The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1875-09-09
TIE DIVIDING LINE.
From the New York Sun, Sept. 81

/
respected correspondent asks US to state
the dividing line between the Republican and
the Democratic parties, and where they diff
fer.
| Twenty years ago. when the Republican
party was formed, the great question between
it and the Democratic party was the ex-
tension of slavery. The Democratic party,
constituting strictly the Constitution as it then
was believed in maintaining the institu-
ton of negro bondage. According to
the compromises of that Constitution, they
believed in catching and returning slaves
who had fed from their owners; and many
among them, like Mr.. Charles O'Conor, con-
tended that every citizen of slave holding
State had right to take his slaves with him
into the Territories of the United States and
to keep them there in slavery; and, in effect,
to plant slavery in those Territories. The Re-
publican party was organized to resist this
view of the subject, and to exclude slavery
from the new Territories; but it did not then
propose to abolish slavery in any State whore
it was legally established. At that time, this
question of slavery extension formed the only
dividing line between the two parties.
| But when in 1861 the Southern States,
starting from the election of Republican
President pledged against the extension of
! slavery, seeded, establishing new govern
ment for themselves and making war upon
the United States, then the dividing line be-
came changed. Indeed, we may say it
became obliterated by the conflict, the blood
shed, and the fire of the civil war. The Rs-
publican party went on from resistance to the
extension of slavery to hostility against
slavery itself. and finally to its abolition
| through the emancipation proclamation OF
President Lincoln and the thirteenth amend
ment to the national Constitution.
| Against these measures, the Democratic
party, though at bottom deeply dissatisfied
with them, set up no real resistance; in fact,
it may be said that there was then only one
party in the Union, SO much were all the
people engaged in the business of fighting.
The form and organization of the Democratic
party were preserved, but its life was feeble
and its utterances we're of no great account.
1t was everywhere in the minority, and so re-
manned until the end of the war.
This great struggle left behind it in the
people and the administration two strongly
marked tendencies, each of them direct in
heritance of the war. One proceeded from
avarice and the corruption of morals 1t was
the tendency to public robbery. and it was
shared equally by Democrats and Republi-
cans. In the former, however, it was soon
checked from the absence of opportunity.
Their general extinction as a political force
had LETT them powerful in only one important
center, the city and the State of New York
There Tweed and Connolly stole their
millions, and were detected and driven
out; and there the Democracy, headed by
plunderers of the canals; while the Repub-
licans, possessing the national adminstra-
ton at Washington, swith man Indifferent
to every form of public plumber at its head,
and anxious only that the plunderers shall be
his friends aud relations, still continue the
work of rapacity, Robson, Delano, Shep-
herd, Williams, Orvil Grant, Cowen, and
the whole countless gang, competing with
each other and fattening themselves on
the impoverished and suffering taxpayers
In this respect the Republican party
is infinitely worse than the Democratic, be-
cause the worst elements of it have control;
SO that its condition is hopeless, and reform
within it is impossible. The Democracy, hav-
ing been long out of Office, and having had SO
much less opportunity and temptation to be-
come corrupt, is much more Under the direc-
ton of the honest men in its ranks; while in
the Republican party the honest men have to
stand in the background and leave the rob-
bers to follow their own will.
The other tendency, inherited from the war,
to which we have referred, is q matter of po
litical principal, and is, in our judgment, of
the highest moment. During the war the
nipotent. It exercised war powers; it was q
military government; its hand was every
where, and it was felt in every fibre of the
peoples life. 1t was, in effect, centralizing
administration, and the party in whose name
it was conducted became centraliZing party.
Such it still remains. The theory and policy
of the Republican party are that the country
must be ruled by one government at Wash
ington and that government must be what in
European monarchies is called q paternal one,
interfering in every concern of the people, as
for instance. in education, agriculture and
the repression of crime.
Against this policy the Democratic party
revolts. True to its ancient principles, even
after so many years and SO many radical
changes, it stands forth for the old American |
idea of local self-government and republican |
It contends for the exercise of |
the least possible authority in every sphere of
political affairs, and for the greatest possible |
in the individual, the township |
and the State It repeats the immortal truth, |
that the best government is that which gov |
ems least. 1t is against Capitalization. 1t is
for State rights, personal rights, local rights.
1t is thus the bull wark of personal liberty and
public progress. This is its chief distinction
and its great glory to-day; and this is the rea-
son for which the American people now give
it their confidence and mean to restore it to
power.
We have thus drawn for our correspondent
the dividing line between these two parties
the one corrupt because of its long, irrespon-
sible, and almost unrestricted tenure of au-
thority, and because the worst men have got |
the upper hand in it. and also centralizing,
tending to the consolidation of power in the
hands of the Federal Government; the other
pure, because long exclusion from power has
left the control in the hands of its better ele
ments, and also holding as its fundamental
doctrine to local self-government and the de-
velopment and strengthening of the political
ideas, traditions, and institutions which pre-
vail in the Declaration of Independence, and
the original organization Of the republic.
This is the dividing line between the par
ties, and our correspondent can, we think,
now choose intelligently between them.
r. G. Eyrich, the prince of stationers. has
sent us from his palace, No. 100 Canal street,
copies of the following works published by
Estes & Lauriat, of Boston: 'tHalf-Hour Re-
creations in Natural History" Division First.