The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1875-02-16
THE CRIME AGAINST PEACE.

The proofs accumulate that all the energies
of the party in power are to be bent in one
direction for the Presidential campaign o.
1876, which, according to Senator Conkling
was opened with the Louisiana debate in the
Senate Everything points to a concentra-
ton OF force upon the programme indicated
by the Tribune a few days since.
The passions of the war are to be rekindled,
sectional animosity revived, and Presiden-
tial campaign made upon appeals to prejudice
anl arguments addressed, not to reason, but to
passion. Indeed, what else remains? The
campaign approaches, and the party must
enter upon it with weapons Of some
sort, with some kind of political issue
| There is no other resource That they can
not carry the country again upon the brilliant
record Of the party from 1860 to 1865 is mani
| fest to the most careless observer. Too much
has happened since then for which the party
is responsible to which it cannot "point with
pride" To go to the country upon the record
it has made in the management of the finances
of the country would be fatal.
A PROSTATE commerce and crippled bust
ness, continual depression and distress, an
unsettled currency and the hopeless divisions
in the party upon questions pertaining thereto
all forbid any demonstration in that direc-
ton.
Equally weak would be any appeal to the
people to sustain the party upon the merits
of its reconstruction policy. The fact that
only in the reconstructed States which have
thrown off the yoke Of the Administration is
there anything like prosperity or peace-the
others being plundered like South Carolina
or kept in disorder like Louisiana-w be |
conclusive against them.
The results Of two years of Investigations |
forbid their making any claim upon the score
of honesty; the condition of the Treasury
answers abruptly their professions of retrench-
ment, and the condition of the public service, |
the character of large proportion Of the men
in Office, the record Of the President himself,
and the fragrant dishonesty of their repeated
in favor of Civil Service Reform
all stand conspicuously in the way of any
further attempt to use that much-abused
pretense in another campaign.
And we say, further, that more revolving
conspiracy against the peace and welfare OF
he country could hardly be conceived.
When Stephen A. Douglas in 1854 in the in
erests, as it is charged, OF his own personal
ambition, flung into American politics the
oill by which the Missouri Compromise was
epealed, and the Slavery question reopened,
t was denounced as great crime against the
American people and against liberty, and the I
North rang with denunciations of Mr.. Douglas
rom pulpit, press, and platform. c
Vastly more shocking to the moral sense,
nd utterly without reasonable pretext or ex- S
USE is this deliberately weighed and care
lilly concocted conspiracy to perpetuate
arty power by reopening the CHASTITY wounds
f the war which kindly nature was so rapidly I
ealing, and which the nation was forgetting !
18th such greatness of soul and tenderness a
spirit as never before illustrated any his O
Dry a
This it is that here and now upon the very
lreshold Of the whole bad business we de- L
ounce as a crime against the party whose G
'rly knightly record it sullies. against the q
,untry whose peace it aims to DESTROY and 81
,ainst humanity which it sins against and q
James. IL
1t may seem easy to arouse the slumbering
lssions of a people just resting in the con- :,
iousness Of triumph by the false alarm that -
g PROSTATE enemy seeks to renew the fight
ID reverse the event. It is easier, no doubt, Ri
an to meet the people upon the record of w
is Administration. But success waits on
ither plan. How much mischief they may
in the next two years Heaven only knows III
they carry out the programme toreshadowed
the President in his Arkansas message,
d undertake the revolution to which his a.
lguage clearly points, we may count upon trs
0 years OF turbulence and disorder, worse if lei
ssible than open war. But the end will :,
me, and the people will repeat to President ~
ant as he goes out Of Office what he said
len he came in, "Let us have peace w
Tribune, 11th inst. IT.