The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-06-10
SPIRIT or TIE PRESS.
EDITORIAL OPINIONS OF THE LEADING JOURNALS
UPON CURRENT ToPIos-ooMp1LED EVERY
DAY FOR THE EVENING TELEGRAPH.
1.-THE NEW DEPARTURE. ="


ing accomplished facts"-that is, of formally
acknowledging in the public uttersnces of the
party that the war and the amendments to the
Constitution adopted since the war had set
tied certain questions beyond further dispute
or cavil.
These questions are the non-existence of
the constitutional rights of secession the
abolition and perpetual prohibition of
slavery, and the equality of all men before
the law. Republicans have furthermore
urged on them the propriety of acknowledge
ing the validity of the public debt, and the
duty of the nation to discharge it in coin,
according to the terms of the contract, aud
in accordance with the good old Democratic
doctrine that there was no money known to
the Government of the United States except
hard money.
For six years the Democrats have reso-
lutely refused to do any of these things.
They have encouraged the South in the
belief that the war had settled nothing except
the momentary superiority of the North in
strength. They have denied the validity
the three amendments which put into legal
form the de fdct0 changes effected by the war
in the status of q certain class of citizens,
and provided fresh securities against unequal
or discriminating legislation; and they
have persisted in denying the validity
of the assurances given by. the Govern
m6nC In Jn6 QOUr Oh lIb 10 buo per-
sons from whom it borrowed money as to the
amounts they would receive in repayment
or, in other words, have stoutly maintained
that if one borrows money whom his credit is
very low, he may, afterwards, honestly repay
it as if his credit had been very good when
borrowed, no matter what the terms of his
contract were-a doctrine for which it would
be difficult to claim any higher source than
the mock-auction shop or the faro-bank.
They have fought through two Presi-
dental campaigns on this policy of negation,
and have failed miserably in both. They could
not get the country to acknowledge that
nothing was changed by the war, and that
the one business of sensible men was to get
back as fast as possible to the point from
which we started in 1861. What has made
their persistence all the more extraordinary
wss the plainness with which the Republicans
were profting by it. There has rarely been
party in power which, since 1865, has offered
SO many tempting points of attack to an
able and energetic opposition as the Republi-
can party. Its legislation for the South, and
its financial and foreign policy, although, per-
haps, far better than the Democrats would have
furnished in its place, and as good as we had
any right to expect, were nevertheless full of
imperfections of the grossest and most glar-
ing kind, out of which an opposition which
was as numerically strong in the country as
the Democratic opposition was, might have
made formidable use. The results of recon-
structien legislation at the South have been
pitiable; the manipulation of the Supreme
Court has been shameful the debauchery of
the civil servIce-debauchery continued, too,
most barefacedly in the teeth of strong pro-
fessions of zeal for reform-has been fragrant,
and all three have apparently afforded
materials for an overwhelming Demo-
cratic victory; and yet the Democrats
have made nothing out of them whatever.
The address of their members of Congress, at
the close of the last session, read not like the
Indictment of eager and triumphant aceusers
as it might have been made to read, but like
the abject apology of men who have failed
miserably, and do not exactly know why. In
fact, read in the light of the accounts of the
Democrats given by the leading Republican
papers, there was something very amusing
about it. According to these papers, the De-
mocratic chiefs were brigands of enor-
nous stature, of inexhaustible re-
sources, reckless courage, aud fe
rocious and implacable temper the
address, however, sounded like plea for con-
sideration, or for some cold victuals and old
clothes, from a parcel of p1ny little con-
scripts who had made an attempt to storm
great stronghold, and gave it up because the
villains inside fred at them. A considerable
portion of the party, headed by Mr.. Vallan-
digham, seem to have learned wisdom at last,
and propose to surrender all the principal
points in their former creed, and to begin
their opposition to the party in power
on q new line; to do, in fact, what the
Republicans have been long wanting them
to do, and abusing them for not doing;
that is, accept the situation as settled by the
war, and offer the country some reasons for
supporting them which have no direct con
raatinp xuif tba Thau off, in oharf
to do what the Republican party has been
doing-maintain the results of the war, aud to
do something which the Republican party has
thus far neglected or failed to do-correct
and restrain the evils growing out of the war.
They offer, for instance, while adhering to
the three new constitutional amendments, to
oppose the dangerous tendency which the
Republican party has for some time
been manifesting to treat the amendments as
having practically abrogated the whole Con-
stitution; or, in other words as having con-
stituted the majority of both houses as
supreme judges of what is or what is not
constitutional. They offer to treat the re-
construction measures as hnalities; that is,
to put the Southern States on footing OF
equality with the Northern States, and put
further interference with their affairs on ex
actly the same level with interference in tbs
affairs of New York or Massachusetts,. They
call for universal amnesty, and while they
denounce lawlessness on the part of mobs they
also denounce that disregard of law on the par
of the Legislature which is displayed in sucl
measures as the Ku-klux act, which not onll
disregards the supreme law of the land, bu
creates an officer unknown to the law, viz,
dictator. They call, too, for revenue tariff
or, in other words, for the cessation of wha,
is perhaps the most prolific source of corrup
tion, the attempt to protect native industr
Nv maana of taxafion Rut inataad of n ALI