The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1872-05-25
Breaking Up OF Our Political Parties
and what Follows.

VI Jll0 u IiAloS OuA PoAAMohh
parties are on the eve of dissolution. In fact,
they are breaking up. Effect follows cause in
the political world as we'll as in the physical,
and the cause of this disruption is found in
the removal or absence Of those issues which
brought into existence and sustained the pow
erful parties that heretofore controlled the des-
TIMES of this country. Names Of great political
organizations may have something of magic
influence for q time even after the issues they
have been based upon have become obsolete or
no longer exist but no party can live long
upon the memory Of the past 1t has been
humorously said, to show the ignorance of
some of our rural citizens and the tenaoity
with which they cling to old party affiliations,
that some Of tho Dutch democrats of Pennsyl-
ton for Andrew Jackson. Such implied stu
pidity and partisan obstinacy has little founda-
ton in fact. The mass of the American peo-
pie, In the rural districts as we'll as in the cities
ore keenly alive to the movements Of the times
and know when party issues are dead. The
press-particularly the independent press
and the telegraph diffuse information so widely
"i1o SoiAo"sAoiJ cAAbV POOPlc QulChAy louIA WLuU
are the living and practical ques tions of the
day.
The late war was political earthquake. 1t
radically changed our political life and laid
the foundation for new state Of things. Its
influence, too, upon our domestic institutions
and social life has been very great. We feel
the vibrations yet and shall for some time to
,,,,k t1a, Ia:
feel the upheavals of the earth till the fires be-
meath have expended their force. But we shall
continue to approach a settled condition more
and more every year. The war was an in
tensely active movement breaking down the
barriers of the past and carrying us forward to
q greatly modified and more centralized gov
ernmental system. This, perhaps, was I'M
avoidable, and to some extent necessary
Now reaction is setting in. The Cincinnati
Convention and nominations, though brought
about in part by ambitious and disappointed
politicians and those who had party or per-
sonal animosities to crafty, were the natural
outgrowth of this reaction. The impression
is pretty general that the ideas and policy en-
gendered by the war have been carried too
far, and though there is no expectation of re-
turning to the theories and policy exploded
by that event, there is O desire to arrest
the centralzing tendency of the govern
ment, to obliterate the remembrance and con-
sequences Of our fratricidal strife, and to
restore local rights and the supremacy of civil
law in accordance with the constitution
Whether the country is fully ripe for the reac-
ton or not remains to be seen. We think it
is. Though the Cincinnati movement has
given the first great impulse to it, the party
making that may fail General Grant and his
party may fall in with the popular current,
and there are indications that they contem-
plate doing So If the war cry and war issues
be no longer available the regular republicans
may ride into power again on the reform
movement. And If they have not the credit of
originating it an honest or we'll feigned re-
pentance might serve their purpose, partcu-
larly as they have the power and patronage of
the government to help them
Before the split in the republican party, or
what we may now call, perhaps, this third
party movement, which began at Cincinnati,
the two great parties which aspired to rule the
country and which alone had any chance of
doing SO, are the regular republican party now
in power and the democratic party The labor
reform party and other parties that have
sprung up have not yet acquired sufficient i'm
portance to be considered of themselves as
powerful political organizations. The demo-
Gratis governed the republic from the time
when General Jackson became President up to
the election of Mr.. Lincoln, period of thirty
two years, with the exception of the one month
of General Harrison's administration and the
four years of General Taylor and Mr.. Fillmore.
During these intervals even the democrats
had the power in Congress. Nor
was there any great difference in
the policy of the whig and democratic
parties, except with regard to the tariff, during
this interregnum. 1t was not till the init
slavery party grew powerful in the country and
Congress that radical change was imminent.
The crisis was reached in the election of Mr.
Lincoln, in 1860. The South was the strong
hold of the democracy, and when that section
rebelled the party was overwhelmed There
was little chance of it regaining power at the
North for some time even with the loudest
profession Of loyalty, and though many of the
leaders and the bulk of the democratic masses
fought for the Union and against their old
political allies their former utilization with
the Southerners was damaging. The States
rights theory which was held in common by
the democrats Of both sections, and upon the
extreme view of which the South claimed the
right of secession, threw odium upon the
norty az tho North Thic uoc iptano;faJ h.,
the hostility of portion of the Northern
democrats to the war and by the sympathy
manifested for the South. Even after the war
ended, when the people began to be dissatis-
fed with the dominant marty and its corr,ln-