Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1870-05-04

Hs dead, Andrew dead and E..-1ronr
ks 30 many of " demi gods of the
ID the Bureaus; new questions
o be debatedx momentous re-
fall upon 'dntried shoulders ;
and TIs, or is 20 be, the record? OF
persons il is doubtless too soon to speak !;
they are in the midst of their work We see
them only through the mists engendered by
: our hopes and fears, or the dust raiced by the
noisy tumults of faction the lines Of the
future armies are Uniformed or only forming,
and the direction of the movement is not
fixed. To judge now would be merely to
prejudge. But what we behold thus far, we
confess, does not inspire with joyful
confidence what we know of prominent men
does not fill us with lofty faith ; what we
discover of their future aims and purposes
does not kindle fervent admiration.
The war produced some excellent military
ability-the Grants, Shermans, Sheridans /.
Farraguts and others, were equal to their
positions; many of them have won a lustrous
fame, and many more came out of the fiery
trial with honor, if not glory But the war
has not yet brought us, what all great social
connections are apt to bring. civilians who
tower with Atlanteon eminence above their
fellows Those large-brained, large hearted
men, who feel all the needs of an epoch, who
discern all it's bearings and capabilities, and
who wisely provide and assure a glorious fu-
ture, do not yet mako their presence felt
Perhaps they will come the times may be
even now labOring with their birth but the
unpractised eye scans the vast heavens with
yearning search and finds them not.
OUR PARTIES.
90 Turning from men, let us glance at par
ties. They are, as formerly, two in number
the Democratic and the Republican party.
As they have each past, and each aspires
to future, we feel more free to speak of
their pretensions. We begin By declaring
frankly, that, 50 far as we are able to dis
cover from a pretty attentive study of their
symbols, neither of them seems to have any
definite or settled principle, and neither is
immaculate in its practice.
T" The democratic party used to be party
of ideas; its shibbOleths in the old times,
though it was not always true to them, were
equal rights and i5roartial legislation and
the predOminape aeGqiTed was sss,z won by
fessed and expounded them and they made
the party dear to the popular heart. The
writings of jefferson, of Nathaniel Macon,
of Jonn Taylor of Carolina, of Andrew
jackson, and particularly of Silas Wright,
Samuel Young, Michael Hoffman. and Will
liam Leggett of the State of New York, were
the utterauces of men sincerely convinced of
the truth and goodness Of the democratic
theory of the State. In the long and excit-
ing struggle between the masses of the peo-
pie and the mOney-power OF the banks, the
leading democrats chung with an invincible
tenacity to that conviction, and by means of
it they were victorious in the end. 1t Sc
cured them a prolonged control, not only of
the general governments, but of that of near
ly every State in the Union
THE LATE WAR REVOLUTION.
But this power was shamefully abused
The democratic party became entangled in
their exaggerated Interpretation and wicked
applications of the doctrine of states rights
until they appeared as the open advocates of
oppression and Of treason. The reaction
against them, in the peoples conscience,
swept away at once slavery and their party
strength.
- The very roots were torn from the soil
by the act of Emancipation, and subsequently,
by the great amendments, all the roOtlets and
little fbres that might sprout again some
where, have been cut off. Now, for the first
time since the preamble to the Declaration
of independence, the Magma ChGrtd OF the
republic, framed, every human being in
the land may read it without feeling 1T to be
lie, with an honest and jubilant conscious
ness that it is a truth, and the greatest of
truths.
"What is to come of so swift and tre-
mendous a change the future will tell but
it is impossible to indulge in any dependency
b. in respect to it.
''Thus far, then, in the questions that led
to the war and that companied it, the Re-
publicans occupy an indisputable vantage
ground; they were faithful to the spirit Of
liberty, to which it is said some faults may
alwa1 kardoned they have redeemed
hIsn-tnf and cot
Jon its legs, for the first
TO run the unfettered race
~ howevef.1!Ir. - sbthinks
difficult for eitlrE eay to srarr
@E Er was over aepuolican'
snA lrrisiated, ' as if for bxferly hostile enc
mics, and not for yanquished and humlllateS
ouponent. 1t has been disposed to stretch the
= powers of the Constitution to an extent which
actual war alone would justify, and annihilat
ing the rights of the states, resolve the cen
trail authorities into an oppressive and tata
consolidation President Johnson's franti
methods of resisting this extravsgance onl
aggravated the danger headstrong as n
was. Congress was no less so, and but 10
the good sense of the people in electing
man of discretion and moderate party sym
pathies to the Presidency, we should hav
been drawn into the very vortex ofcentralism
which is but a step removed from despotisn
The Man on Horseback turks always j
the shadow of huge concentrations of power
"All the while the democrats scarcel
rose to the dignity of constitutional oppC
eition.'"
Again So Apart from the main issues grow
ing out utofemancipation, the war has revived G
created many questions in reference to whic
the attitude OF our two great parties is b
no means fixed It has left US an enormou
debt; it has left US deluge of pape
money it has left us compact and powerfr
organization of banking capital it has lie
us mesh of financial expedents; and
has left us modes of taxation hard to chara
terize and not pleasant to contemplate
Where do our parties stand in regard
these? Has either of them definite policy
is either of them committed to any certain
clear, consistent scheme for the extinction
the national Indebtedness is either of the
uncompromisingly for hard money. or f
that first principle of an enlightened ccol
omy, free banking? is either of them f
out-and-out free trade or even for such
tariff only as will raise the largest amour
of revenue with the least burden upon q
productive energies of the people?
They have not done 50, because neither