New-York tribune., 1874-10-22
A CAMPAIGN OF ERRORS.

The Administration managers have certainly
had no luck this year. Their campaign has
been founded upon two great mistakes. One
was that nobody cared about the third term
discussion, and the other was that the win
ming card, now as hitherto, was the Southern
outrage mandatory. AS the time of the
election draws near, they sit watching with
deep anxiety the ravages which the third term
business is making i'll their most faithful bat
talions, and there is something like dismay in
the surprise with which they regard the dead
failure of the crimson rOmances which Con-
gresham Hays invented, and which nobody
but Gen. Hawley has been candid enough to
believe.
The first mistake was a perfectly natural
one. There are a great many careful and
thoughtful men in the Republican party, to
whom politics are matter OF conscience, and
who will not even follow their party when they
see it embarked upon a course which tends to a
violation either of the laws of morality or OF
any clearly recognized constitutional principle
or tradition. These men formed for years the
silent voting strength of the party, and as
long as it embodied their ideas of public
morality and duty, their votes were safe, no
matter who the candidates were, or what the
details of party programmes might be. The
inevitable course of continuously successful
parties is to fall at length into the hands Of
men with more activity than intelligence,
more eager self-seeking than regard for law
and morals They come to feel at last that
the party belongs to them and that the vOt-
ing masses are not worth consulting. When
a ouestion like this of the third term comes
up, they look at it from their own narrow
point of view, and decide it upon pitt
full issues of personal or party expedency.
They know little and care less what light is
cast upon it by the history of the country, by
the trainers of the Constitution, by the ex-
Founders of the theory and practice of repre-
sentative government. They merely think
that its discussion would annoy the President
and do no good. If they give the subject
thought, they say Why not good man
Z" for three terms is better than bad man for
"One.n And they imagine that this dispOses
of the whole question. Meanwhile the Presi-
dent and his immediate surrounding, encOur-
aged by this dull and frivolous acquescence of
the men who, he thought, controlled the party,
began a series of demonstrations In favor of
a perpetuation of his tenure of power, which
could not but attract the attention of all who
care anything about republican government.
For good while it was impossible to make
the managers believe that thing which did
not interest them could interest anybody else.
They have only just now walked up to con-
sciousness that their party is in danger
through this neglected intrigue, and through
the indignation of self respecting Republicans
who do not choose to give it even the SEEM
ing consent of silence.
The failure of the outrage expedent was
perhaps a still greater surprise, for 1t has
never failed before. Whenever the safety or
the political rights of the Republicans of the
South have been in danger, the fact has in
variably been enough to secure the success of
the Republican canvass in the North. The
well-wOrn spell has at last lost its magic, and
cannot now start spirit 1t needed some
foundation of truth to make the other ingre-
dients effective. Formerly it has had this,
but Mr.. Hays was too energetic and innovat
ing a genius to be trusted with the initiation
of a campaign which was to depend upon the
votes of men with some intelligence and some
conscience. He was too circumstantial. He
laid the scenes of his fictions in places where
our correspondents could go. And there is
nothing now lett to him but claim to the
mantle of Munchausen. Even the Louisiana
insurrection could not galvanize the campaign,
which was dead as Apanias before. Gen.
Butler mounted his Pegasus at Gloucester to
lead imaginary regiments to visionary war,
but reused no enthusiasm by his desperate
devotion. There is nothing to be made this
year out of Southern outrages, unless Gen.
Grants office holders can goad and torture
their subjects into some lawless act between
now and the elections. They are doing their
best, apparently, and it will be a national dis
aster If they succeed.
Up to the present, however, they have not
succeeded; and the most glaring proof of
their failure is in the letter of Mr.. Bailey,
accepting the regular Republican nomination
for Congress 10 this city. He uses this Ian
guage IN regard to the men who are calling
upon the Federal Government to keep them in
power: "There Is class III the South toward
(Which 1t is impossible not to feel extreme
indignation. 1t is composed of men wno
"haye used the cloak Of humanity to enrich