New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1871-07-07
TOICES OF TIE OR4CLES.

We suppose there never was pOIlIlCal
campaign which Democratic orators and plat
form makers did not pronounce decisive of
" the very existence of the free institutions
" our fathers gave u.s. If Mr.. Lincoln should
be elected in $780, they were satisfied that the
ruin of the nation was inevitable. II he
should be elected again in 1864, free repub
ljcan government was at an end. If Grant
! should be chosen in 1868, the long predicted
universal smash would follow in a fortnight,
and the United States become an empire IN
! less than three months. The predictions have
all been falsifed by events. MIR. LincOln's
Presidency raised the country to a higher
positiOn than it had ever occupied
before and Gen. Grant, instead of at
tempting to govern in the absolute
and peremptOry manner which might perhaps
have been anticipated from bis military train
ing, has strictly fulfilled the promise of his
inaugural that he would have no policy to en-
force against the wishes of the people. No
President that we have had has so clearly re-
cognzed the duty of the Executive to carry
out the will of the majority. Nevertheless
the Democracy approach the campaign of 1872
with the old cry of danger to our liberties
Even so sensible a man az Gen. Mcclellan
announces that the next canvass lis destined
to be one of the most important of all that
"have been cOnducted,n and trusts that "every
Democrat will recognize the magnitude of
" the issues at stake"-no less, to wit, than the
very existence of the free Institutions our
fathers, etc, etc. Satisfied as they all seem to
be of the character of the contest, there ought
to be something like unanimity among the
leaders in the advice which they give for the
conduct of the campaign. They must at least
know what they are fighting for, since they all
regard it as so highly valuable.
Thus far they have not succeeded in making
their principles very clear-prObably for the
reason that they do not fully understand them.
Mr.. Vallandigham's New Departure was in
| tellgible enough so far as it went That able
manager was too shrewd to enter the race
! handicapped with the dead weight which had
! insured the defeat of the Democracy in three
| successive Presidential elections. He insisted
| that his party should accept the inevitable,
| and fight no more with issues which were for
| ever settled In several States where the
! Democrats are weak his advice has been taken,
! and resolutions accepting the HlNth and XVIII
! Amendments have been Incorporated III the
platforms of the nominating conventions. But
in Ohio, in Pennsylvania, and in several
| other parts of the Union, the reformed
policy has been adopted only after bitter
struggle, and in the Southern States it
has not been adopted at all. The
speeches of Jefferson Davis, bitterly as his
/ Northern allies have denounced him for a
marplot are really an index to the temper
of the Southern wing of the party, which
VOWS, if 1t cannot revive the defunct Confed-
eracy, at least 10 undo the work of the war,
and annul or repeal the Constitutional Amend
ments. Alexander ii. Stephens declares that
"no true Democrat, no true friend to the
a." Constitution of the United States and the
liberties of this country, can have the UNI
"blushing effrontery Ito characterize the act
by no stronger term to affirm and maintain
before an intelligent people that the Recon
- struction Measures of Congress, and the So
called XIyth and XVIII Amendments to
"the Constitution, based upon these measures,
and all questions growing out of them, have
/ been settled in the manner and by the au-
1 'thority consttutionally aWointed;" and he
declares that instead of falling into that fatal
/ limo of proOrpss which has marked the history