The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1872-08-23

THEY (the Stfalght0ut Democracy fear
the election of Greeley because it will
bring about reconciliation between the
people of the North and the South, and
then all the hopes and dreams of this rem
nant Of disunonism will forever vanish like
the baseless fabric of vision faded,
leaving not rack behind. This
must be their object, and we appeal to
people tired of war and hate, and anxious
Tor a restoration of the blessings of peace
and good government, to administer a, se-
we're rebuke to these consprators by with
drawing all countenance from them and re-
fusipg all sympathy in their movement.
DO not help them to perpetuate the war
between the sections by aiding them in this
conspiracy for the election of Grant, as you
before aided them, by dividing, to elect
Lincoln. We have had enough of disunion
ard its horrors-now we desire season of
peace that we may enjoy its blessings. =
Enquirer. r...r a-4a
We are among those who believe that a
political newspaper, which lays any sort of
claim to leadership in American politics,
should have something like consistent and
harmonious record to fall back upon in any
and all political emergencies. 1t may change
editors, as well as its tactics and policy in
the conduct of political campaign; but
there should be some underlying principle
Of action, and some manifest adherence to
the same, governing it to-day the same as
yesterday, so that its readers may be salts
fled that it is something more than mere
weathercock yeering to the popular breeze,
as il shifts FROM one point of the political
compass to another. Perhaps there is no
journal in the whole South which has a
more decided and consistent record in the
past than the Richmond Enquirer. AS a
Democratic sheet it has always been regard
ed as the foremost journal in the South, and
its political utterances have carried weight
with them even among its political oppo-
nents. With this concession made by us,
we find it hard to reconcile the above quo
tation, taken from its to-day's issue, with
the lifelong history Of that journal as re-
lating to our national politics.
The Enquirer, if we mistake not,
earnestly advocated the breckenridge
bolt" in 1860. and was foremost among
the journals of the South in effecting tie
great Democratic schism which resulted in
what is now historically known as the
bloody chasm." It bolted the action of
a Democratic convention which adopted a
Democratic platform, and placed the fore
most Democrat of the country in nominal
ted for the Presidency. Had the convention
when sitting in Charleston, or subsequently
when convened at Baltimore, endorsed the
Republican platform made at Chicago in
that year, and named Abraham Lincoln
for the Presidency, the Breckenridge move
ment would never have been called
"bOlt,n but 6 straight-out Demo-
cratic movement" justified by the
unauthorized and unwarrantable ac-
ton of a convention which had betrayed
the high trusts of the Democracy, and pu-
sillanimously surrendered to the enemy
without fight. And wherein would the
action of the Democracy in convention
then, had it been such as we have ind-
Gated, differed from that at Baltimore in
1872? The Enquirer may wish to be nice
in its lines of discriminating distinction,
aud it has an excellent chance TO do SO in
gathering up the points of difference be-
tween the two conventions named, provided
the action of the former had been such as
we have indicated it might have been.
AS 10 the restoration of harmony and
peace throughout the borders of the South,
what stronger assurances can the Enquirer
give Us that they will come to us, with the
advent Of Horace Greeley to the Presiden-
cy, any sooner, or with auy greater GER
tanty, than with the recollection of General
Grant? Is the lifelong record of amanf
nothing? Are his opinions of yesterday
his anlmosities, hates, and out-cropping
Venoms for years-nothing Do they not
rather constitute the threads from which