The morning star and Catholic messenger., 1878-07-07
Grant,:

The Republican party must be in bad
way when, to use fcriptural metaphor, it
is obliged to return to it's vemit. Two
years ago it repudiated Grantism not be-
cause it wanted, but because it was obliged,
to do 80. Grantism stunk in the nestrils
of civilization. 1t was the synonym of
venality, corruption, profigacy and gen.
eral indecency. As great pet as Grant
was with the politicians, the people would
stand it no longer. They had been plum
dered and their country disgraced long
ONCE holding thieves who had profted by
a regime of thievery could not reconcile
them to q renewal of the game. Yet these
political vampires have now the inpudence
to again suggest Mr.. Grants name to the
public.
And what is the secret influence on
which they rely for popular success On
what all-controlling sympathy do they
count for q popular oblivion of the foul
debauchery for which Grantism is but
another name7 The answer is simple. 1t
is hatred of the South. They hope to "6re
the Northern heart" with the old time FIRE
of sectional hate-the fire of war of
down the far receding vista of years, of
which the cannon are eaten with rust and
of which the graves have become q common
heritage of friend and foe. They forget
that these things cannot be perpetuated.
Many now living remember the feeling
which in their childhood was aroused by
the mere mention of the word "Red. coat"
or "Hessian." Where is that feeling nowf
Who ia now a more welcome visitor in
America than the British army officer,
perhaps q direct successor of Cornw allis or
Tarleton or Howe The generation which
fought our great Confederate war is pass
ing away, and the generation which fol.
lows in it's place cannot be expected to
share fully in its sgitations and passions.
No, the civilizipg Influences of the age,
fruitful as they are of vices peculiar to
Themselves, are unpropitious to those vices
which are Essentially barbaric. Sectional
ism is one of this class. Civilization with
its railways, its steamships and it's tele-
graphs levels the barriers which kept men
apart aud made strangers of them. They
create intercourse with all its ties of COM
merce end travel and intermarriage.
Friendships and family alliances spring up
and form a living and ever active protest
against sectional prejudice. We do not
believe that the Northern Republicans can
possibly be united in another crassde of
hatred to the South.
But the point which does present some
practical interest in this new Grant move
ment is the astonishing inconsistency, the
impudent inconsistency, of those who favor
il. Their raiSoE detre is this: "The peo-
pie who saved the Union ought to govern
it.", What sort of an idea have these peo-
pie of Unton7
According to our old-fashioned idea a
Union was something which governed
itself, and must necessarily govern itself p;
it could not be governed by one section. A
country can be.governed by one section, as
an empire, or by q hereditary ruler, as a
kingdom; but then it is not Union. 1t
may be a unit, and it may be very good
government, but it is not the American
idea of q Union. The American Union was
suppcsed to be o self-governing confedera-
ton of self-governiDg States, of which the
| central and vital idea was a universal
capacity for self f-government. If this con-
dition of things was net maintained ss the
result of the war, then the Union was not
preserved and it is idle to talk of "the
people who preserved the Union"
The audacity of these fellows consists in
the fact that their very pretension is an
admission of Its own falsity. Properly
paraphrased it would run thus: We have
preserved the Union therefore we have
q right to destroy it and set up a sectional
government. A sectional government il
not and cannot possibly be q Union, and
any man who really loves the theory of g
Union knows it fall we'll. Such q patriot
would feel that the only possibility of re.
establishing and keeping up his ideal would
be to foster spirit Of universal kindnesl