New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1872-05-30
wHATTs REP0RM Z


In recent speech delivered in Spring
field, Ex-Governor Oglesby, who is can
didate for Governor of Illinois on the
Grant ticket, holds the following eceen-
trio language:
Mr.. johnson, as Vice President, became
President. He thought the Republican
party was not acting wisely, and needed
leader, and therefore he said: will get up
a new organization within the party; Will
organize a sort of Cincinnati concern; !
viii purify the Republican party. He bad
not the moral courage to call himself a
Democrat, or anything else, but under the
pretenee of purifying you and me he called
himself still a Republican, johnson he
publican-a RefOrmer-a Liberal KepuO-
lican. [Laughter,l He intended TO
purify the party to b1lId Ut
tie establishment under the roof OF
our grand old house. He undertook to run
a little cOncern-to make the people better
But this great people took him by the nape
and pitched him out of the first hole in the
wall. TAppIausel 1t is dangerous thing
to attempt to make the Republican party
better than God made it. LCheers.I lt is
very dangerous thing to undertake to tam
per with the wisdom and good sense OF the
great people who have been tried IN the
fearful ordeal of civil war. You had better
let it alone, and march in the ranks OF the
great army of freemen. [Applause.l We
propose to let no party, no organization
purify us. Laughter We will purity
ourselves. TCheers.1 We are the best
judges of the pure thing. Laughter ana
cheers.
It is evident from this that the impet-
uous Ex-Governor mistakes the facts, and
his comparison is somewhat infelicitous.
For both Grant and johnson have incur
red the hostility of majority of their
party without in any way expecting it.
The policy of reconstruction favored by
Mr.. johnson on the basis of .he white vote
only, drove large proportion of the in
teligent Republicans into opposition, as
well as an unreasoning element whose pre-
JUDGES were greatly excited at what they
supposed to be his apostacy. TWAS char
acterized as a usurpative policy, in which
the President was assuming unconstitu-
tional powers, depriving Congress of that
control which rightfully belonged to it.
On this question of usurpation johnson
fell, and Grant is falling, But for the
President assuming to regulate the affairs
of sovereign States, and an undue imposi-
ton of the enforcement act, and his. policy
of federal interference with State legis-
islative assemblies, there never would have
been a Cincinnati convention. Blind,
however, in his hardihood, and unmind-
full of the example of the prede-
cessor, he persisted in his course
until he, too, has produced di-
vision of the Republican party. The
policy of impartial suffrage whereby the
domestic affairs of individual States could
be regulated in their own way, was the
rallying point on which the Republican
party preserved its unity against the dis
integrating measures of President John
son. 1t turned out, therefore, than in
stead of being boilers, they were the real
defenders of the integrity of the party
So it is with us. The President, in at
tempting to engraft the theory of centrah-
cation into the party, has made war upon
its most cherished and prominent princi-
pies. Those who assembled at Cincinnati
reassert this doctrine, and identify their
hopes with a pure administration and a
pure government
1t is therefore that we say that ex-
Governor Oglesby has been very infe-
icitous in his comparisons.