Marshall County Republican. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1856-1878, 1873-08-28
THE DEAD PAST.
The Process OF Calling Democratic Spir-
its from the Vastly Deep.
From the New York Evening Post.I

It's from the Nasty Deep
GFrom the New York Evening Post.]
A Western paper regards it as Zone
of the significant signs of the times"
that the attempt of certain Democratic
papers to revive an interest in free trade
and make it political issue" has result
ed in "utter failure" We quite agree
with it as to the fact, though differing
from it as to the conclusion. 1t is not
that the people have concluded that
the tariff is about right as it is, but
that they have concluded that the Dem
ocratic party is about wrong as it is.
The interest in free trade or in any
other policy or measure, no matter how
popular, will be appealed to in vain as
means to restore confidence in that
political organization. The result would
be the same whether absolute freedom
in trade or an absolutely prohibitory
tariff were made the political issue
whereby the Democratic party were once
more to return to power Whichever
the people want, they will accept neither
ON such condition. Neither the party,
nor the party leaders, nor its organs are
respected or believed in, and their ar-
peals will be in vain, however pathetic
or tender, willy or wise they may be.
1t has become a habit to say that the
war of the rebellion is forgotten because
mems minds are occupied with new in
cidents and events. This is not and
ought not to be true for though we
have ceased to talk of the war as a SUBJ
ject of immediate and pressing interest,
yet as the most valuable and trying ex-
perience in the life of the nation, it can
never be lost sight of. 1t was the COM
mencement of new era, of which we
are as yet only on the threshold it's in
fuence on the character and the pros
perity of the people-we are as vet still
beginning to feel, and the results of that
influence We cannot yet even calculate
1t was an education to half million of
young men whose first stern lessons in
the duties of life were learned in the
camp and the battlefield and the con-
victions which took them there and in
one-hal the States of the Union it ut
terly subverted the social system and
relations by which millions were gov
erned, and left the people to learn and
live by new civilization.
The misnamed Democratic party had
its beginning, its growth, and its power
In the system of human slavery which
belonged to that region, and in the
efforts to perpetuate and extend it. Had
there been no war, and had the slave
holders, with their gangs of slaves, ex-
tended their dominion over the virgin
soil of the West and the Southwest, and,
by the help of the Democratic party of
the North, have brought the free States
into complete subsection to the slave
holding policy, then that party would
have continued to be, as it had for more
than half century, all-powerful. But
it was not to be. The war came, and
with it the new time. 1t proclaimed
liberty throughout the land, and to all
the inhabitants thereof" and the party
of slavery persisted when slavery was
abolished. 1t is as easy to restore the
one as to revive the other.
1t does not in the least matter whether
this great fact of history is acknowl-
edged !; the great fact, nevertheless, re-
mains and asserts itself. We cannot
turn the wheels of time backward, or
restore an order of things which is passed
o"oy oh~A ~ACAAC WILL IL c1C hCW OAuCA
events are adjusting and will adjust
themselves, whether men or organs say
yea or nay. Double-leaded leaders,
though they may be as long as the moral
law, and as frantic as the delirium of
whirling dervishes, cannot stay the tide
of such events. Political parties created
/ for temporary purposes may come and
go the eHgencies of the moment may
give them power, or keep them in place
for longer or shorter period /; but they
answer only to the conditions of tran
sition period and revolve around the
events which are shaping the future.
But they mark progress, not retrogres-
sion. It is as idle to call upon the old
Democratic party to shake the dust of
the grave from its cerements as it is to
invoke the Silver-gray Wings" to come
out OF the tomb and be alive again with
the Fugitive Slave law as the symbol of
their faith and their staff of accomplish