The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-03-09

by the Republican party is not bounded by tho
reconstruction question. It extends far into
the future, and embraces objects and ends
which we may not divine, and which we may
not live to see, but which, nevertheless, must
eventually occupy all the foreground. The
party of progress, as opposed to the party of
reaction and obstruction, can never be said
to have exhausted its work. The Republicans
who say, s'Let us ask decent burial of our
foes, for there is no more for us to do in the
world. can never have truly realized the ex-
pansive force and the undying vitality which
n party acquires when it is based upon the
theory that all men should find equal pro-
lection under the laws, and thst we ought
not to rest contented with a government
until it has redressed every injustice of
which great bodies of men may reasonably
complain.
The Democratic plans for the future fore
shadow policy which nothing but our Re-
publican organization can effectually frus-
trate. We are identified with an honorable
payment of the debt, and with the cause of
good and impartial government all over the
country. But, besides the programme which
could be sketched out to-day, there are all
the unknown possibilities Of the future to
rebuke the reckless proposal to dissolve the
party. In politics, no less than in other
affairs of life, no man can tell what the NOR
row may bring forth. We only know from
all past experience and all analogy that as
one great question is ''settled" another will
arise before us. Was the mission of the
English Liberal party accomplished when it
reformed Parliament in 1882, or when it
abolished the corn laws, or when it decreed
the disestablishment of the Irish Church
Is it ever at a loss for q subject on which to
fight the Tories-or is not rather the press of
such subjects so great that no living man
can hope to deal with them all The case
is precisely the same with us. We have set
tied the slavery question, and are on the eve
of closing the whole subject of reconstruc-
tion-but will no other events occur in the
United States after that Are the principles
which brought the party into being now all
withered and lifeless?
Every man who looks around him will
answer, No. The Democrats are for revers-
ing most of the legislation Of the last five
years-they say in their hearts, "Wait till we
get into power, and then see how soon we
will undo all that the radicals have done. y
We are in the position of man who has
built and furnished a noble mansion, and
who is advised by his friends to leave it
totally unguard ded, after being warned that
his enemies have completed a plan for seiz-
ing it. We have to defend the work of our
hands 1t would be an act of treachery with
out parallel in party history if we Republi-
cans, as party, now retired from the strife
and allowed our foes to remain masters of
the national destinies. All the evils of the
past would be repeated in a still more disas-
trous shape. We should have made almost
superhuman sacrifices for nothing, and
shamefully betrayed that large section of
the people who confded their interests to
us. The last state of such people would be
worse than the first. But the Republicans,
notwithstanding the advice of doctrtndires,
would never consent to this infatuated piece
of peridy They will strive rather to rem
der their organization more perfect and more
worthy of the great issues which will ineyi
tably present themselves for settlement in the
future.