The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-04-25
REPUBLICAN POLICY.
From the N. Y. Times.


The elements of much political disturbance
are evidently gathering about the horizon.
The Democratic party is compact, because it
is unscrupulous. Any acts which promise to
restore it to power in the national affairs are
eagerly adopted, however much of bad faith
they may involve. Such acts may be fraught
with con sequences which every honest man
and every true patriot deprecates. They may
involve the nation again in immeasurable ex-
pense and misery, and subvert every noble
end which the fathers had in view when the
Government,was founded. 1t is by no means
certain that these most dangerous enemies of
our institutions will not accomplish their
purpose. The South, with but one-third of
the legitimate power at the polls, governed
us by it for seventy years. The party with
which they acted was willing to give them
anything they asked as the price of their
votes, and they will do it again. The amend
ments to the Constitution are only to be ac-
cepted while resistance to them is impossible;
and all the costly gains of our terrible war
would be promptly sacrificed if once the ex-
tremists gained the upper hand They are
even now held out, openly and eagerly, for
the South to take as the price of place and
power, to be given to the Democratic party
by its vote.
Will the nation allow these fruits of its
victory, purchased with so much blood, and
anguish, and treasure, to be taken away from
it peaceably? If we do, we must let still
more precious things go with them; for an
other claimant is rising up to demand an
ample share of legal concessions and safe
guards, and boundless pecuniary emoluments;
and this claimant is, beyond any question,
more hostile to our republican liberties and
the truest prosperity of the country than
was the slave power in its most arrogant and
successful days. The Irish Catholic
vote will go with the Democratic
Southern vote. No one doubts that; and it
is precisely this coming coalition which
requires us to take timely alarm. For it is
now fact hardly disguised, that the Roman
lists, as such, with all their losses in Europe
pressing upon them, and all their thorough
organization promising them success, are
aiming at the political control of this nation.
The indications of their settled purpose have
been given with greater clearness, and less
reservation, every year since the secret con-
vention in Baltimore. Sometimes it has
broken out from the less cautious in express
declarations. 'It is only matter of time, "
says Father Hecker. The Tablet, and other
representative organs, are preparing the
minds of their readers for it in almost every
| issue; and when the collision comes between
State and Church, 'the American idea," the
| Tablet says, ''must give way" and with it
| ''whatever contradicts or does not accord
| 1t is noticeable that the hostility of these
| two great elements of our future danger,
which are so manifestly drawing towards each
| other, is directed to the same objects. In
tense aversion to the common scho ol, to open
and full discussion, and to free press, cha
racterizes them both. They are mutually
attracted by strong elective affinity, and
when the power which they covet is within
their grasp, one will cry to another, "Help
I'LL l,o1,, IL
struction, the South will say, and we will
grant you whatever special privileges, and
immunities, and subsidies you may demand,
and make it perilous thing for the pulpit or
the press to speak boldly against your en-
croachments. But the live power in this
new tyranny will not be the South. 1t is
now broken and weakened, and it cannot
readily recover that old boastful arrogance
which the war so rudely humbled. The
South will be the dependant, and will be used
by its abler and more powerful ally to
accomplish its own more ambitious and far.
reaching designs. The last war was fearful
enough, and it is worth a good deal OF
| vigorous precautionary action to escape an
other like it. We entertain doubt whether
it is the wisest policy Just now to give the
South the very leaders they want by granting
that universal amnesty which some impulsive
and unsuspicious Republicans are so elo
quently urging, And we believe also that
the time has come to cast aside the delusivt
hope of success by temporizing with the Other
element of the gathering peril. The lines are
irrevocably drawn by those who govern the
movement. The prize is immensely valuable
and attractive to them. Timidity in opposing
them will only hasten the evil we would avoid
Our safety lies in just what our position
prompts-in speaking plainly, and acting
with wise but resolute decision. Republi
cans demand civil and religious liberty for al
our citizens who have not disfranchised them
selves by their crimes; and on that line w
mean to fight it out.