New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1871-05-03

.JOHN-.JACk.

JOhn-Jack, in the story, was an eccentric
individual who fancied thathe was two per
sons in one-John the good and Jack the
bad. These two in one often argued VIC
lently with each Other-John reasoning
against Jacks evil courses, and Jack vim
dicating himself ON the ground of hs innate
depravity. Sometimes John would get a
strong grip on Jack, but more often Jack
reigned dominant over John. Between the
two, whoever was in the ascendaney, there
was civil Tor rather an uncivill War-an
unending feud which agitated the one gen.
eral and tempest-tossed breast of double
and divided John-Jack.
In like manner, tor few months past,
the two wings of the Democratic party
the better and the worse, the humane and
the cruel, the law-abiding and the Ku-
hluX-have been wrestling together in a
John-Jack strife. The. World and some of
Its followers at the North have uttered the
reasonable words Of John, saying, "Bygones
must be 'bygones; the amendments must be
sustained. and the negro shall be unmo-
Tested" But, on the other hand, dozen or
more of the old-fashioned fire eating presses
throughout the South, with some at the
North to borrow and propagate their flames
have replied in the temper of Jack, saying,
" We mean to repudiate the amendments
we shall show no quarter to the negro, and
we are reaching out our bloody hand into
the past to bring back the old regime"
And so a John-Jack controversy RACES within
the Democratic party; debate between its
inner voices, but heard outside; colloquy
betwee its nobler and its baser self; a
struggle which may end in the victory of
reason on the one hand, or of madness on
the other.
just at this point the Democratic mem
bers of Congress have issued an address to
the people of the United States-a sort of
Parthian arrow which, in their retreat from
Washington, they have let fly at the federal
administration. Their attitude toward the
Republican party does not interest us; this
attitude is, of course, partisan hostility,
expressed in criticisms more or less just;
but the policy which they propose for the
Democratic party-their own future career
excites our profound attention. Having
spoken, what have they said Z Is it the
language of John or of Jack 1t is a mid
way, non committal, half muteness, in
which we hear neither Johns declaration of
good intent, nor Jacks cSunter-statement of
purposed mischief. There is the best of
reasons for this diplomatic vagueness. The
Democrats in Congress, who are the
authors of this address, consisting as
they do, both of bad and good men, or in
other words, both of Johns and Jacks,
wanted their document to utter, not a dis
cordant, but harmonious voice; and as
the whole body of signers could not speak
collectively either as John or as Jack, the
pronunclamento was made to exclude every
thing Johnsonian on the one hand, and
everything Jachsonian on the other. No
party prospectus was ever more meaning
less on the chief point to which the people
to whom it is addressed, want to know its
and that is the future policy OF
the Democratic party in reference to the
fourteenth and fifteenth amendments. On
this momentous subject this address is what
Rufus Choate would have STYLED "a glitter
ing generality" The Democratic party it
self does not know what policy this mani
festo manifests-whether John is deter
mined that Jack shall not interfere with the
amendments, or whether Jack is to put
gag on Johns mouth and then "cry
havoc and let slip the dogs of war" John
axes up the document and reads what il
'ays of 1.-The rights which every freeman
'herishes," and of ''the best guarantees of |
aw and Order" and Of throwing round the |
lumblest citizen, wherever he mayI be, the |
Tgs of those safeguards of per- |
onal liberty which the fundamental laws |
If the land ASSURE all this John reads |
With delight, and then says to Jack: This |
means that the fourteenth and fifteenth |
amendments are to be sustained, and the |
legrO is TO be protected under them:" but
uch thing. On the contrary, just as for
fifty years the Declaration of Independence
I'D not, in the South, include the negro so
low these amendments shall be, to him.
imilar mockery. And sinceIthere was always
n the South, as in the North, a constitutional
of free speech and yet there was
ever any free speech in one-half the Union,
o now, in that same half, these constitu-
lOnal amendments, guaranteeing the civil
nd political liberty of the negro, shall be
reated as Republican promises made to
he ear which a Democratic administration
hall break to the hope" And so the Demo-
ratio members of Congress, in their al
ress. have stimulated, rather than healed,
he controversy between John and Jack
notwithstanding the mock gravity, and
ne sad-embroidered sOlemnity, and the
emi- pathetic sweetness of this manifesto,
is nevertheless a trumpet of an uncer-
ain sound" 1t forecasts neither one
ohcy nor another 1t gives no assurance
neither the Democratic party mean to pro-
,ct the negro against the ku-Klux, or to
enforce the ku-klux against the negro.
Olde1a Age.