Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1872-07-26
.rOT PRE.rCIPLRS, NUT POsy.ER.


Committee.
-
.vOT PRINCIPLES, nut POD.ER.
n Trustworthy gentleman just from Mis-
souri,, fell in with an active democratic
leader there, who, supposing that he was
talking with one of his own views, let fall
this statement; that the business of his
party now is, TO regain its former ascen-
dancy in any way that is practicable. Let
ting their principles lie in allegiance for the
present, they would take up Mr. Greeley
as the most direct means of resuming the
administration of the country. Their prin-
ciples arc still those of the old party, which
are as good rs they ever were. But these
cannot win the impending battle. So the
democracy are willing TO use the Cincnna-
Ii platform long enough TO get back into
power, and then, with man in the presi-
dency whom they have nominated and O.
lected, they intend TO assert their claim TO
run the government after their ideas of
what is expedent, on so much of the old
track as they can find or can relay.
This was the frank but not very cautious
confession of what is swelling into a bold,
bad expectation in tens of thousands of our
people, who, Il few months ago, would
have resented as an insult the prophesy
that they would vote for Horace Greeley
for president next November What change
is this which has now brought these an
tagonsts together These intriguers know
what has been working in and out of the
brain covered by that old white hat, this
quarter of a century past; how it has ours
ed them and their gods in all the varied
emphasis of scornful invective and in
tensest hatred. Why will they then vote
the Baltimore ticket? Because it represents
to them Just an old white hat and nothing
more. They fout the idea of any real re-
sistance TO their schemes which will come
out of it. 1t may cap Il cir liberty pole,
and welcome but beyond an empty and
somewhat shabby badge of partzan J,rore,
which may help on their plot, the hat and
its owner are of equal Importance TO them.
Events are stronger than men. Even
were Mr. Greeley as honest as the liberal
republicans contend, his resistance Of the
freshet of democratic usurpation which his
election will unloose, could only be rep
ettion of the puny efforts TO ''dam up the
waters of the Nile with bulrushes." They
vince even under the name of Liberal Re
pubicans, which the Cincinnati conven-
tionsts are holding TO as their last rope,
but which their Baltimore allies repudiate
as no name for them. This shows their
1l,s.. 10 arl
right not to allow this thin hypocrisy to be
foisted upon them. Republicans they are
not, whether liberal or illiberal. There are
but two sides TO this contest-republican
and democratic. Philadelphia represents
one, Baltimore the other; Cincinnati is no.
where in this fight. 1t has dropped out,
has been swallowed up, is vanished. II new
er was anything but an irresponsible mass
meeting. When it adjourned, it dissolved.
Baltimore licked up its eruoid, and the
lines which face each other on this field of
civil strife, are just the same as stood front
to front from 1862 to lS65-standing thus TO
finish up at length that unfinished struggle.
But this is moral aud political treason to
our friends and negbors who sec the
dawning of the national millennium over
the roof OF the Tribune building. While
the democratic organs are noticeably spar
ing of professions of political conversion,
the papers which got up the Cincinnati
caucus are filling the air with shoutings
over the sudden and genuine rocanting of
all their great national heresies and oilenc-
es by those notorious transgressors. 70
doubt the thoroughness and sincerity of
this reformation is to commit greater sin
against charity and the public peace than
even to have lifted up arms against our
government in the days of its extremity.
But do these wholesale while-washers of
the Democratic North and South really
take in the magnitude of the job for which
they have contracted? They know what
were the position and feelings of the oppo-
sition to the republican party less than a
year ago. Their own editorial columns
contain the abundant and most decisive
testimony. What evidence beyond their
own dreams and wishes have they, that all
this rancor and corruption and rule and ruin
ambition, has given place to an earnest and
true, or even tolerably pure desire and
purpose to put the nation upon the basis of
a high-toned, just and harmonious admin
istration of its power? Can any sane per-
son, not pledged TO such belief by the
necessities of his position, get his own hon
est consent that this is the meaning, on
both sides, of those ominous clasped hands
which the Tribune has put at the head of
its columns as the emblem of this last and
most unprincipled of political wedlocks?
The masses of the people accept no such
miracle Sagacious leaders of the people
put no trust in this bubble! Sumner does
not dare to commit his southern wards 10
any such guardianship, through personal
friendship to Mr.. Greeley. Garrison, Ger
rit Smith and Phillips take no stock in
this lottery. "Warrington" Is mute, for
his fingers can't handle the stops of this
new organ. In fact, II takes hut half an
eye to see that this hubbub about a nation
al uprising for political publication, is
mostly the work of the organ-grinders
themselves, trying, in desperation, to create
a public sentiment in the line of their wish
es and wants. They say it is so that they
may make it so,-an old trick, and not al
ways n successful one. Meanwhile the de-
mocracy tips its sly aud wicked wink at
the ridiculous farce, and is stripping itself
TO its next four months work under its
real, If not loudly uttered motto, "Not prin-
ainlaa nnu lint nomar Jf,so,,