Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1871-06-27
Accepting the Situation,

|
the decade which has just passed great reyo
luton has occurred in this country In 1866
the issue before the country was whether the
| South would submit to an interdct upon the
extension of slavery to the territories of the
Union.
| To-day there is no slavery anywhere.
| Manifesty, therefore, there has been great
change. Slavery is abolished in States and
| Territories alike Nor is that all: the eman-
| cipated slaves uote and sit in our legislatures.
We who are alive to-day-the men of this
generation.the actors in this year 1871 in the
drama that is actually in progressive are con-
fronted by these facts. That is the environ
ment-the situation" The facts are admit
| ted to be irreversibe. No sane man hopes to
reverse them.
We are now prepared to entertain the oues-
ton. "Shall we accept the situation ?'
1t would be just as pertinent to ask, Shall
we accept the Franco-Prussian war ? or, Shall
we accept an earthquake which is pastor a
drought-or freshet? 1t doesn't make any
difference whether we "accept" them or not
They are inefaceable foot t-prints In the march
OF Destiny-the registered edictS of the AL
mighty In the evolution of the universe-and
we shall not have the case reopened, chafe we
and fret We never so much
The world las we see it) is full of evil there
is pain and trouble and anguish everywhere !; it
would have been far more agreeable for every
thing to have been pleasant-to have had a
round of never-ending delightful sensations,
never to have been thwarted in anything, to
have had no perils of this or future life but
1t Is not SO; there is infinitely more of tragedy
than OF comedy In the human drama and
why, there is nothing to be done but to .'ae.
eept" the situation. There are some obstinate
folks that take the ground that they did not
make themselves, and swear that as they were
put here Without their consent, they will not
accept the situation" These are moral Bour-
bons whose education must be adjourned to an
other forum. But the bulk of mankind learn
quickly to recognize and to respect the moral
constitution of the world and to conform their
conduct to the distempered conditions by which
they are surrounded
In social and political matters, however,
many seek to crafty their spiteful feelings un-
der an unpleasant environment by nursing the
illusion that Obstinaoy is Principle. The
course OF the world does not suit them, and
they refused to submit to it; and they call
their kicking against the sides of the iron levi
athan which ploughs the great ocean of histo-
There is stage in the course of political
events when opposition is no longer wise
treatment. And it is just here that one can
recognize the true realization Of craftsmanship.
our genuine country Jacobite never surren-
ders. He remembers 10 1745 Sidney Godol-
phln and the Stuarts-and he dies protesting
that he will never recognize the House of Han
over. Now we admire this fealty to ideas, but
there is flaw in it just here that a man
ought to have sense as we'll as persistence.
There are, as we have said, stages in politics
when we must write new legends on our ban
ners, and work, not to recover the past, but to
obtain the mastership over the future. It is
not an abandonment of principle fealty to DO
lltlcal dogmas ceases to be right when the cause
which lent them their significance and their vi
tality has perished. We might as well in the
nineteenth century undertake to receive the is
sues Of the Greeks and Romans. What have
We to do with the battles of our fathers under
the conditions and data that have utterly
vanished from the problem as now submit
ted?
The problem of our day is how to arrest the
course Of the Republican party. The prob
lens OF 1871 are not the issues of 1861. The
detachment that man0uvres on the issues of
1861 to-day is out of the fight altogether 1t is
of no more value to US who have to defend the
points now attacked than the cooperation of the
ghosts Of our departed friends who fell at Get
tysburg and Missionary Ridge. We are not
fighting for Slavery; it is gone; we are not
uSutiuS lOr tHdJ OtdLo sovereignty WnlCn our
fathers plead for; it is subyerted; We are not
fighting for the Constitution as it was expound-
ed 10 the Resolutions of 1889; there is no
such living document we are not fighting
against the Bayne-U Underwood constitution;
We have set it up and put it In operation; we
are not lighting against the fourteenth and fif-
teenth amendments; they have passed into the
established law Of the land, only repealable by
the cooperation of three fourths of the States
the contest of to-day is not here; our contest
is to stop actere zoe are: to arrest the change
which is going on in the character of the gov
ernment; 10 pluck, as brand from the burn
ing, the blackened parchment of the Constitu-
tlon to preserve at least the life of the States.
Our object is to wrest the administration of the
government from the authors of the Ku-Klux
BILL and to turn it over to those who will ad-
minister what is left Of the Constitution In the
spirit of its trainers. We may not cancel the
work of the past ten years; but we may give
direction and form to the nert decade It is
our duty, and the dictate Of calm good sense
to work on the fabric of our government and
our society as we find it to make the best of
things; to keep them in the best possible chan
nels; it is not our business to strive after a
Utopia; to Cry over what belongs to history.
Ii we suppose that there is no good left in the
world, and no work for our hands to do on this
theatre of American sociology and American
politics, our vision is most contracted, and our
estimate of the future most inadequate. Rich.
Enquirer.