Wyandot County Republican. [volume] (Upper Sandusky, Ohio) 1869-1903, 1871-06-22
The Democratic sey lla.and charybdis.

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cape from the pit. The Democratic party
with the same vocal variety, is in, immi
nent peril of similar catastrophe. Its
Northern voice and its Southern voice sing
different tunes and as its object is to lull
thepublic into gentle slumber, it is natural
ly angry to find that the discord only more
thoroughly arouses the country. Mr.. Val
landigham had scarcely hlandly alluded,
to the fact that the goose hung high when,
Mr.. Jefferson Davis savagely retorted that
lot only did he not "accept the situation"
but that he accepted nothing" So, also,
while Tammany Hall complacently heard
the praises lavished upon it by the tire-eat-
ing Mobile Register, it was confounded by
the vigorous observation of the same
journal that, of course, Tammany would
not expect to nominate its candidate! /!
Alas for the "great statesman of New
York, the executive agent of the Erie
Ringl
Indeed, more laughable tragi-comical
spectacle. has not been lately seen than the
present situation of the Democratic party.
1t is engaged in the praiseworthy but not
hopeful attempt to dissolve oil in water,
and to mingle in sweet silence gunpowder
and fire. 1T is divided into two factions,
the Northern and Southern. The clever
est of the Northern leaders are anxious to
break the chain that binds them to the
corpse of slavery and the disastrous past OF
their party-a party false to the country,
to liberty, and to human nature. But they
have no platform to propose except ac-
quiescence in Republican action and de-
nunciati IN of Republicans. This, being a
tacit confession of the total failure of their
own party and reputation of all its ira
ditions, does not warmly commend itself
to the mass of the Democratic voters.
1t seems to them, and very naturally, an
lnsincere course and they declare, with an
lnlation, that such counsels are offered by
those who have no faith in Democratic
principles, and who are, therefore, no bet
ter than the enemy. "If holding the
offices and sharing the public plumber is
the only principle involved in the politics
of to-day" says Kentucky Democratic
paper, ''there is no necessity for keeping
up two political organizations"
While thus some of the more sagacious
Northern Democratic leaders advise ac-
quiescence in the situation, the Southern
chiefs, who have been both the brain and
the heart of the party. with scornful and
defiant brows insist upon what they call
the principles for which the Democracy
have always centended. Those principles
are really the Virginia and Kentucky reso-
lutions of nearly eighty years ago-resolu-
tions which assert State sovereignty to a
point which is incompatible with national
upremacy-that- say, the Southern
Democratic chiefs insist upon the right of
secession. They declare that the lost
cause" is traditional Democracy, and that
when you abandon the constitutional prin-
ciple upon which that cause IS Justified,
Democracy, as party name, is meaning
less. Indeed, there are large number OF
those who were the sincerest rebels, who
lost every thing in the war, and who now
insist that, the Democratic principle hay
ing been overpowered, there should be no
hesitation in abolishing the State Legis-
latures, and in establishing one right, one
government, one. law" The ablest of the
Southern leaders and papers insist upon
the lost cause as the only rational Demo-
cratic platform. And Jefferson Davis, the
best-beloyed Democratic leader in the
Southern States, declares in reply to the
new departure" that little patient
waiting only is necessary to secure the
victory for which.he and his friends con-
tended.
This was the spirit and these were the
chiefs who controlled the Democratic
party at the last Presidential. election
They propose to contest the mastery again
next year. They deride and denounce the
Northern acquiescers as men of no faith
in principle, as mere temporizers and
Laodiceans. And this position is so strong
ly taken, and the censure is so free
that the Northern leaders are already
angry. The very warmth of their tone
shows their alarm. For while they are
profoundly persuaded that their is no Other
chance of Democratic success than ex-
press acceptance of the situation, they are
as profoundly convinced of the tenacity
OF their late masters at the South. A few
weeks ago the Southern views were de-
scribed by the Northern managers as the
eccentricities of "our gallant and chival-
rons friends" who would, as good Demo
Gratis, gracefully yield when 1--WE" knocked
them on the head in the Convention. But
all this is changed. The Albany Argus
now dis.poses of our gallant and chivalrous
friends in this manner: ."The, boisterous
Montgomery Mail is dead. The senile
Mobile Register has changed its coat and
fallen into line, an humble and, we trust
repentant follower of those whom it tried
to browbeat in its waved up folly. The
Memphis Appeal alone remains as vocife
rator OF nonsense and a gabbler of plati
tudes." And the New York World, the
friend of the Erie agent, says of the other
great statesman of its party: 1.-THE truth
is that Jefferson Davis is not only badly
beaten general, failure as an executive
head of resisting people, a thoroughly
whipped rebel, but a politician who stupid
ly, criminally Ito use the mildest phrase,
6tundered." And these be brethren!
From all this it is plain, afrst, that the
Northern Democratic leaders are convinc
ed that the Southern voice must be silenc
ed or the party is, already defeated; ant
second, that they feel much stronger thar
they did in 1868, and propose not tc
wheedle- but to lash the recusants into sub
mission. But the fact is none the less evi
dent and significant that the support O
the Southern wing is indispensable tc
Democratic success. Therefore, if, in the
National Convention of the party, Mr.
Vallandigham, who, in 1864, made the
Chicago platform of surrender to the reb
els, should, in 1872, make another platform
OF surrender to the Republicans, it woull
certainly be an occasion of satisfaction tt
every patriot that the, party did not TAX,
an openly revolutionary position, but i
would as certainly be no ground for sup
porting party which contains every revo
lutionary and disturbing element TIL,
question, as we stated last week, woult
then be whether purer administration o.
greater fidelity to the new order could b,
more reasonably be expected from tn,
Democratic party than from the Republi
can party. There can be little doubt tina
the Yallandigham platform would hell
the Democratic party in the Northern
States, but it would as surely exasperat
the staunchest Southern Democrats
Meanwhile those who are disposed to thinl
that the Democratic party is always hand
led with admirable sagacity, and that i
can rely upon its stern discipline. NAV re
fresh their memories with the history c
its last three National Conventions i
1860, 1864, and 1868, of which it may b
said that each surpassed the other in poll
lcal blundering.-.HGrpsr's Weekly
The Weakness of, the Democracy.
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