St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1879-10-10
Wanted A Party that Can Wait.

The Massachusetts Springfield Repub-
Licdn, which has for a good while seemed
to be afflicted with fear lest the party,
and the policy, which saved the cOun-
" fIom destruction by its enemies,
sNuld have too long lease of power,
no0ong since published an article with
The bOve heading. have been con-
siderhg the matter. 1t is no small
Undertaking to start new party, and
yet looking at it from the stand point
Oh tnose dear friends of that paper, the
confederate Brigaders, such party
might well seen to be a necessity
There can be no donSt that the inter-
ests of that "cause" which some were
SO simple as to regard as "Iost.r when
year or so ago seemed quite nIJJer-
ing, have been at various times greatly
damaged by each of the existing parties
by reason of their unwillingness to
wait.
The Democratic party under Buchan-
ans leadership did indeed do pretty
well in this respect. They lUGited until
the U. S. Treasury was pretty well
emptied, the few vessels which COM
posed the navy, sent where they would
be least i'll the way, the contents of
Northern arsenals transferred to the
South, and most of the Southern ports
and arsenals taken possession of, and
had his term of Office only been little
longer, there can be no doubt that the
capital would as quietly have surren-
dered, and the plans of the Confeder-
ates might perhaps have been a grand
success.
But Lincoln came to Washington.
He didn't even lCait long enough to give
the rebel sympathizers time to shoot him
on the way, and at his "clarion call,"|
the men of the North came trooping by
thousands and hundreds of thousands
to the rescue of the nations life. Yet
the prospects of the "cause" were not
wholly hopeless so long as they had
Generals in command of the Union
armies who could aUdit With Mcclellan
in command, there was no very great
damage done, but when Grant came in
he never could wait "worth a cent?
He would not even wait long enough
after threshing the rebel armies once,
to give them time to recuperate, but
pitched right in again with no sort of
consideration for their feelings, and it
became necessity to transfer the con.
test for the supremacy of Southern ideas
from the battle field to the ballot box.
In the unsettled condition of things
which must inevitably for a season
follow the close of such contest as our
civil war, there seemed to be a good
opportunity to persuade the people that
all the discOmfOrts which they were
called to endure were the results of
Republican misgOvernment, and that
all that was necessary to insure univer-
sal and permanent prosperity, was to
take the control of the government out
OF the hands of those who had presery-
ed Its existence and put it into those
hands which had so lately been raised
Tor Its destruction, for without disparag-
ing the patriotism of the many Northern
Democrats who fought for the Union.
1T has been fully proven that the '.solid
South" whether equal to the task of
obtaining control of the nation or not.
Is abundantly able to entirely control
the Democratic party. So that for the
North to consent to place that party in
power, would be much as if Germany
at the close of her late war, had invited
France to assume the direction of her
(Germany's) military and financial af-
fairs.
L am fully satisfied, and have no
doubt whatever, that such will be the
verdict of history, that the nation owes
hardly less to the wisdom, prudence
ana hrnness of Grant, while holding
the Office of President, than while COM
handing our armies in the field. Rare