Herald and tribune. [volume] (Jonesborough, Tenn.) 1869-current, 1871-07-20
WHAT CAN BE DONE I,

The New Departure movement as a
sensation, was a decided success. 1t was
traneient, we admit. but it gave birth to
the most gigantic speculations that ever
crowded the ca~pacious imagination of a
politicians mind. The marvellous inyen-
tion, for the time being, promised to reverse
the planetary system of the political world.
1t scattered old party-creeds to the winds
and shivercd cid platforms into microscopic
atoms. Montgomery County, Ohio, was
a seething, Kissing volcano, likely at any
time to disembowel its terrible fury.
Yallandigbam uDcapped this frightful
abyss of burning death, whose rising surges
Of liquid fame threatened to over-leap
ueir boundaries and destroy all other cx-
isting parties. The rock-solid structure
of the Republican organization-the work
manship of the most sagacious statesman
ship of the land, even swayed like a storm
beaten mountain pine, under the violent con
c~ussions of the threat. As the em~balmiDg
art was lost in the extinction of the Egyp-
tians, 80 the wand to which these volcanic
furies were subject, was laid with Vallan-
digham in the grave. Since the death of
this man, of whom we are too charitable
to speak lightly, the New Departure"
movement, which he doubtless planned
with the most possible ingenuity and elabo-
ration, has dwindled into farcical insight
fcance. Under his management and di-
r~ection, it could never have attained the
sweeping triumphs which he had in view,
but then it would have crystalized a party
respectable in power of numbers, talent
and political eIninence, whose Distinguish
ing feature would have been hostility
to its former allies. We acknowledge that
this party, with its free and easy code of
political ethics would have opened the
door of admission to the disaffected of all
other parties, who were smarting under the
disastrous issue of selfish schemes and as
pi%rations. 1t promised an asylum for all
politicians who were racked by the agonies
of disappointment and disgraced by testi-
monies of their unworthiness and incapa-
cities, and afforded the slim hope that
they could propitiate Nemesis and return
vengeance upon those who could discover
no merit in them. But at the death
stroke that laid tho Ohio leader in the
tomb. all their gilded hopes and a%lluring
an~ticipations vanished, and their mirage
asylum foated away, leaving the old re-
atty of the dismal desert. What now
can be done to compensate their bereav-
ment and r%evivify the waning energy and
fire Of their being? Who can and will
noun the stage, vacated by death, and
proclaim, that though its originator isdead,
the New Departure" still lives, fresh
with lusty life and vigor? Neither Voor-
hees, Pendleton, Hancock, nor Hoffman
has the potent charm to weld the broken
spell.
In Tennessee, the Democracy repudiate
the Ohio step Of progress. They have
not the least disposition to steal a single
plank out of the Republican platform.
They look 20 tho South, for whose lost
cause they fought and still dearly love,
for counsel and direction in preference to
the North where their friends in times of
war, gave cheap sid to their struggles by
resolutions deprecating the efforts for their
suppression and discouraging accessionsto
the Union army. The Democratic press,
also recalcitrant. is throwing cold water
upon the Ohio invention. What is true
of Tennessee, is rue of the whole South.
Nowhere, does the New Departure !" find
favor among those who dream of a re-
stored C~onfederacy. As it contemplates
the elevation of Northern Democrats to
the exclusion of their beloved leaders,
they receive it as a meatless bone only to
mock and aggravate their starvation.
Nothing can be done. The "New De-
parture is an exploded bubble, its she'll
mingling with the sea and its contents with
the world of air.