National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1874-12-07
WITH SUPPLEMENT-.
THE MEETING OF CONGRESS.


The last session of the Forty third Con-
gress meets at noon to-day. In a political
point of view the chief interest centreing in
it lies in the fact that with its close the Re
publican ascendancy in the Lower House
will pass away for at least two years to
come. This in itself is an event of no small
significance. Since the Democratic party
elected Mr.. Orr Speaker of the Thirty-ffth
Congress, it has not been able to choose the
presiding officer of that body. With the
election of Pennington, the Congress fol-
lowing, the Republican party practically
obtained control of the House, which it has
held ever since. From that date to this
the greatest and most important events in
our history have taken plaCe-the war for the
Union, the emancipation of the slaves the
amendments of the Constitution, the recon-
structiOn of eleven States. In every de-
partment ofthe Government the most radical
changes have been effected, our whole course
as nation among the nations has been
changed and changed for the better. If the
Republican partywere tOpass from power to-
day the chapter of its achievements would
form the brightest and most glorious in all
our history since our national independ-
ence was conquered. The men who have
been its leaders in the cOuncil-Lincoln and
Stanton and Seward and Chase; who have
led it in egislatiOn-Sumner, Stevens and
Hale and a hundred others; the generals
who commanded its armies-Grant and
Thomas and Sherman and Sheridan-stand
out the largest figures of the time. Some
of them Lave already taken their places in
history, and the positions their generation
has assigned them is the nOblest it could
give.
1t depends to a great extent upon the
gentlemen who meet at the Capitol to-day
and hold control of that body to say
whether the future of the party shall be
as great and vigorous and fraught with
good to the country as its past. In the
campaigns which closed a few weeks ago
it was the Republican party that defeated
itself For some years tine party leaders
have not been fulfilling the just expecta-
lions that were formed of them, and the
rebuke the people administered at the polls
was only the natural result of the repeated
failures to come up to the popular idea
which the party itself had erected. No
people have been educated as the American
people have been during the last twelve
years. Common schools and newspapers
and colleges, railroads and telegraphs have
done their work in a marvellous manner,
and left their impress upon the age deep
and ineffaceable. Every town of two thou
sand people has been connected; thought
is almost instantaneous; Washington and
San Francisco are almost nearer than were
Cincinnati and the Federal City when
Mr.. Lincoln was elected President, less
than half a generation ago. The whole
country reads every morning, in every
nook and corner, what its rulers did the
day before, and if the record is not
what it ought to be, punishment is sure to
follow, swift and sudden. If ever there was
need of craftsmanship in the Republican
party, it is at the present time. The conf
dence which has been withdrawn from it
can be recovered only by the highest wis
dom and patriotism. There are grave ques-
tons at issue, and they must be dealt with
in a way that will win back the support
which seems to have been forfeited. What
is needed above all, and as the very foun-
datiOn of effective action during the ninety
days of the full control of the Government
that remain to the party, is harmony. Its
leaders should sink the personal differences
and dissensiOns which have kept them so
long divided and distracted, and supplied so
much ammunition for the enemy. The
financial question is the great question of
the hour, and its solution demands all the
wisdom and light that can be given to it.
The tactics of the Opposition will be to di-
vide and conquer, to set Republican against
Republican, one branch of the Government
against the other. If the Republicans allow
it to succeed in this work, in which
it has so well succeeded in the past,
and adjourn without adopting ways and
means to lift the country up from the COM
meTcial depression under which it is labor
ing, their chances in 1876 will be dark in
deed. In this session there should be no
place for the unseemly wrangles that have
characterized and disgraced preceding ones.
Let us have measures, and not mere men.