The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1872-03-01
CoNSER yATISM AND DEMOCRACY.

The time Is rapidly approaching, II IL IS
not already at hand, when the political
parties of the South will have to be recast,
or, to speak more definitely as to Virginia,
when the alliance between the old-line
Wings and secession Democrats will have
to terminate from the most natural OF all
causes. During our moments of anger and
passion, or when decisive trials of physical
strength are demanded of people, the
blood necessarily collects in the arteries OF
the body polite, and but little of it is sent
to the veins. This condition of a people is
constant during period of war, or when a
whole people is theoretically wrestling for
the political supremacy which is to be de-
termined by the issues of war. Then the
arteries hold their blood, and the hearts of
million people may beat as one.
But when the struggle is past, and
anger and passion subside, another con-
dtion of the public health supervenes,
and the blood in the system flows out into
the veins, ramnifying all the more delicate
tissues of body and brain through which
these wonderful blood-ducts run. The
blood becames cool; the frame of mind
which it induces is calm, collected and
dlspassionate; and inventory is taken of
the profit and loss that has ensued from the
angered state of mind the public has been
in; the people begin to sum up the amount
of blame to be cast upon this or that set of
political leaders, and rapidly to come back
TO first principles, or those from which their
last great departure was taken. ...
And this, we are satisfied, is exactly
the state of mind the people Of Virginia
are in to-day. The old-line Wings, or the
real conservative element Of the State, are
casting about them for some new line Of
departure by which they can get back to
first principles, and be henceforth rid
of the pernicious consequences of their
first real abandonment of them. This con.
clusion is not to be derived from any news
paper tendency in that direction, but gath
cred from the general current of thought
and opinion among the people, who always
think in advance Of their leaders, especial.
ly those of the Bourbon class in politics
who look back upon the times when there
were none of the mighty agencies of mod.
ern progress in existence, but the simplci,
ty of "dead institutions" harmonized witt
everything else that was dead around them
This unhappy class OF Bourbons, who
obstinately refuse to learn anything from
history, now have the control of Southern
journalism, and the people will never learr
anything from them because they never
learn anything themselves. They con
stantly dish up the same old ola pod,idc
of politics same incongruous mixture
that they gave us yesterday, the day
before, the day before that, and the ''oldes
inhabitant' hardly knows how much fur
Their back. When the abscess over Zadig'
eye broke, in opposition to the learned
opinion of the doctor, the doctor wrote a lon!
treatise to prove that the abscess ough
not to have broken. And yet, if the alb
scess had not broken, poor Zadig woul'
have died long before the Doctors inyalua
BILE treatise was written, and then TIN
doctor might possibly have written anothe
treatise to show that poor Zadig ought no
to have died. This excellent doctor Q
Zadig would have made superb editor 70
the Bourbon journalism of which we speak
He would have been just the man for tn
Southern editorial chair to-day. He woul,
have filled it to perfection, because, if tn
world had moved, he would forthwith
have produced an elaborate treatise t
show that it ought not to have moved.
Such a journalism as this will shape n
new public opinion, nor will it organize an
live party on any living issue. The peopl
will move in advance of it everywhere. a
they are moving now. The fight is comm
sooner or later upon the great and vita
issues that the people now see and feel
The cry of our farmers for dog-law i
this State is only one Of thousand othe
things that foreshadow the inevitable con
ing that is to be IN politics. The questio
of protection to American industry as or
posed to British free-trade, is alread