The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1880-01-19
MONDAY MORNING, JANUARY 10.
List of Democratic Blunders.

That the modern Democracy can be relied
on to keep themselves out of power by their
blunders has become an axiom on which polit-
ical movements are predicated. The reason
for this, though apparent, is not so often al
luded to- 1t is that party which has no
principles is certain to blunder The Chicago
Times, which is the most hilarious mourner in
the family funeral, notes some of its plumbers,
and comments on them:
Blunder j. Repeal of the Missouri compro-
mise.
Blunder2 >. Attempt of the Buchanan adj
ministration to establish slavery in Kansas.
Blunder 3: Rebellion of the southern half
of the party.
Blunder 4. Manifestation of sympathy by
the Northern rump with their southern con-
freres.
Blunder D. Opposition by the northern rump
to the emancipation policy.
Blunder q. Hostility to the war policy man.
ifested in the peace programme of 1864.
Blunder Z. Re-embrace by the northern
ramp of their southern confreres after the
war.
Blunder s. Opposition to the political en-
franchisement of negroes.
Blunder 0. Opposition to the war amend
lnents of the constitution.
Blunder 10. Opposition to the candidacy OF
Grant for President.
Dunder II. Farty SOiluliicatlon Oh Inc ooutu
on the old pretense of State sovereignty and
white mans government"
Bunder II. Rejection by the solid South
party of Hayes's Cancellation policy
Biunder Is. Attempt to reopen the presi-
dency squabble of 1876 by the Potter inquisi-
ton.
Blunder Il. Southern war claims raid on
the national treasury.
Blunder Is. Espousal!of the greenback fiat
money programme of national fraud.
Blunder 10. The reactionary programme to
wipe OUT the national election laws and 9TH
or legislation of the war.
Blunder II. The extra session to carry forth
that reactonary programme.
Blunder IS. Ratification and fulhlment of
executive usurpations in Louisiana and Flori-
da and attempt to commit like usurpation in
Oregon.
Biunder 10. Preparation and defense OF
like executive usurpations in Maine.
The Tirnes adds This is far from bei,ig a
complete list of bourbon blunders committed
in the last twenty-five years. To give full
list would require volume, or complete his
tory of the course of the party during that pc
Rod
The greatest blunder of all was not the extra
session nor the rebellion of the Southern half
of the party in 1861 1t was the attempt of the
party to outlive the rebellion. BY its blunder-
ing course from 1913 to 1860, it had become an
organization for the single purpose of protect
ing and promoting the Southern Slaveholding
interest. III was essentially Il prO-SidVery party
controlled aud directed in all its policies by
Southern slave owners. Its conventional lead
ers affirmed the pestilent state sovereignty doc
trines of Jefferson and Calhoun as the funda-
mental tenet of their party creed, because that
doctrine was seen to be essential to the perpet-
uity of slavery. So of every doctrine upon
which the party laid great emphasis in the
presidency campaigns from 1913 to 1860, it was
the slavery interest expected to be served by
their application. The first gun of the rebel
lion was the death-knell of that interest, and
ought to have been regarded by the northern
leaders of the party whose mission to defend
that interest was thereby ended. The death
of slavery was the removal of the foundation
ON which that party had existed since the an
nexation of Texas. 1t was the humiliation of
its reason to be. The continuance of its organic
and nominal being by its office-seeking leaders
was the most stupendous blunder in all their
laundering career. 1t was an attempt to COM
bat the inevitable without rational motive or
asngle political object which it was possible
to gain. 1t was the attempt of a political body
to survive after every spark of political life was
knocked out of it. 1t was the supreme act of
party stupidity, in comparison to which all
subsequent acts of stupidity are dwarfed. 1t
was the one grand biunder whose toweri ng
magnitude of laundering overtops all antece-
dent and all subsequent blunders of the bour-
bon politicians