The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1871-06-17
Progress Of the Democracy On Their
ssNeW Doparturo.v

| Progress OF tho Democracy On Thctl
''New Departure"
The democracy Of Iowa have struck into
the path of the new departure" According
to democratic contemporary of the Monsieur
Mantilini school, who undertakes to cipher out
'the demnition total" the enlightened Iowa
democrats, after laundering about for ten
years in the Dismal Swamp of dead issues,
accept the situation" But why do they ac-
cept it2 Because, as the ingenious Mantilini
says, they wish ito adapt their utterances to
the bigotry, the ignorance and the narrow
prejudice of men who have voted with the re-
publican party hitherto, and who have come
sincerely to believe the falsehoods of repub-
lican politicians and journals that democrats
are impoitic at heart rather than patriotic" on
the back track to Buchanan. This new de-
parture, then, is a mere gull trap. This is,
indeed, new rendering of the old play of
''She Stops to Conquer But the move
ment is going ahead. The hint was
given from Tammany Hall, the opening
argument was thrown out by Mr..
John Quincy Adams, the ball was set in
motion in Ohio by Mr.. Vallandigham, and,
fright about face, the democracy have since
rolled it through Pennsylvania to the Ohio
river, and down that beautiful river to Ken
lucky, and thence up the mighty Mississippi
to Iowa, and so, from State to State, they will
keep "the ball q rolling on" till the meeting
of the grand National Democratic Sanhedrim
of 1872.
What then? Then, and before that day,
we shall learn what this new departure really
means. 1t means at present that, after fight
ing the issues settled by the war down to the
late Connecticut election, the result in Con-
necticut, from the ''nigger balance of power"
left no alternative TO the astonished democracy
but the acceptance of the thirteenth, four
teenth and fifteenth amendments, including
negro emancipation, negro civil and political
equality, negro suffrage and all. In accepting
the situation, then, and ''the constitution
as it is" the Northern democracy simply
accept Uncle Tom cas- man and brother"
Under ''the constitution as it was" in the
good old democratic days of Buchanan, and
by decision of the Supreme Court of the
United States, persons Of African descent
had mo rights which white men were bound
to respect" And this was the constitution of
the democracy down to the late Connecticut
election. Now, in accepting the constitution
as amended by the republicans, making free
and equal all people, of all colors and all races,
as citizens, the Northern democracy, in
single bound, jump from 1861 to 1871, and
from the democratic platform of JEFF Davis
and Buchanan to the republican platform of
"Old Ben Wade" and General Grant. Call
you not this high ground and lofty tumbling?
Dey wheel about, and turn about, and do jes so;
And cherry time dey wheel about dey jump Jim
Crow.
But does this advance the democracy or
does it set them back That is the question.
There is certainly no enthusiasm in the party
organs over this new departure. What with
their explanations and apologies and quibbling
excuses, and what with the growlings and
grumblings of the unreconstructed, it is evil
dent that this new medicine is nauseous dose
to the unterriied. To give up all that they
have been fighting for since the Charleston
Convention, and to sign all that the radicals
have DONE by means of fire and sword, since
tho election of Lincoln, In the liberation and
elevation of "the id niger" is in truth
bitter dose to your regular old line red-hot
democrats, dyed in the wool by the bred Scott
decision. Nor is it likely that they will for
a year or two, even on this new departure,
escape the consequences of continuous fight
on these dead issues on their line of march.
Especially will continuous bushwhacking be
the case from the Confederate crossroads of
Kentucky to the alligator swamps of Florida
and Louisiana. JEFF Davis has developed the
real fire of the old democratic flint in the cot
ton States, and Stephens and Toombs speak
for a host of Southern confederacy men when
they say that your fourteenth and fifteenth
amendments are frauds and outrages commit
ted upon a PROSTATE people by radical des-
potism, and that these frauds will never be
accepted by the Southern chivalry. This new
democratic departure, then, will strengthen
General Grant in the South; and what it is
going to do for the democracy in the North
we shall begin to discover in The coming fall
elections.