New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1873-04-25
4 SETTLED QUESTION.

We have looked with but languid interest
upon the efforts of Free-Traders to revive
some sort of o party for themselves. For
many year to come the question OF Protec-
ton to Home Industry has been settled. 1t has
been settled by the plainly evinced wish of the
States that in any close Presidential canvass
determine the contest; and by the distinct
abandonment of their hostility to Protection
in a platform or candidate by the Free
Trade boilers from Cincinnati, who mounted
the Philadelphia Platform and worked for Gen.
Grant. 1t has been settled by the nc
cessties of the revenue; and by the yearly and
monthly accommodating evidences of the bone-
ficent influence of the Tariff on the develop
ment of our industries. 1t has been settled
too by the defnitive and formal abandonment
of any distinctive Free Trade policy by the
only party ever in any sense committed to
Free Trade. Revolutions like that do not go
backwards.
There was some Sight excuse for holding
on for little time after the whole question
had been definitely settled and the decision
put beyond reconsideration or recall in cOnsti-
tutional amendments, upon the position and
policy Of the Democratic party with regard to
Slavery. They had held to it and fought upon
it for generation. II was ingrained in the
party; flesh of its flesh and bone of its bone,
its spinal column and its marrow. 1t was not
unnatural that the party which had for so
many years fought upon this issue SO stoutly,
and latterly against such odds, should cling
to it and try to believe in its vitality
for at least one Presidential term
after its final settlement and its practi
cal disappearance. For as the party
was constituted and as it stood before the
people, it was all it had. All interests had
been merged in it; all questions of state
policy and political economy been first sub
Ordinated TO and then lost in it. They chung
to it so long as the bitterness of the long
struggle survived and there was enough float
ing power in il to keep together the remnant
Of the organization. But there came a time
when to the general cons ciOusDess Of the
party the ObsOleteness, the utter deafness of !
the whole debate was so patent that by com
mon consent it let go its held and accepted |
the situation as established and unalterable.
From that time it Isay as well be confessed
the party ceased to be- The men composing
it are acting together to some extens from
force of habit and long association, and from
Ong lease Of power has developed other and
yraver causes for opposition. But except i'll
hostility TO a common enemy it is neitber
homogeneous nor coherent. 1t had long time
igo a sort Of notion of Free Trade n a poIt-
cal principle, but Free Trade has never been
test Of party orthodoxy with it. Il is true
enough, perhaps, that majority of Democrats
we're theoretical Free Traders, but the party
never had the pluck to put itself upon a plat
OTm that was not susceptible of two
upon the question and it is
air TO say that its opponent, the Re publican |,
party, was open to the sans objection. The |,
'esult was that we had Free Trade 2epubli- |;
cans and Protection Democrats throughout h
he country and IN Congress. Party lines were |,
never drawn upon that issue 6 they were upon 1
slavery and Secession. So happened that
when the questions growing out of the war I
were disposed of and the odds and ends of the |
great debate of the period lad been gathered |
up aud carried sut, the Democratic Fzrty had |
no cohesion except4n comIson hostility to the |
party in power, which, by NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. |
and breach OF trust, 5000 raised new issues /
upon which il fell asunder itself. The great |,
thing accomplished by the Liberal Republican |
OF 1872 was astonishing an oppoT-
tunity to the Democracy 10 recognize fairly and
accept fully the political situation. 1t was
done at Baltimore, and the thing was ended.
The Cincinnati Platform adopted at Baltimore
was the conclusion Of the whole matter-a
graceful winding up Of the controversy.
But il it settled the position Of the party
rnon the long mooted question of Slavery, it
COS no less pronounced upon that of the Tariff
ond Free Trade. Upon both ii did good honest
work-no less upon Free Trade than upon sla-
vorv Recognizing in terms the fact that there
,roro wide and irreconcilable differences upon
this politico-oconomi question among citizens
Who desired TO act together upon matters OF
greater moment, it deliberately dismissed II
from the domain Of discussion as an issue IN