The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-03-25
SPIRIT OF THE PRESS.
EDITORIAL OPINIONS OF THE LEADING JOURNALS
Upon CURRENT roP1os-ooMPILED EVERY
DAY FOR THE EVENING TELEGRAPH.
CAN THE REPUBLICANS D1sBAND'

whenever the leading propositions which a
great party was formed to affirm and establish
shall have been definitely accepted by the great
body of the people, that party may be safely
disbanded. Nay, it can hardly escape disinte-
grafton and dissolution by the impact of living
ideas sgainstits honeycombed decaying organi-
cation.
The Republican party, we hear is undergoing
dissolution. Sundry ambitious coteres of poll
tcians stand ready to certify its decease and
proceed to administer its estate. Certain of
its lifelong enemies are willing to admit that 1t
has had abundant reason to exist-has passed
triumphantly through trying ordeals, and has
achieved an honorable place in our couutry's
history-provided IL will thereby get into its
doffin and ask the pall-bearers to move on.
Nay: if this point be conceded, they are willing
to be generous, and concede that Lincoln was
not an ape, Stanton q time-serving ruffian and
Andy windy demagogue. They might even
stretch O point, and admit that Thomas was a
soldier and no traitor, and that Grant got rather
the better of his adversaries at Donelson, Vicks-
burg, Mission Ridge, and Appomattox.
Can the country yet spare the Republican
party? In other words are the great principles
for which it has struggled accepted as incontest-
able by those who so stoutly resisted them?
Those principles all culminate in a broad affirma-
tion that the political and civil rights of all born
on the soil or legally naturalized in the courts
of our country are of right equal before the
law, and have been placed under the protecting
shield of the Federal Constitution. If that is no
longer contested, then the Republican organiza-
tion may properly be given up, and those who
have hitherto sustained it may severally be alb
sorbed into new parties, as questions of finance,
political economy, or practical administration
shall impel them.
The Republicans organized in 1854, fought
their first national battle in 1856, and triumphed
in 1850, upon the broad ground of hostility to
any further diffusion of human slavery under
the flag of our Union. Thenceforward they
upheld, through bleody, devastating struggle,
the integrity and paramount authority of that
Union, and in 1864 triumphed in affirming that
how laI tla
die. In 1868 they appealed again to the people
on platform affirming that the national debt
incurred in resisting and overcoming the slave
holders rebellion should be paid exactly as
both parties understood that it should be when
it was contracted, and that the States lately in
revolt should recognize and respect the equal
rights of their colored people, affirmed by
the reconstruction acts of Congress.
But our adversaries, especially at the South,
assailed us throughout that canvass as partial
and inconsistent. ''You impose negro suffrage
on the South" they urged, while you leave the
North free to reject it," The criticism was just
and we deferred to it by proposing and carrying
a fifteenth amendment to the Constitution,
which prescribes that
''s1. The right of citizens of the United States.to
vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United
States, by any State acsount OF race, color or
previous condition OF servitude.
"s2 Congress shall have power to enforce this
article by appropriate legislation"
This article having passed both houses of
congress by an ample vote, has been ratified
by the Legislatures of thirty-one States, not
counting New York, which first ratified, and
then (on the accession of the Democrats to
power) reacinded that ratification. New Jersey
rejected by party vote, but has since Con the
accession Of the Republicans to power) recon
sidered and ratified it, Indiana ratified by
clear majority of all the members chosen CT out
of so Senators, and 81 out of 100 Representa-
tives), but the Democratic minority ran out of
the House, and thus Chey say) destroyed the
quorum, which is two-thrds OF q full House.
But the article is abundantly ratified without her
all the Lon-ratifyng States, even with her,
being California, Delaware, Indiana, Kentucky,
Maryland, New York. Oregon, and Tennessee
s; whereas the ratifying States, without count
ing Indiana or New York, number 81, or nearly
four ffths of the whole while only three
fourths are required.
This XVIII Article is as much part of the
Constitution as the Ist, and those who swear to
support the Constitution swear fidelity to every
part of it. The Democrats may disintegrate the
Republican party at any time by simple loyalty
to the Constitution and fidelity TO their oath to
support it..
The controlling dninaus of that party is negro
hate and a stubborn resolve to subvert the fif-
teenth article of the Federal Constitution. That
party is now an organized and formidable con-
spiracy to nullify the article in question. 1t is
quite aware that there is no present ground of
hope or expectation that the article may be
rescinded: so it is banded to defy or treat said
article as a nullity. 1t means 10 carry nearly
every Southern State for President in 1872 by
compelling them to vote the ticket of the i'm
placable enemies of their manhood and their
political rights. Such is the paramount desire,
such the animating purpose, OF the Democratic
party to-day.
But hous aaoes it expect to win victory?
largely by means of deliberate, systematic,
wholesale suppression of the truta. Wherever
the Ku-klux organization and outrages are un-
popular or likely to in ite odium, there their
very existence is secuted as Republican faori-
cation. Witness the following relative to North
Carolina from yesterdays WOrtd:-
'Onicers OF the army serving there, the United
States Judge one of the two Republican members
OF Congress, Republican State Supreme Court
Justice, aud Others on che spot and able 10 Judge
trsry, forsooth, we must believe partisan Senators
OF the lowest type and such huddle OF criminals
lying themselves free as Holden, Kirk, aud COM
pany. or course, all Is blood, wounds,
broken bones, and gore, with these fellows; but,
outside OF their Titus Oates afdavits the evidence
shows, as far as II shows anything that the state Is
and has for months past been, quiet, and that the
secret OF the trouble is Holdens desire TO escape
impeachment and the yearning OF certain lobby
members to continue their financial control"
These assertions are made in the face of the
reluctant testimony of scores of white Demo
Gratis and ex-Rebels like James Il. Boyd, Eli 5.
Euliss and John w. Long (given in our last)
that they were members of ''the White Brother
hood" otherwise Ku-klux Klan-that this was q
secret society, recognizing each other by signs
that they were sworn to staRd by and protect
each other under all circumstances-'It was
part of the OATH" testihes Boyd "that
no member should give States evidence
against another and that he should
even swear falsely;"-that it was the object oi
the Order ito preserve the Constitution as II
was before the fourteenth and fifteenth amend
ments were added'-says Long, ''the oath re-
CURED me TO do all l could to oYerturn the
republican party; part of the obiiga-
tion was 70 deprive negroes of all rights under