The Jasper weekly courier. [volume] (Jasper, Ind.) 1858-1922, 1875-04-30
The Advancing Revolution.


There is a natural repugnance, or per-
haps il should be called inability. on the
part Of Republicans TO recognize the vast
political change now in progress. They
hate TO believe that their party as ma
tional organization has had its day. and is
approaching its end. They resolutely
fight their own perceptions, and will even
doubt that the elections went against them
last fall. or are going against them now.
There j. great impiety in thus resist
ing the leadings of Providence. We are
taught TO believe thar we are all instru-
ments in the hands of the Supreme Power,
some of greater and some of less conse-
quence and while the skeptical may
doubt this as a general proposition. how
can any one fail 10 see in recent political
results that certain prominent personages
among us are such instruments and ofthe
most significant character?
Take Gen. Butler for example has he
not been made the jawbone TO slay seventy
thousand Massachusetts, Republicans, and
throw that State temporarily into the
hands of the unterrified? Who can
thoughtfully regard the unexampled over
turn in the old Bay State, and not recog-
niZe a mys terious, ultra-natnral instru-
mentality in that notorious individual!
There i even fair prospect that what i
now temporary may become permanent
through the same agency In that Disguised
State. Ii were blind and heaihenish not
10 recognize higher wisdom shaping
these ends by this sha-p-edged tool. whose
chief defect is That il j. without a handle.
But take an instance on larger scale !:
take Grant. In what possible way could
the Republican party be- so shat Ell up, and
dsocated. and divided. and disntegrated.
as it has been by him through his third
term aspirations and his personal and par
tsan rule of the South? The party might
have been put TO bed and carefully nurscd
into tolerabe condition. even after the
severe handling il got last fall. if il had
not been predcstined TO ruin. Nobody but
Gen. Grant could have inflicted upon il
any such deadly mischief. Others might
have ruined the party in individual states,
but Grant alone was competent TO do II in
the whole country. And will any body
deny or doubt that he is the one great.
conspicuous human agency ia carrying on
10 completion the mighty political revo-
luton that began with his second term
Is he not the one instrument without
which the perfect fulness of this rcvolu-
ton could not be secured. In the very
ardor OF our condemnation for his unius-
tifiable actions and his disreputable pur-
poses. should we not be sustained and
soothcd by an unfaltering trust in the
Hidden Power of which he j. but the base,
unconscious instrument.
If the Republican party were in the
hands of its wisest men. or rather ii IL had
been so for some time past, perhaps its
fate might have been temporarily averted
or delayed. but il got its death blow when
It's managers deliberately ofie dcd and
I a taI h.. off MI
with its moral power shattered. it, doom
was sealed. When the party ceased TO be
honest. honest men lost their interest in
il \; and this is its great and fatal weakness
to-day. To be sure, il could not have
| lived forever on dead issues. The objects
for which it was created having been ac-
complished, the organization must have
disappeared with the lapse OF time, but its
doom is precipitated long before the natu-
raj period.
The political situation seems now very
clear. We have abolished slavery, but we
have not abolished the negro. lie still
| lives, and he controls The politics of the
Southern country to-day As much AS he
ever did. Politically he again makes the
South substantially unit: and that, for
the present at least, Is a fixed condition.
The South resists negro domination. Ii
does this under powerful impulse. IL
there is any thing which may be regarded
ms permanent in our politics. IL is the de-
termination OF the property and intelli-
gence, the conservatism and the respecta-
bility OF the South, 10 get the control OF
their affairs out of the hands of the igno-
rant and corrupted negro. and to keep IL.
Ii the whole North were united against
the South, as was the case during the war,
they would be powerlcss. But II Is far
otherwise. The Republican party has
gone into the minority In several North
ern States where IL hal triumphant ma
iorities during the war aud has had since.
The States in which IL has lost control are
Connecticut. New York. New jersey, and
Indiana; and IL is nearly on poise with
it, opponents In the great states Of Penn
sylvania and Ohio.
With the South comparatively "A unit
and the North divided, political control
almost necessarily changes. The civliza-
ton of the North is too high, and its ma