Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-09-11
nd that in doing it gulf has been opened

and that in doing it gulf has been opened
between the North and the South.
they do not proceed on
parallel lines, speak the same political Ian
suage, cherish the same institutions, sub
nit to the same rules. Thenceforward
the South is playing its game with loaded
dice and marked cards. Thenceforward it
becomes only a question of time for this
hollow alliance to fall to pieces in one way
or another.
As long as this condition lasts all other
remedies must be futile. The primal re-
quirement of democratic government is
that all who participate in it shall do so
on the same terms. To-day this require.
ment is violated all through the South,
and consequently the situation is unstable
and necessarily evanescent. 1t is not re-
auisite to inquire whether the North is
willing to tolerate the usurpations set up
at the South, for the laws of political
life are such that it has no volition in the
premises. The vitality of every scheme of
government is dependent upon the fidelity
with which that scheme is adhered to, just
as the vitality of the human organism is
dependent upon the fidelity with which
the laws of its being are observed. Let the
laws of being of the body polite be once
violated, and degeneration and decay will
be set up, and if allowed to continue will
bring about the death of the system. The
violation of republican institutions which
has been permitted at the South is not a
mere local complaint. 1t is in all essen
tials a mortal disease, and unless it is so
regarded it will prevail until it has wrought
the destruction of the republic. Nothing
is stronger than its weakest part. This Is
mathematical axiom, but it applies to
government also. The South is the weak
est part of the Union, and its weakness
measures the danger which threatens the
entire fabric. The Republican leaders are
very reluctant to acknowledge the gravity
of the issue we are considering, because to
do so involves the admission that they erred
in admitting the South to resume all It's
former political relations and powers after
the rebellion. But it is useless to hesitate
about this admission. It must be made,
and it may be made without shame or dis
credit, since actual experiment only could
have demonstrated the futility of the Re-
construction policy. The danger at present
lies in the tendency of politicians to
struggle on anyhow under the impossible
conditions which obtain. They do not see
that the only result of this can be to
spread the faint of Southern fraud into the
North that sooner or later the North will
grow tired of having all the honesty on one
side, and viii begin to practice the devices
which have made the South solid that
when this mutual fraud has been carried a
little way it Will breed recourse to force as
well as chicanery; and that by scarcely
perceptible stages the whole country will
thus be Mexicanized in the end. This is
what must happen if minority government
is not extirpated at the South. 1t is i'm
possible that it should continue to exist
without producing these effects Nor is it
of any use to try to ignore this question.
It goes to the bottom of the whole subject
of stable government. 1t must be de-
termined before any profitable contention
can be had over other matters. The first
need of the country is a return to COM
mon standards of political action. We
must all measure our political cloth by the
same yard.stick, or We shall have confu
sion worse COMPOUNDED. There cannot be
two kinds Of measures, one for the North
and the other for the South. This is the
lesson which must be learned by Repubi
cans throughout the country, for this is
the one great paramount fundamental
issue, which supersedes and dominates al
others, in point OF fact.