National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1874-07-22
DEMOCRATIC RESTORATION.
AND THRVP

AND THEN?
The Democratic party is again asking the
country for restoration Of that confidence
which it forfeited fourteen or fifteen years
ago in a majority of the States of the Union.
In presenting its claim it bases its argu-
ments rather upon the negative qualities of
its opponents than upon any positive viz
tues il in itself possesses. For instance, it
assures the people that the party in power
has Overthrown the Constitution, overrid-
den the rights of the States in a concentrated
Federal despotism, swept away old land
marks, covered with the moss and ivy and
sacred traditions of seventy years; that it
has shown itself corrupt, incapable, danger
Gus and tyTannical. The inference the
Democracy would have drawn is that if
the country will only again entrust them
with authority the golden age of our poll
tics, when every Southern gentleman had
the right to ''wallup his own Niger" will
be restored; that we shall have purity and
honesty and reform at the hands of an Or
ganiZqtion whose record, State and national,
shows the ggossest corruption and abuse of
power. We shall not claim that the Re
publican party has been pure as the snow
during the last four or five years; but it is
an undeniable fact that it has endeavored
to discover the evil-dOers within its ranks,
and succeeded in Furnishing them to a
greater extent, more fearlessly and severely,
than any party in all our history or in the his
tory of any civilized country ever punished
its own unworthy members. its opponents
cannot name single instance in which guilt
having been brought home to a member of
the party, no matter how high his position,
or how great ais claims and influence it
failed to punish him Immediately and ef-
fectiveIy. FromF time immemorial the
practice of the opposition has been exactly
the reverse. 1t always covered up the
wrongs and rascalities of its own organiza-
ton and defended them. Therefore, so far
as purity and reform are concerned. no
good could come to the country by a change
of parties. The change would undoubtedly
be a change for the worse.
While the Republican party is not all
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animation of the situation shows that it is
infinitely better than the opposition, and
that to drive it out of power would be
fraught with misfortune and disaster 10
every substantial interest of the republic.
In the first place, the Democratic party is
without a policy. In the East it means
one thing; in the West another, and in the
South q third In Indiana il means repudi-
alton Of the national debt, an unlimited
supply of paper money; money as cheap as
in France in the first revolution; as cheap
as in Hsyti to-day or as it was in the Con-
fsderate States ten years ago. The
working masses, the mechanic and the
laborer, the small trader, are always
the sufferers from an inflated and
worthless currency. In the East Democracy
means direct taxation-free trade. 1t
would abolish the tariff and burn the GUS
torn.houses, under the pretence that those
establishments are the prolific sources of
corruption and Wickedness. Wedo not sup
pose that the men who manage them are
IS spotless as angels, but to pay the interest
on the debt-the price of Democratic
treason; to pay the MANNED veterans and
the widows and orphans Of the gallant men