, 1872-02-08
Party Spirit.

II an elaborate review Of our remarks
upon "Party Spirit" From the pom
pous opening of his discourse We were
prepared for the exhibition Of veritable
Lon, but he very soon makes it appar-
ent that it is only .'Snug the joiner at
tempting to play lion.
He speaks Of our article as "a long
and, evidently, elaborately written lead
err" and says : ''As courteously and
candidly as possible, it is proposed to
review and reply to some If those many
f;tllacies which the article alluded to con-
tains." The circumstances under which
our reviewer is placed, as the retained
advocate Of a segment ofa party circle,
may give significance to the qualifying
terrls under which he promises courte-
sy and cand0r it may not be possible,
in his position, to exercise large amount
of either Of the qualities mentioned, and
he certainly makes but lneager exhibi-
ton of them in the article under eonsid-
Grafton.
The internal evidence which he cites,
that our article was deliberately writ
ten falls under the fact that it was not
written at all F.; its first visible appear
ance being It type, without other elabo-
ration than the compositor gave, while
setting ct the rate of thousand ems an
hour. This, however, is but an error
of judgement of no other signitication
than showing that this very self-conf-
dent reviewer may be mistaken in some
things which appear to him conclusive.
His misrepresentation Of facts is ye.
more glaring and palpable.
He first accuses US of representing
George Washington as ''a man devoid
of party feeling or positive convictions
upon political subjects. Every reader
Who recollects what we said on that sub
ject, Will bear witness that in quoting
Washington's well known warning
against the evils of party spirit, we gave
no intimation or drew any deduction or
conclusion therefrom other than the
plain letter of the text specified. This
s the first specimen of courtesy and
candor.
Our reviewer next says: "He then
goes on to say that, Party and patriot
ism are not synonymous terms. y This
quotation is literal as far as it goes, but
by omitting the qualifying terms by
which it was introduced, he misrepre-
sents US as laying down an axiom where
we were only relating an incident, thus;
s'The time has come when party and
patriotism are not synonymous terms.
There is candor and courtesy for you.
The manifest aim of this reviewer is
to misrepresent US as condemning and
assailing party, when our structures
were exclusively directed party abuses
and the base uses to which party spirit
is applied. Was the editor and the par
ty clique whose subsidy he enjoys.
wounded by our remarks +? So the can't
ing hypocrite, when he hears hypocrisy
and bigotry held up to public scorn. is
shocked at such profanation of religion.
We are not so impracticable in our views
as to suppose that popular government
can exist without party but we do be-
ieve that when party spirit dominates
patriotism, and becomes a shield to
manifest abuses ard outrages, it is time
to apply the principle announced in the
Declaration of Independence as the fual
resort against the abuses and oppres-
sions Of government.
Oar reviewer then proceeds to assign
to US motives such as we never dreamed
of, and to prove this again resorts to
misrepresentation of our position. He
saws ''The tenor Of the article in the
DISPATCH, to which reference is here
had, is, briefly, an attempt to prejudice
the public mind against the Republican
party" And-''The adroitness Of the
article consists in the way in which all
the abuses incident to the Convention
aud caucus systems-ike every human
institution doubtless open to criticism
are all heaped rpon the Administration
and the Republican party Of the eoun-
try" There was not sentence in our
article exhibiting prejudice or bias for
or against either Of the present party or
carnations. We spoke of the manifest
and acknowledged abuses Of party spirit
by the dominant party in the General
Government, and of like abuses by the
party of the opposition dominant in New
York, California and Oregon, to show
that the country has no hope of remedy
in mere change of existing parties
And we here mention the fact, that We
left the service Of the Democratic party.
after thirty-fve years of devoted labor,
solely on the ground apparent to US that
it had outlived its usefulness to the
country, and its organization, legends
and records, were used solely for per-
sonal ends by inscriptions politicians,
who, in q time of general disorder had
usurped its management. The most
corrupt party Convention which we ev
er Witnessed was the last Democratic
State Convention in Oregon, after which
for the first time in our life, we deemed