The Toledo chronicle. [volume] (Toledo, Tama County, Iowa) 1873-1924, 1875-11-18
THE GREAT ISSUE UNSETTLED.

-" N'tN WIN SNii.
Lee for the surrender Of the rebel armies
ut -Appomattox, it vas felt by the great
mass of union-loving, patriotic people,
that all the issues which had brought on
the war were finally settled-that the
hcresy of States Rights, and the inequali-
ty of human rights before the law-that
strange anomaly in q Democratic form
o. Govcrnment-were forever put TO rest.
But it needs not the forecast of a prophet,
nor more than ordinary acumcn, TO lend
any honest observer of events t. the con-
clusion that t csc great issues are practi-
cally Is far from nd adjustment as ever! In
fact, The triumph of the Democratic
Party in the coming Presidential contest
would completely set aside all the results
of the war-savc TIE rational debt, and
that would no doubt be doubled by the
assumption OF that of the Confederate
States" with payment for the slaves lost
by the Democracy when they sought so
long and earnestly to destroy the Gov
eminent, That this IS the entertainment
to which we shall be invited is shown
beyond any doubt by the action and as
s~ertions of the Democracy whenever they
have won any little, local, short-lived
triumph at the polls during tn" past . or
9 years. The House of Representatives
which will meet in December will con
tain nearly 100 rebel Generals, Colonies,
&c, with but a"slight sprinkling"of those
of the union persuasion. These men
were elected because they were thorough
" in accord with The sentiments of the
Democratic masses. Liberalism Is no
where at all. In Missouri, the renegade,
Schurz, was discarded, and his place sup
piled by a man whose only claim to dis
"tinction is thai he fought to destroy the
nation and has never atoncd for his
crime nor manifested the least regret for
his t~reasonl Some moderate, conserva-
tive men tell us that there ought to be a
change in the Govcrnmcnt-that the Re
publican Party has been in power long
enough-that it has beOmc corrupt-and
that heDcmocTacy ought to present II man
like Tilden, of n. land that he should
be elected. COnccde that Mr. Tildcn is
at heart a pure mana patriot, if you
please-and the case is not improved.
ANY man elected by the Democratic
Party will be owned and controlled by
its leaders and'will be powcrlcss to pre-
vent them from carrying out their iniqui-F
tous schemes of reversing all the results
of the wal for the Union. Were we living
in ordinary times where ordinary issues
of general policy were only at stake, the
case might be different, and the cause of
good government would not be injured
beyond reparation by a triumph of the
Democratic party. But with the avowed
intents of its representative men-cspe-
cially in the Southland the South has
ever ruled the DcmOCraCy,-no Well-Wlsh-
or of his country-no man who ever sus-
tained the great primary doctrine of
RcpubliCanism-thc Equality of all Men
before the Law-can contemplate the ac-
cession of that party to powerW lthout
serious dread of the consequences. Pa
1pers which represent the interests of the
. capitalists of the East are especially
d. anxious TO force the issue of spccic-pay-
rment-a result profoundly TO be desired
when it can be done with safety to the
; business interest of the pcople-but COM
pared with this greatest of all possible
.----- :. ";"tc into insignitiCanCc. We
hear yoCiferOus dcnunclatlon OF mira
49,, .-1 l,,,l l,,,.,Iy tl,t tbp Cav
eminent shall attempt the suicidal and
rTespcncible job of redceming its paper
in coin-whlle few people stop to consider
where we should land were our National
Debt to be Initiated" by the assumption
of the thousands of millions of the rebel
debt! This result, as well as the perpet-
uation of class distinctions will logically
follow the restoration Of the Democratic
Party to power in the Y campaign! In
our view of the situation this great vital
issue should put out of sight every other
that can be named or imagined. We are
IN favor of fighting it out on this line if it
takes until the second Centennial to eS-
stablish beyond any idea of reversal the Ic-
Ultimate, proper and logical results of the
downfall of the rebellion. If the issue. is
an old one, now that ten years have
elapsed since the war closed, it yet re-
mains the vital one. That the Rcpubli-
can party has made some mistakcs-that
its confidence has been at times abused
by time-serving politicians, who have
used its machinery to climb into power
anay be freely conceded; but it saved the
nation at the most critical period of its
past history, and every time it defeats
the Democracy again at a general election
it will perform service 20 less patriotic
and grandly important.