Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1880-11-06
A NEW PARrY-WHAT FOR ?

Since it has become manifest that
the republicans have elected their
candidate to the presidency, and
possibly gained control of congress,
we have been accosted by several
persons with the question, "Don't
you think there'll be a new party
nOw?" Our interrogators have not
been members of the regular DEM
Ocracy, and they asked the question
with an involuntary expression of
exultatiOn, as if the breaking up of
the democracy was very far from
being a matter of coincidence with
them. With whatever views the
question may have been asked, we
answer emphatically No. The dem
ocratic has still sacred responsible
ties and sacred duties incumbent
on it and cannot disband without
the disgrace of broken pledges. In
this state especially it has a contest
to fight out which as yet has scarcely
more than begun.
New parties! What for? The
very disgrace and ignOminy we are
now undergoing has arisen from the
mania of feather-headed politicians
for forming new parties, in which
their undiscovered qualifications for
preferment are, as they hope, likely
to be better appreciated than in the
old one.
Had not Tammany on one side
and Irving Hall on the other each
thought itself competent to put it
self in the place of the democratic
party, New York would have been
democratic to-day, and had repudi-
alton abstained from the mania for
new parties, republicanism would
never again have raised it's head in
Tennessee. What Virginia has
done in this election we know not,
but we are certain the republican
party has Jared better there for the
freaks of the readjusters.
But we have a yet stronger mo-
tive for deprecating the attempt to
form a new party in the south.
Such party could do nothing out
side of the south. We have been
beaten now not because we were
democrats, but because the party
was largely composed of southern
men. Our enemies have harped so
long on the dangerous disatfection
imputed to the south, on its medi-
tated raids on the treasury, on the
perils which it threatens to business
interests, that at last the people OF
the north have come to believe it
all, and any party that might be
in the south would en-
the same prejudice and OPP
position as the democratic party has
met with-provided the democracy
were itself first swept out of the
way. Till that is done, our enemies
will take kindly to new parties in
the south as they have done to the
Wilson-Savage clique. They will
pet them and pat them on the back
and furnish them with pocket
money just to weaken the democ-
racy, but once get that out of the
way and a republican blast will
scatter the new parties like chaff
before the wind.
We do believe that in good time
a new party will be formed, but not
here and not yet. 1t will be formed
not in the south but in the north,
and it will come when the northern
people find out that they have made
a mistake and have forged letters
for themselves when they thought
they were fabricating them for the
south alone. They got a suspicion
of this after eight years of Grant,
and enough of them had then got
their eyes open to give votes enough,
with the help of the south, to elect
but all that was lost by the