New national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1870-1874, 1872-04-11
What There is In a Name.

There is no halfway house in politics any
more than there is in religion and morals.
Those who are not for me are against me-"
Men who do not unite with church and ac-
cept its rule of faith are not of it. If they
attempt to change its creed and destroy its
organization they are its enemies. There is
no such thing as " liberal" moralist. There
is maralay and immortality, but no middle
ground. A man who is not moral is inn
moral. This is Just as true in politics. The
people of the country are divided into two
great national parties, as they always have
been, always will be, and always ought to be.
Now, as for sixteen years past, these parties
are Republican and Democrat. One or the
other of them is to control the Government
in the future as in the past. The question
is rhich? All who refuse to give their sup
port to the one prove that in reality they are
in favor of the triumph of the other, and con-
tribute directly and efiectually in producing
that result. With how much more justice
may it be said that those who openly declare
their determination to oppose the legitimate
action, and defeat the regularly nominated
candidates of their party, are its enemies?
No matter by what name the malcontents
who have just declared their intention to dis
regard the actions of the Philadelphia Con-
vention, and have already commenced the
organization of measures for the avowed pur
pose of defeating its views, may call them
selves, they are not Republicans, whatever
qualifying or modifying prefix they may select.
Republicans are those who acknowledge their
obligations to the Republican party and in
good faith abide by all its decisions when
fairly made. All who are laboring to defeat
its choice, made in accordance with estab-
lished usage, are onti-Republican. What
does it matter whether they are called Lib
eral Republicans" or by some other name ?
Practically they are Democrats or rebels.
They are as bitterly opposed to the success of
the Republican party as the most malignant
Copperhead, and are cooperating with that
disloyal faction to encompass its defeat, and
to restore the authors of the rebellion to
power.
The claim the men make to Republican"
is therefore an impudent fraud, intended to
in sympathy with the traitors during the re-
belliOn to the name of Unionists was not more
false and impudent. If the men, who pro-
noting the Cincinnati movement, are Repub-
licans, then the Democrats who gave aid and
comfort to the rebels ue,e Unionists. VAL
LANDIGHAM, and BRIGHT, and HARRIS,
and FITz JOHN PORTER, or the Knights of
the Golden Circle, were not more earnest for
the success of the rebellion, than Upton,
and ScHURz, and TRUMBULL, and GREELEY,
and their sorehead co-laborers, are for the
defeat of the Republican party. Following
the bad example of the traitors who went out
of the Union to begin their war for its de-
struction, these Republican malcontents have
seeded from the party instead of remaining
within it, there to battle for the correction of
their alleged abuses, or the redress of their
imagined grievances, and they will share the
same fate as their secession prototypes.