New national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1870-1874, 1872-09-12
The Collapse Of Liberal Rebubii-
c0nlsm.

The Collapse Of Liberal Rebubii-
canlsm.
Parties, like men, are usually very small
at their birth, and then if at all possessed of
vitality, will grow gradually, slower or faster,
until they have gained sufficient strength to
enter with prospect of success on the con-
test for the control Of the national Govern
ment. The growth of the Republican party
was rather rapid, after the old Abolitionists
and Freesoilers had once paved the way for
it, and though its first candidate for the
Presidency, John c. Fremont, was defeated
in 1856, it was well recognized by close OBJ
servers North and South that twas the party
of the future, whose representative would be
the next President. Know-Nothingism, too,
was of rather rapid growth, but lacking Vi
tally, it soon broke down, after having, how
ever been victorious in a few States. To
Liberal Republicanism, of all others, the
pitiable fate seems reserved to wither and
decay in its boyhOod, after having-a very
forward stripling-made tremendous -four
ish of its gigantic strength. Born very
small-the production of the brains of Mr..
Schurz, fostered first by Trumbull, Brown,
and the Blairs, the alleged little Minerva
for while really grew in size, and as it
seemed, in strength likewise. Ugly as the
little brat was-the fruit Ofdisappointed ambi-
ton end wounded vanity--its father and FOSTER
fathers trumpeted out its beauty, virtue, and
<ha OH <ho ION,
Of the Republican party, the usurpations of
General Grant and his vices, which they ex-
pressly fabricated for the occasion, with such
a tremendous noise and such untiring perse-
verance, that many good, honest, and unin-
formed people thought that there must be
some foundation to those daily-repeated
charges, especially when they were echoed
by some men whom they had learned to look
upon and trust as worthy and safe leaders,
and at the time of the Cincinnati Convention
there was widespread opinion that a new,
powerful party was just springing up, destined
to bring on an era Of unprecedented honesty
and purity.
Those were the blooming spring days of
Liberal Republicanism, and if Messrs. Schurz,
Trumbull and their allies had really been mas
tiers of the situation, as they imagined them
selves to be, and succeeded in nominating
some moderate, compromising man, uncom-
mitted to any extreme policy, respectable
enough not to brighten away Republicans, and
Indifferent enough in respect to the negro
question, to be acceptable to Democrats, the
7 lie H. hox hoe m
more formidable enemy, and given us hard
work even though doomed to be beaten
owing to the superior sense of the majority
of the people and their satisfaction with their
present rulers, their defeat might have been
an honorable one, as far as numbers are con-
cerned. The moment, however, that Horace
Greeley, who meanwhile had been changing
front, according to his bargain with Horatio
Seymour, slyly and slowly, like the hour
hand of a watch, by keen manGuvring out
witted the original leaders, and sprang right
in the saddle, he broke the backbone of the
whole movement. The weight of his eccentri-
cities and self-cOntradictions proved entirely
too much for a party based on sOphism and
falsehood, not called forth by any real neces-
sity, and its decline has ever since been as
rapid as its previous growth had been. The
preconcerted nomination of Mr.. Greeley in
Baltimore has rather accelerated than delayed
its collapse, for it has mdeceived those who
thus far had credulOusly believed in the Re-
publican tendencies of the Greclcyites. They
are naturally disguised with the society Of
all the most disreputable and rascally Demo.
cratic politicians. whose dirty hands are
even more offensive to them than the blood
stained hands of the rebels which they arc
ordered to clasp, while the masses of the
Democrats, those who are not out on the race
for Office, repudate him for his former Rad
cahsm.
The disclosures about the bargain between
Mr.. Greeley and the Democratic managers
were another fatal stab to the slender chances
of Greeleyites. 1t tore to shreds the shan
of honesty, which had been so Ostentatiousl,
paraded as a set off to Gen. Grants alleged
dishonesty, gift-taking, and general vicious
ness, and showed "Honest Horace" it i.
true, not As a gift-taker, but as an ambitious
intriguer, who had sold out the part,
for the qualification of his "hOnest" de
sire for the Presidency. North Carolina
Vermont, and Maine have given practica
evidence Of their appreciation of the situa
ton, yet tOttering under the rebuke as vel
as from its inherent weakness, the Demo
cratic wing Of the young party of the future
has abandoned the last pretense of honest,
and virtue by sending some of the most motto
rous members of the Tammary Ring a.
delegates to the New York State Conven
ton, who, after truly Democratic fashion
went directly to quarrel with the Liberia
wing over the distribution of the nomina
tons. Indeed, Liberal Republicanism viii
need all that it has left Of strength to drag
itself along until November to die and BIZ
buried in the ballot-box. Whatever Mr.