New national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1870-1874, 1872-11-14
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER IA, 1872.
The Judgment Of the People.

Our victory turns out to be n great deal
more sweeping than the most sanguine Re-
publican could have dreamed, and every day
shows the majoritics to be larger than first
announced. No one had the remOtest hope
that Virginia and Delaware would so far
forsake their antecedents as to go Republic
can; yet from the returns thus far received,
it does not appear as if Mr.. Greeley had
carried more than SUPPOSEDLY seven States,
= and even these with greatly reduced ma
jorities, while all over the North the Repub-
lican triumph is entirely unprecedented. This
result in itself is the most emphatic and
striking refutation of all the lodges and SLAM
ders with which our opponents endeavOred
to confuse and lead astray the public mind,
as well as scathing rebuke to their authors.
1t discloses at once the hollowness of the
howl about the sufferings Of the poor, down.
trodden, and oppressed South, the victims of
Republican misrule and tyranny; for those
victims themselves have virtually given it
the lie. Instead Of grasping eagerly the
hands that were stretched out so ostenta-
tiolsly over the bloody chasm, they have
voluntarily decided to submit to that misrule
and tyranny for four years longer. This re-
suit likewise disposes, at one blow, Of all the
drummed-up charges of corruption, dis
honesty, and incapability, since the people
have voted just those very incapable cor
ruptionists again into Office, instead of their
accusers, who in the name of offended vir-
tue, for more than six months offered them
all the patent medicines which they had
manufactured for the occasion.
The most cheering anu significant feature
of this verdict of the nation, however, is the
glorious vindcation Of the principle of popu-
lar sovereignty, which has asserted itself in
unsurpassed grandeur. In this campaign, of
all others, the judgment and intelligence of
the people were put to a test quite as much
rs their devotion to Republican principles.
Formerly the party lines were strongly
marked; the issues of the different parties were
often Numerically opposed to each other, and
the tendencies of the representative men had
been embodied in their antecedents. Thus the
candidates were the declared representatives
either of liberty or slavery, protection or free
trade, payment of the national debt or its re-
pudiation, equal rights or a white mans gov
ernment, and every voter knew exactly on
which side to cast his ballot. This time, on
the contrary, the Liberal leaders had done
everything in their power to Obliterate the
old party lines. AS they could not tell the
people how they were chiefly prompted by
personal resentment, INSCRIPTIONS ambition
and love of power, and yet had no issues to
set forth which would have warranted the
formation Of new party, they were COM
PEELED to resort to lodges, sophisms and falsi-
fications of every description, and to middle
the question, as they thought, beyond the
power of the discrimination of the masses.
Never before such allurements and bland
isments were held out to entrap the people.
Eloquent appeals to their sense of honesty
and magnanimity were made by men whom
they had known and honored for years as
representatives of the Republican party, and
from the outset they had been assured SO SOL
emily and emphatically that the Cincinnati
movement was entirely and exclusively Re-
pnblican in its character, that indeed, it
seemed to require more than average discrim-
nation to perceive that all those heroes of
conviction and virtue were sailing under false
colors. There was apparently no vital diff
ference between the two platforms, and if it
Lad not been for the Liberal State rights
clause, it would have been difficult to an
swer satisfactorily the question which was
So frequently and defiantly asked: What
fault we, the Republicans, had to find
with the platform? A few good men
were enticed, who might have known
better, and whose loss we sincerely regret !;
lut how small, how inlinitesimal their
number is, compared to the more than
seven hundred thousand majority of Gitizens
who on the 9Th of November asserted their
superior sagacity as we'll as their unfaltering
devotion to the cause of liberty, justice and
equality, and thus have again demonstrated
TO the world how the American people can
lie trusted as the faithful and reliable preserv-
ors Of Republican institutions and principles.
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Shall the CO1OreA PeOnle Of lhe