New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1872-09-03
DEMOCRAT OR REPUBLICANl

IF tbe Louisville Convention have no other
appreciable result, it may perhaps do good in
showing the Grant party how much nonsense
their organs have been talking about an
imaginary change in Mr.. Greeley's political
principles. While they have been crying
every morning that the Liberal candidate for
the Presidency has sacrificed his convictions
and turned Democrat for the sake OF the
nomination, they have been working with all
their might to disprOve their own stories by
getting I'D a Bourbon candidate on the ex-
press ground that Mr.. Greeley does not repre-
sent Democratic sentiment, but is, on the con-
trary a good Republican. If the present cam
vass of Gen. Grants friends were not con-
Quoted on a system of unlimited lying without
parallel in our political history, there could be
no question on such a case as this. Mr..
Greeley is supposed to be rather a plain
spoken person, and if there is any public man
in America whose political sentiments have
been expressed with more force and frank
ness than his, we should be glad to know
who it is. He has always been member of
the Republican party since there has been any
such party, and he is a member Of it now.
But the Republican party and the Renomi
nation party are two very distinct things. We
do not admit the right of Oliver p. Morton,
Zachariah Chandler, Benjamin F. Butler, and
ULYSSES Grant to excOmmunicate anybody
whose theory of Repubhcanism does not rise
higher than theirs. They look upon politics
as a business pursuit we care rather for the
triumph of sound principles than the success
of anv individual candidate. The creed of
true Republicanism will be found in the Gin
cinnati platform. Mr.. Greeley has signifed
his belief in that by his explicit letter of ac-
ceptance, his letter to Senator Schurz, his
speech at Portland, and many of his less i'm
portant utterances. Every word in that plat
form harmonizes with Mr.. Greeley's political
record and with the aims of the party to which
he has devoted so many years of his life In
that platform the true Republicanism of the
present day, which throws behind it the dead
issues of the war, and looks forward to the
remaining works of peace, finds complete ex-
preston.
Nor has Mr. Greeley abated one particle of
his hostility to that spurious form OF Democ-
racy which is now represented by such men
as Blanton Duncan and the other tools of the
Administration at Louisville. The Democracy
which neither learns nor fOrgets, which would
revive Slavery, pay the Confederate debt,
pension the Rebel soldiers, undo the work
effected by the Constitutional Amendments
of that false school of Democracy MIR. Gree
ley is now what he always has been, an I'M
enemy. But that party is only
an insignificant handful. The real Democracy
of 1872 is the party which sent its delegates
to the Baltimore Convention, and there form
ally renowned the dead past, and ratified the
resolutions adopted by the Liberal Republic
cans at Cincinnati. With that party, and with
all who accept the Cincinnati platform, Mr..
Greeley is honestly prepared to act. That party
has made its new departure in good faith,
and has reached point where, without dis
honorable surrender on either side, it can
freely cooperate with those who were once its
bitterest opponents. In politics there is no
vitality without progress. All that there is
good in the Democratic and Republican par
ties alike has advanced since the war, and if
the two columns have met on common ground
all sensible patriots should rejoice.
All true Democrats henceforth will be found
on the side OF the strong against the weak, of
liberty against oppression, of justice against
fraud, of equal rights against class privilege.
And those who cannot accept the principles
enuncated by their National Convention at
Baltimore and by the Liberals at Cincinnati