Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-09-13

successful administration of the Republican
party.
FACTS, DIFFERENCES, PRINCIPLES
We are nation $4,000, eco strong. That
we shall remain nation, one undivided. in
divisible, there can be no doubt. No En-.
glishman doubts there will always be an En-
gland for the English no German doubts
there will always be Germany for the Ger
mans there will always be France for the
French. That there will always be an Amer
lea for Americans-th this has been accom-.
plished, established-is due to the Republican
party. What the Government of the coun-
try shall be, how it shall be administered, is
a question of only less Importance than its
continued existence. The problems of law,
administration and policy, which are con-
stantly arising in government like ours, are
complicated and difficult. Neither you nor |,
nor any one else can understand them all in
detail What we are required to understand
is the spirit in which they are to be met and
solved.
WOULD IT BE BETTER?
No disinterested man, If there be such, will
seriously contend that the Government would
be better administered under Democratic
than under Republican control; that its
dealings with foreign, rations would be more
just and enlightened |; that its credit would
be better maintained that its debt would be
more rapidly paid that it would be better
protected from the vague, vast, portentious
mass Of Southern war claims which hang
over it like cloud. Surely no one will
claim, whether disinterested or not, that the
spirit of the Democratic party Is more in
harmony with social order, and that orderly
progress of society which comes of evolution,
not revolution, than the Republican. No
one, however prejudiced, will claim that those
personal rights which all government is or
dained to protect-free speech, equality be-
fore the law, the security of each In the en-
joyment of his own-are safer under Demo
cratic than Republican control. No one,
whatever his condition may be, will dare to
assert that the American idea of government,
personal liberty, and national union, center
and circumference, is safer under Democratic
than Republican control
THE SPLENDID ACHIEVEMENTS
OF the Republican party since the close OF
the war will be only less famous in history
than the suppression of the rebellion. Pause
for q moment Go back in your memories
to the sad, bitter day when the joy of victory
was turned to tears, and the sweet dawn of
peace was clouded by the death of Lincoln.
Did ever nation confront graver problems,
more complicated difficulties, more serious
dangers, than ours did than ? The questions
our fathers met in the establishment of a
government, after the achievement of inde-
pendence, were far less difficult. The war of
the revolution itself welded the people into
one the war of the rebellion discovered
them. The governments OF eleven States
had been destroyed, and the people of these
States were animated with hatred for the
Union, which was intensified by defeat. The
actual poverty of the South was scarcely less
to he deplored than the fictitious, inflated,
speculative prosperity of the North was to be
feared in its ultimate effect.
WHAT HAS BEEN ACCOMPLISHED.
Four million slaves, who had inherited
slavery with its submissions and weakness
from immemorial generations, had just been
emancipated, and were to live side by side
with their late masters, who regarded their
emancipation as an act of despotic power. A
million Of lnen under arms, flushed with VIC
tory, proui of their leaders, were t. be dis
banded and absorbed in the pursuits of civil
life. A currency fuctuating from day to day
demeralized business into speculation or de-
gr sded it into gambling. A debt go vast it
could scarcely be estimated, and behind it a
mass of claims too vague and vast for defini
ton A credit Frustrated until it was by
! word and reproach. Confronting these
| questions, between order and anarchy, civil
government and military rule, payment and
repudistiop, with nsmeless and countless
complications of settlement, in the moment
OF supreme civil peril our chosen leader,
whose character, exalted to the highest plane
of humanity, made him worthy to
wear the crown of martyrdom, whose wisdom
and purity, and the great love the people
bore him, were pledges of the nations safety,
was stricken down, and the hearts Of the
people were stirred by wild thoughts of VEN
geance. The sea of trouble was tempest
tost by passion. In war all questions are sub
ordinated to success-all measures look to one
end-all appeals are to one sentiment. War
over, the intensity of excitement relaxed, the
stimulus of heroic achievements, and tangible
resistance withdrawn, difficulties of admins
tration begin. These had never been more
manifold and complicated than with US. For
never had civil war been waged over so wide
a country, involved greater loss of life and
property, enlisted deeper passions, or been
fraught with graver interests.
co BACK AGAIN TO THE BITTER DAY
When the lightning flashed over the civilized
world the saddest tidings the wires have ever
borne-that Lincoln was dead-what weary
waste of difficulty lay before the Republic !!
What dark cloud of danger overhung it !
An army in hand which in any other country
an ambitious leader might use to subvert
civil authority united government to be
established over discordant people on the
basis of justice to each freedom to be Sc
cured to 100000 emancipated slaves in a
hostile community. This to be done with o
credit prostrated by unexampled expendi'
i H. l., oc ,1cl1 l. laLl
Contrast then with now; that with
not half generation our credit is
the highest in the world our debt Gquidated
until it is easily in hand and substantially all
held at home the nation stands in the fore
most rank of time, and an indissoluble union
has been sealed with universal freedom. To
assert that the party has made no mistakes
would be to claim that it is more than human.
Measures are often NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.
a choice of evils. A party must be Judged
by the result of its policy. To say that the
Democratic party would have improved on
this magnificent result, the grandest in civil
history, is to insult common sense and libel
common honesty. 1t has stood as
PARTY OF OBSTRUCTION.
1t has stood as prophet of evil, intent on
making its predictions good. 1t has proposed
no great measure it has championed no
great idea; it has uttered no broad catholic
truth. Whatever has been achieved for
human progress, national stability or personal
freedom, has been accomplished in its despite.
1t is even driven to the necessity of making a
merit of acquiesciDg in what it was powerless
to prevent and is impotent to reverse. Twelve
years ago it denounced the Thirteenth, Four
teenth and Fifteenth Amendments of the
Constitution as revolutionary and void. To-
day it comedies they are part of the organic
law. 1t has taken the party twelve years to
discover what all the world knew. General
Hancock, in his letter of acceptance, says
these amendments must be maintain ed. /
read that part of his letter with delight,
and half expected to find the logical Sc
quence-that he would advise everybody to
support Garfield, who had assisted in their
adoption. The earnest, sincere acceptance
by the Democratic party of these amend
ments, crystallized results of the war,
would be
A TRIUMPH For THE REPUBLICAN PARTY,
Scarcely less than its highest achievement.
But there is difference between lip-service
and heart-service; between creed and faith !;
between the letter which killeth and the
spirit which maketh alive. There is a differ
ence between accepting situation as hard
necessity, and embracing it as joyful oppor-
tunity. There is a difference in the spirit
which says, The lines are hard, but it is so
written. / acquiesce in the inevitable" and
that which acclaims Before ever the world
IL was fr11a thou0h tho foup dot fiopo of