The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1873-08-04
Political Movements or the Day-rhc
Democracy and the Liberal Repub-


cans.
Since the time of Monroe, that peaceful
political time, distinguished as ''the era
of good feeling" when party lines were
obliterated and the people were ''all
federalists and all republican" since
that lucid interval that transition epoch
from the honest simplicities OF the
fathers OF the constitution to the corrup-
tons Of the public plunder-there has to this
time been no intervening period marked by
the general monotony and dulness now reign
ing in tho administration party or by the gen.
eral decentralization prevailing in the opposi-
ton ranks. Can it be that, with the lapse OF
half century, we have completed political
cycle which brings us round again to the
CELEBRATION of old party lines and to Presi-
DENTAL scrub rece, as in 1924, preliminary to q
reconstruction of our political parties upon
lew men and new issues? If the political
conditions Of the two periods-the period OF
Monroes administration and the period OF
Grant s-were substantially identical we
might count with some confidence upon SINH
lar results in both cases. But under the
second term of Monroe the old OPP
position federal party had dissolved and
disappeared and the old controlling
Congressional caucus of the republican party
had lost its prestige. Nor were there in 1924
any great questions of governmental policy cal
culated to divide the people into two great
hostile party camps; and so it was that upon
the personal merits and popularity Of Jackson,
John Quincy Adams Crawford and Clay that
campaign for the Presidential succession was
fought, and was finally, in being carried to the
House of Representatives, determined in favor
of Adams.
From that point, and from the hue and cry
of "bargain and SALE raised by the friends
of jackson against Clay in the election of
Adams, we have the shaping and the direction
of all the vicissitudes Of our political parties
and of the country and the government down
to this day. The election and the administra-
ton of Adams stand as the landmark, the
dividing barrier, between the honest and fru-
gal administration of the government under
''the fathers and the conduct of our political
affairs under the baleful ensign that ''to the
victors belong the spoils." From jackson to
Grant this maxim has been the supreme law
Of the party in power and the inspiration Of
the opposing party. Our existing political
conditions, then, looking to the Presidential
contest Of 1876, are so widely different from
the situation Of things in the interval from 1920
to 1924 that scrub race for the succession is
hardly possible, although, from the existing
divisions among the decentralization forces
they may be divided upon two or three differ
ent Presidential tickets, as were the opposition
forces against jackson in 1882 aud against
Van Buren, in 1886, and against Buchanan in
1856.
From the present movements Of the demo-
cratic party and the liberal, or anti Grant re-
pubGcans we think it most probable that
each of these parties will have Presidential
ticket Of its own in 1876. To the democratic
party the results of the fusion movement of
| 1872 utterly repel the thought Of repetition
of that proftless experiment. Not State can
be named in which anything was gained from
| it; not State can be mentioned in which the
iment In the outset it was supposed that
the name Of Mr.. Greeley as the democratic
candidate on the Cincinnati liberal platform
would command the balance of power in North
Carolina, and that the opening victory there
would mark the rising tide of sweeping revo-
luton. But North Carolina was disappoint-
ment. The crucial test was then transferred
to Vermont and Maine; but they, too, only
betrayed the weakness of the Cincinnati
liberals as a balance of power. There was
still hope Of change and general re-
action from the October elections of Pennsyl-
vana and Ohio but the next morning after
these elections it was known throughout the
| Union that it was all over with the democratic
ticket adopted from the Cincinnati Con-
vention, and that the November Presidential
contest would go by default for Grant and
| Wilson. We have the evidence in those
November returns that everywhere the demo-
Gratis had become disheartened and de-
moralzed by their ''new departure" and we
have had nothing in the subsequent move
ments of the party favoring the idea of a
resumption of this most unfortunate coalition.
The Ohio liberals, under Mr.. Brinkerhoff,
in State Convention the other day at Co
lumbus, adopted a platform Of democratic
principles and a compromise ticket of demo-
Gratis and liberals, as the protocol for another
alliance, offensive and defensive, with the de-
mocracy; but the democratic journals give no
encouraging responses to the movement On
the other hand, from their emphatic denuncia-
tons of the proposed coalition and their
general demands for return to the old party,
the old faith and the old flag. we anticipate
from the Ohio Democratic Convention of the
9th instant 'new departure" to the
old tabernacle With this result in Ohio we
may assume that the democracy in all the