New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1880-04-27
4 DECEASED STATESMAN.

When Mr. Thurman asked Mr.. Edmunds the
other day, to take charge Of the Geneva Award
bill, the Senator from Vermont replied with
caustio humor that he was not disposed to ac-
cept any legislative legacies from his deceased
friend from Ohio. Mr.. Thurman seems to have
become alarmed at this intimation of his defunct
condition, for he hastened out to Ohio aud made
q speech to his townsmen in Columbus, as If de-
termined to show them that he is still alive. I'm
fortunately the speech furnished no evidence Of
any fresh vitality in its author. any friends"
he said, in my serious judgment the election
"this year will 20 far to determine whether sub
Gstantial liberty and substantial free institutions
"shall longer continue in America" After this
startling statement he went on to argue that the
Republican party wants a stronger government
to rule the people by force, while the Demo-
cratic party wants a government whose
strength comes from the affections of the
people. This sort of talk was respectable in
the days Of the Federalists and Federalists,
when many sensible people in the new Republic
were afraid to trust the Government with more
power than was necessary to keep it alive, lest
IL should destroy popular rights; but it is
ridiculous ut this time when applied to the his
tory and present attitude of existing parties To
accuse the Republican party, which first gave
homesteads to the poor and then conferred free
dom and suffrage upon the slaves, of DISPOSE
ton to Cypress the people, is sufficiently alb
surd but even more so if possible is the claim
that the Democratic party seeks to base gov
eminent on the affections of the governed. A
party that dismembeTed Mexico for the purpose
Of extending slavery, that tried to force the
accursed institution upon the people of Kansas
by the use of the army, that was the life Of the
rebellion in the South and its accessory in the
North, that resisted emancipation and opposed
manhood suffrage, and that Is powerful to-day
only through the votes of the ignorant and
vicious In the great cities of one section Of the
country and the suppression Of the votes Of the
laboring population in the other, cuts Door
figure in the part Of defender Of the free in
situations and the liberties Of the people.
There Is q crisis in the affairs Of the country
this year, as the moribund statesman from Ohio
asserts, but it is of a very different sort from
what he describes. The strong government u
spook which the Democrats are trying 80 hard
to raise has nothing to do with it. The Ques-
ton at issue is whether this republic shall be
ruled by political Oligarchy at the South,
held together by the ties of the rebellion and
bent upon securing the success Of its beaten
heresies, in league with the party in the North
which gathers in its fold all the elements of
society least competent to exercise the duties of
citizenship. The choice between this party,
with its bad material and bad history, and the
party which has given Us nationality, freedom,
honest finances and prosperity, is the choice the
voters are called upon to make this year.
Such speeches as Mr.. Thurman made at Co.
lumbus will not reviVify him. 1t was cruel per
haps for Mr.. Edmunds to speak Of him as his
deceased friend, but there is no overlooking the
fact that he. IL dead. II u only his ghost that