The Manitowoc tribune. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1866-1878, 1877-12-13
THE PRESIDENT AND THE PARTY.

The President is charged with destroy
ing the Republican party, and those who
are angry and mortified with the decline
of Republican power find great satisfac-
ton in making him scape-goat. But 10
man, whatever his position, can over
throw great party. Its decline and
fall are due TO remoter and more vital
causes than the official action of any
President. A very different man from
Mr.. Hayes-Andrew Jehnson-aban-
doned the party that elected him, and
denounced some of its noblest leaders.
He used all his power to defeat the par
ty, but his conduct only strengthened it.
No President can destroy party. If it
be united, if it command the confidence
of the country, it will smile at his hos
telity If, on the other hand, 1t be dis
cordant, if it have lost national support,
the reasons of its decline must be sought
in the causes of the loss of unity and
mutual confidence This is the present
situation of the Republicans. Yet it is
ancrily asserted that the President has
destroyed the party, as if the party,
when he entered upon his office, had
been in an unquestioned ascendancy,
from which it had been thrown by his
foolish or treacherous conduct. Those
who make this assertion must not forget
that it is not the President, but the
courses of the party before he came to
the Presidency, which will be held re-
sponsible for any mischance. The dis
satisfaction was evident three years ago,
and the ingenious suggestion that there
was no dissatisfaction except discomfort
of a few soreheads and impract1cables
amounts to saying that a few soreheads
and impracticables have been able to
produce the results that are deplored.
Now it is a sound rule that extraordinary
and doubtful reasons are not to be ac-
cepted when plain and obvious reasons
are at hand; and the just causes of Re
publican dissatisfaction are SO evident
that il is ridiculous to assert the trouble
to have been the personal grievances or
whims of few men.
There is another consideration which is
forgotten by those who are busily ac-
cusing the President of destroying the
party. The accusation assumes that If
he had only continued to advocate and
to DO all that his present party oppo-
nents sustained as orthodox Republican
ism, if he had faithfully observed all the
traditions of the last years, ii he had
given Patterson the patronage in South
Carolina and other Senators the patron
age elsewhere-if, IN a word, he had
run in all the familiar ruts, there would
have been no trouble; the party wonld
have been united, supreme and invinci-
bic, except, of course, that there would
have been little pestilent crew of sore
heads and rcformers and idealists and
impracticable fools that must
always infest every great party. In
fact, however, the Republican party
incidentally and steadily lost its hold
upon the country during the second adj
nliilstration of general Grant; and no
well-informad person, we presume, sup
poses that II it had nODina' atl any cam
ditlate who was conspicuc asly indenti-
fed with General Grant and his views
and methods, it would have elected him.
The only chance of success lay in
nomination that would be accepted not
existing course of things, but of
change. Such a nomination was fortu-
nately made. bat the result of the cleo
ton showed that the Republican ascen-
dancy was seriously shaken; and if the
new President had begun in the old
way, and had shown the country that
Republican party would have gone to
pieces without struggle. It is not ut
all clear that the things which had oc-
casioned wide dissatisfaction had not
already fatally injured the party. But
it IS perfectly plain that the only chance
for continued power lay in the general
policy foreshadowed by the President.
That policy was real pacification and
the correction of acknowledged abuses
in the civil service. The opposing pol
icy was maintenance of Republican as
cendancy by force iii two doubtful
Southern States, and the unchanged per-
sonal and political system OF the civil
service As a matter of fact, indepen-
dent of all question of right, the use OF
military force in those States was i'm
possible with hostile house. The
President, however, did not rest upon
that fact, which would have destroyed
the moral value of his action. He held
that constitutionally the situation for
his interference had not arisen, and re
fusing to strain doubtful authority, he
showed to the patriotic Intelligence of
''the South" that Republicanisin did not
mean sectional hostility. In doing this
he made long step forward toward
real union. 1t is possible that party
disaster will follow, bat greater party
disaster and patriotic injury would have
followed any other course. The time
had come, whether the President saw it
or not-and we believe he saw it-when
the Republican party as sectional party
on the oldissues could no longer exist. 1t
could no longer maintain itself III the
Southern States against the natural lead
ership of the South, for no one Will
DENY. as a matter Of fact, ana despite all