The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1874-11-10
The seuatorship.

IDlS Is an era Oh dDSuTulIl6S, III l1c
s~trangest ope lately put forward is the pre-
tense that a United States senator from In
diana must be elected on the platform of the
successful party in the last campaign. The
declaration of principles adopted at a state
convention is meant as the expression of the
salient points of party faith. Sometimes it
is above the average of party virtue,
and sometimes below it. In this state
the platform was undoubtedly one OF
the worst ever made, and all high caste
dem ocrats had 10 fight the campaign
by ignoring it. Had the republicans been
any more fortunate in their declaration of
principles the chances are that the democ-
racy would have been beaten. Their saliva.
ton was that the enemy could not chal-
lenge comparison of platforms with any de-
gree of confidence. Now. however, that the
opposition has got safely through the cam
paign, carrying this dead weight of repudia-
ton, imitation, and opposition to the super
~intendency, let the rubbish be put away and
forgotten. Il has served its turn in the an
vass for which it was made. and in the
name of a great majority of the democrats OF
0Aah 0AI0 VI VI hAO
of the country, the Sentinel protests against
having this narrow and contemplate
creed brought forward as a sort of test oath
for a mans loyalty 10 democracy. 1t was
not set up tor a tandard by which to mea-
sure party fidelity, and it is not honest TO
use it for that purpose. The idea of stretch
ing every candidate for senator on such a
Procrustean bed as that platform must be
abandoned at once. If you want tests take
lifelong consistency, honesty in public
and private life, great ability, and, if you
will, party loyalty through the darkest
years of party history, out away with this
new tangled machine for guaging
a mans capacity for the senatorship. Take
for instance the single resolution in favor of
repeating the law of March. 1869. No man,
with the thou ghtfulness and learning neces-
sary to fit him forthe post of United States
senator, can honestly endorse that declara-
ton. The people of Indiana may find
plenty of shrewd men who would pretend
to endorse it if they thought they could gain
senatorial honors by such a pretense; but no
politician of mere average ability can say
that he believes in thejustice or tie feasibil.
ity of that repeal without lying. Even grant
ing that when we put our commercial paper
upon the market of the world we did so
with a mental reservation that we should
not pay in the currency of the world,
yet the act of our own agents
in congress fixed the Interpretation of the
irrevOcably. We can not undo
their work without national dishonor. We
can not change tue nature of that trans c.
ton without national dishonesty; and it
will not do to turn congress into a set of
commercial swindlers. A private individual
could not so violate his contract, for the law
would hold him strictly to his responsibility.
The country NAV be above the sanction of
the law, but it mus preserve its own faith
for that is what its creditor relies
upon. Even George II. Pendleton has
abandoned this reputation theory, and it
is a curious instance of perversity, to insist
upon making an Indiana leader take up
what an Ohio leader has laid down in
shame. Democrats of Indiana, you can get.
along just as well with a senator in con-
gress who don't believe in your last plat
form, as the democrats of Ohio do with
Thurman. If any Of you think the state
needs a champion for initiation and for the
of the bonds in paper, why you
have the Hon. O. P. Morton still in the SEN
ate chamber to represent your views on these
questions.