National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1875-09-01
A WORD OF ADVICE TO vICE-PREsI DENT
WILSON.

claims of Henry Wilson "to be the
leader Of Of his party" The Rochester
Express grants this but recalls the fact
that its Springfield contemporary has been q
pronounced enemy of the Republican
party since 1872, and supported Greeley
and Brown against Grant and Wilson.
If the Express intended to do Mr.. Wilson
q service by its agency in making him
prominent in such . connection, It has
sadly Numbered. The friendly allusion to
him by the Republican simply proves the
truth of the repeated charge Of the Ma
T1oNAL REPUBLICAN that his more recent
political friendships and affiliations have
been with the insidious enemies Of the
party and the Administration. We have
known this for months. During the
last session Of Congress he filtered
his complaints and gloomy predictions
through the pen of Mr.. Bowles to the
public, thus creating dissension and
distrust while apparently playing his &C
customed rOle of would-be pacifcator.
There was time in his life when he would
have attempted, at least to lead Bowles and
his paper back into the Republican ranks;
but now, it seems, he is weak enough to
temporize with him, and in doing so has
compromised his former reputation as
strictly consistent party adherent. All this,
mind you, that he may enjoy being char
acterized as '1eader" by Liberal Re-
publican editor who fought him and the
party that elected him to be Vice-Presi-
dent It is In vain that he cries out for
pacifcation, now aid that he pretends to be
engaged in cosxing Liberal Republicans
back into the regular party ranks. For the
sake of his honor, it may be conceded that
he is deluded with the belief that he is &C.
complishing this mission, but, in any event
Mr.. Bowles has proved to be too
smart for him. He has dragged him into
his net, webbed him about with letters of
discomfort toward the Administration, and
bolstered him up with selfshly ambitious
promptings, until he has made him COM
plete captive, and AFFECT follower. The
next step is to make him President of the
Massachusetts, Republican Convention.
Once in the chair, presiding over that body,
his humiliating appeals for peace at the
hands of the Southern Democracy will be
telegrsphed broadcast over the land, as evil
dence of the disregard of the Massachusetts,
Republicans for the pledges Of the party,
made at time when they proudly led it
to its most glorious achievement, the adop-
ton of the war amendments to the conssi-
tuition and the passage of the reconstruction
acts. This accomplished, Bowles may hold
him wen-in-hand for other work Of
the same kind, but will probably cast
him aside as no longer useful agent for
the disorganization of the party and the
building up upon its ruins Of new or
ganization, with Charles Francis Adams as
its acknowledged leader.
Mr.. Wilson can gain nothing by this /;
but will really add to the disrepute in which
he is held by the element of the Republican
party to which he owed his nomination at
Philadelphia. We are aware that these
are strong words, but we wish they were
more emphatic, and that they could be
made to echo again and again as warn
ings to guide him from the path Of de-
struction which he seems to be bent
upon following. He must know that he
is charged with ingrstitude to the Southern
Republicans who have until recently been
his friends, supporters, and admirers, and
that every step he takes upon that path fur
nishes additional proof of the truth Of
those charges. While the men who NOM
mated him are crying for protection, and
while their rights as citizens are being rap
idly swept away by the encroaching
power Of the States Rights and White
Mems party, he is coquetting with the most
reckless and blindly selfish element in
American politics,-an element which pos
sibly may be honestly seeking political
middle ground on which to build up a now
party but which is apparently willing to
sacrifice principle and consistency in max
ing that experiment. If his belief, or pro-
fessed belief were well founded, that the
Southern Democracy has honestly gone to
work to submit to the reconstruc-
ton acts and the constitutional amend.
ments, bis case would present q
different aspect. But it is not true that
these Southerners have done anything of
the kind. Any man must acknowledge
this who reads the signs of the times intelli-
gently. In North Carolina they have Just
been defeated in their effort to destroy State
constitution which recognizes equal rights
before the law for every citizen, and the
supremacy Of allegiance to the general
government while in Alabama they have
succeeded in calling convention, at which
they propose to revise the Constitution SO
Is to obliterate all recognition of the results
Of the war. In other Southern States q
similar reasonable inclination has been de-
veloped and so far as it can be accom-
plished without revolutionary amendments
to their constitutions, they have already
practically DISTINGUISHED the blacks,
for whose enfranchisement Mr.. Will
son labored as earnestly as any
Republican or Abolition leader in
the country, Yet he stands to-day in the at
titude of one who is ready to throw him
self into the arms of those who will Ger
tainly carry him far, far away from the
consistent course dictated by his past re-
cord. Has he given up the experiment Of
equal suffrage, which he urged as the basis
of Southern reconstruction? If he has not,
let him say so. Let him boldly and man
fully acknowledge that his recent course has
been a mistake, and that he IS once more
convinced that the only way to keep the Re-
publican party true to the solemn pledges
it has made in the past, is to demand and
enforce the most complete submission to
the laws of the. country by its enemies.
He certainly cannot believe that reconstruc-
ton is fully accomplished, and that the
mission of the party to loyalize the rebel
lious States is at an end But the people
with whom he seems to find political aff1lia-
ton now, profess to believe this. They Ger
tainly support that profession by acts which,
in effect serve to encourage the Southern
Democracy to more vigorous efforts to re.
establish within the Union the heresies
which they failed to establish as so-cslled
independent States.
EDITORIAL JorTINGs.