The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-11-22
sPxRxx OF xRM PRMas.
editorial Opinions ofthe Leading Journals
upon Current Topios-Compiled Every
DAY for the Evening Telegraph


From the NJ Y. Herald.
We are on the verge of another change in
the issues and elements of our political par
ties. The late elections indicate it. The
great revolution which commenced with the
active agitations of the slavery question forty
years ago was completed in the fifteenth
amendment. Throughout the Union the
negro, who was q slave or an outlaw, is cltl-
zen and a voter. The million of Union
bayonets which effected this change put down
at the same time the pernicious fallacy OF
State sovereignty. The old Government,
founded upon slavery and the caste of color,
is gone, and new Government, resting upon
the basis of universal liberty and equal rights,
takes its place. The outside Democratic
party has ceased at last to fight it, and the
battle is ended. The inside and the outside
party are adrift upon a sea of speculations,
and the question is how will they come out!
We are looking to General Grant for new
departure Surely he cannot expect to stand
still when the progress of modern events is
at the rate of forty miles an hour. Ten years
ago Northern man found south of the Ohio
river or the Susquehanna without his vouchers
as friend of slavery, or that "he is sound
on the goose" ran the risk at every village
or cross-road grocery of q coat of tar and
feathers and ride on rail. From this
landmark of negro slavery to the Grafton
of an African Senator from the seat of
JEFF Davis we have gone through the work
of revolution which honest Abe Lincoln,
in his annual message to Congress in
1862, proposed to accomplish as far as the
abolition of slavery, by the year 1900
This work of a century, then, of the
old stage coach epoch, has, in this new age of
steam and lightning communications, been
done in ten years, in the change of our Gov
ernment from slavery to liberty, and from
the caste of kink and color to the common
Lac ,Nfo o;xri1o and Nnr
in the work of progress are we alone. Within
four years Austria has advanced from the
cloisters and cebwebs of the Middle Ages to
the front rank of modern reforms; and Prus-
sia in the great German Confederation, has
gained the position of arbiter of Europe, which
France, under the debaucheries of the second
empire, has lost. Within few months the
Pope and the city of Rome have been relieved
of his temporal power, and the Eternal City,
as the capital of Young Italy, promises to
eclipse its splendors under Augustus By
the tremendous forces of steam and lightning
in harness, a free press and free thought, all
the world is advancing to liberty, equal rights,
and popular institutions. In fact, since
Joshua commanded the ''sun to stand still
upon Gideon and the moon in the valley OF
Ajalon," and "the sun stood still in the midst
of heaven and hasted not to go down about
whole day." there has been no suspension in
the movements of our solar system, and none
in the efforts of mankind to better their con-
dition. To these efforts, however, modern
inventions and appliances have given a mo-
mentum never dreamed of even SO late as
fifty years ago; so that all nations feel the
pressure, all are moved by it, and the United
States more powerfully than any other.
Does General Grant, then, in the very
front of this universal forward movement of
the nineteenth century, expect to stand still
Does he think he can rest upon his laurels
Glorious as is the work he has achieved, does
he think the American people suppose their
work is finished with the Union they have
restored, and the peace, liberty, and prospe-
rity they have won? No. Does he, then,
suppose that retrenchmeMt of expenses, re-
duction of taxes, and the payment of the
national debt will suffice for the campaign of
1872? He seems to think so. Here, then,
we must buttonhole him for a moment, while
we talk to him from the experience of an old
political campaigner. You have, General,
the Presidential succession at your command,
and the great party of the new dispensation
and of the future. The elements of both our
great parties, as they stand, are only divided
by side issues, small potato politicians and
the spoils. The floating materials from both
these parties are increasing, and the Repub-
Ecan parsy wants sonic ne ', idea for another
forward march So far it has been the ag-
gressive party in great ideas, and it must still
be aggressive, or it will be displaced. Your
conservative party may do as a temporary
makeshift, but in great battle against pro-
gressive idea it is always failure.
The old Federal party, developed under
John Adams, was q conservative party; and
we need not repeat its short career against
the aggressive radical Republican party of
jefferson. This Jeffersonian Republican
party having finished its appointed mission,
and having no new ideas to fight for, was
broken up and dispersed in 1924. Thus John
Quincy Adams became President; but what
did his excellent administration avail him
against General Jackson and his cotton bag
victory of New OrleansP Those cotton bags,
however, were pretty we'll used up in 1923,
and Jacksons second election was mainly
due to his war against mick Biddle and his
National Bank monster" Van Buren came in
under the wing of Jackson, but, owing to the
financial revolution of 1887 he went out il
the next election in popular whirlwind, tC
the songs of the hard cider and log cabir
candidate, and to the chorus OF
'Tippecanoe and Tyler too."
Tyler, with his bank vetoes, an aggressiv,
policy, so crippled the old Whig party that il
1874 Polk, small politician, on the progress
sive platform of "Eexas and Oregon, wa
too much for the great Henry Clay. per
sonally the most popular man of his time il
the United States In 1StS, on the miltar,
glory of Palo Alto, Resaca de Ia Palma, Mon
terey and Buena Vista, 'Old Rough anC
Ready"-General Taylor-cut out Genera
Cass, the Democratic candidate; but in 1852
on the grand idea of sectional peace on tn
slavery question, through Henry Clay's CON
promise measures of 1850, Pierce, an amateu