymour, Senator Thurman, of
Ohio, and other eminent leaders of the party
are to participate. To convene such an as
semblage for the purpose OF insuring the
election of the Democratic State ticket is
wholly unnecessary, for that ticket is destined
to be chosen by an overwhelming majority
a certainty of which the distinguished gen
tlemen to whom we have referred are fully
satisfied. We take it for granted, therefore,
thai they will embrace the occasion to enun-
ciate and expound the national principles and
measures on which they will claim that the
Democratic party of the Union ought to sue
ceed and may reasonably hope for a triumph
in the next Presidential campaign.
In this broad view of the situation we have
few suggestions to make to those who will
give tone to the proceedings of the meeting
of Thursday evening.
In the early summer the leaders of the
Democratic party announced their intention
to make strenuous effort to elect maj jority
of the next House of Representatives.
Though they were doubtless unwilling to
admit that failure to secure such maj jority
would necessarily be followed by defeat in
the Presidential contest of 1872, the Demo-
Gratis we'll knew that if the Republicans were
successful in the Congressional elections
now, they would thereby have taken a long
step towards triumph two years hence; and
accordingly the Democracy have put forth
and are still employing the most vigorous
exertions to carry the House Of Representa-,
tives.
Have the Congressional elections thus far
encouraged the hopes of the Democracy?
In the present House the Republicans have
o majority of eighty three. To barely re-
verse that majority the Democrats must
make net gain of forty-two in the pending
elections. The next House will consist of two
hundred and forty-one members. Eighty of
these, or one-third of the whole, have already
been chosen. Now, the Democrats only claim
to have made thus far net gain of ten; aud
in view of the threatened contesting of the
seats of five of these by the Republicans, and
of the fact that the Republicans will certainly
control the next House, the Democrats will
do well if they can hold six or seven of these
ten seats. In the light of these figures it is
a very liberal allowance to concede that in
the election of the remaining two thirds of
the House the Democrats will make q net
gain of fifteen members, or total of twenty
two. But call it twenty calculation
which Republicans will scout with derision-
and even this would leave to the latter ma
jority of thirty-three in the next House. Is
it not far more likely to exceed forty?
These actual and probable results commend
themselves to the serious consideration of
such thoughtful Democratic statesmen as
Governor Seymour and Senator Thurman.
They should raise in their minds the grave
question, What is the main cause of our in
ability to PROSTATE Republican ascendancy in
the country at the very time when the Re-
publican party is torn by internal feuds, is
rent by open war in half dozen States, is
filed with dissatisfaction from one end of the
Union to the other, and is weighed down by
an administration which has failed to meet
the reasonable aynactatinne of thnaa who a1a
waited it to power!
Passing over many causes of the failure of
the Democratic party to command the conf
dence of a ma jority of the people such as
seeming poverty in fresh ideas adapted to
this progressive age, manifest incapacity
for presenting new measures suited to the
exigencies Of the country and an unwilling
ness to dismiss from the helm leaders who
have so often proved incompetent to weather
the storm-we will point the Dem ocratic mag
mates and the Democratic masses to the great
obstacle which lies in the way of their tri-
umpb, and which will remain there until they
themselves remove it out of their path. 1t
is the belief which so widely prevails that if
the Democratic party should be fully restored
to power in the Federal Government, it
would at once set to werk to reopen many of
the important issues settled by the war and
by the policy of reconstruction, and espe-
fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments to the
Constitution.
This widespread conviction respecting the
intentions of the Democracy is the stumbling
block over which, year by year, they fall.
Now, whatever may be the opinions of some
portions of the American people as to the
means by which those three amendments
were engrafted upon the Constitution, or
even as to some of the principles embraced in
fbay,a yhaln inrifu nf oiE
zens, at the South as well as the North, are
determined that the troublesome questions
thus disposed of, and whose settlement cost
so much strife, SO much treasure, and so
much blood, shall never again be reopened;
and for a whole generation, if need be, they
will by their votes exclude from the admin
istration of national affairs any political party
that does not impress the public mind with
the belief that it does not intend to reopen
them, through either the legislative, execu-
tive, or judicial department of the Govern
| ment.
We have pointed to the main obstacle to
| Democratic success in the country, and to the
chief reason why that party will fail to carry
the next House Of Representatives. The
proposed meeting will afford a good op-
portunity for eminent leaders of the Demo-
cracy to put on record, in unequivocal terms,
a declaration that the questions to which we
have referred are, and must henceforth be
treated by their party as, irrevocably settled.
If they will announce this as prime article
in their national creed, and will from this
time onward show their faith by their works,
they viii have turned their steps toward vic
tory in 1872. Failing to do this, their organ
ization will be shivered in pieces in the con.
fiict of that year. Will they take warning in
time to avert such doom?
A FRENCH PLAN OF CAMPAIGN.