The Portland daily press., 1875-04-06
The Political Issue.

Mr.. Blaine's remarkable gift of saying the
right thing at the right time in the right
place did not desert him at New Haven the
other night. He dropped his words as Oakes
Ames dropped his dollars, where they would
do the most good. The people of the coun-
try at large have felt that the issues brought
forward in Connecticut are those upon
which the presidential campaign Of 1876 will
be fought Many Republicans, while proud
of the record OF their party, have not cared
to go into battle armed with ahtiquated
weapons drawn from abandoned arsenals.
While feeling profound distrust of the Dem
ocratic party and its objects they cherish no
vindictive hatred toward the South, aud feel
no desire to enact and enforce cruel and op-
pressive measures. They feel that the South
has been punished sufficiently. They ar
IDENTIFY wish for the restoration of prosperity
to that unfortunate section of our country,
and instinctively shun the counsels OF ex-
tremists. This good feeling toward the
South was so strong last fall that it caused
many men to step outside the party lines
in order to administer rebuke to the party
leaders who were thought to be carrying the
policy of caution and mistrust too far. But
recently change has passed over the spirit
of these men. The old distrust of the South
has revived. Why is it?
Mr.. Blaine has clearly and forcibly stated
the reasons for the change. The South en-
tirely misunderstood the meaning OF last
falls elections. H. took them to be an en-
dorsement of the beresies of the Democratic
party, an acknowledgment on the part OF
the North that reconstruction is failure, a
desertion of the negro and willingness to
surrender the results of the war. Hope, long
dead in the hearts of the Southern leaders,
came to life. These men were well nigh
ready to accept the situation, to give up for
ever all intention to return to the old order
of things, to submit to the political equality
of the negro. But the autumn oVerturn BAN
ished from their minds all their good resolu-
tions. The temptation of regaining power
through a united South and divided North
was too great for these old leaders who had
governed the country so long by means of
this same policy. The North considered the
war issues settled forever and had no desire
to revive them. The South is responsible
for bringing the old question to the front
once more. Its revival has quickened the
fear and distrust in the North, and has
Strengthened party lines once more.
The Northern people as ardently desire the
prosperity of the South as they did last fall.
There has been no revulsion of feeling in that
regard. But the North will never give up
the results of the war. While it is ever will
ing to send a messenger bearing words of
peace and good will to the South, it will never
send an angel to roll the stone away from the
sepulchre in which the old order of things is
entombed. Until the South recognizes this,
until it becomes convinced that the purpose
of the North is unalterable the mission of the
Republican party is not finished. That party
away with sectionalism. The spectacle OF a
united South, intent on overturniDg the re-
suits achieved by the expenditure of thousands
of lives and millions of treasure, is a standing
menace. When the Southern people give up
the delusive hope that the North will recede
from its position, when the changes wrought
by the war are frankly accepted and cease TO
be questioned, when the South becomes divid-
ed like the North on questions Of administra-
tive policy, then all dstrust will be done away
with forever. Until then the North cannot
be blamed for entertaining suspicious, for
holding itself on the alert against the revival
of Southern policy.
1t is manifestly unfair to charge the Re
publican party with an attempt to revive the
war issues. These issues have been revived
by Southern leaders and their Northern
Democratic allies. The Republican party is
thrown upon the defensive. 1t must either
surrender its convictions and 60 back upon
its record, or else 60 into the battle upon the
old question. The South apparently wishes
this. 1t at least has provoked it, and must
abide by the result. The only way to get the
Southern question out of politics is for the
North to proclaim its unalterable deter
miDation to abide by the results of the war so
emphatically that doubt will never be raised
again.