Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1880-07-21
General Arthur Formally Accepts.

General Arthur's letter of acceptance will
not only meet the approval of Republicans
generally, but will also add 10 the authors
strength as a candidate. He exposes the
dangers of fraudulent elections, and places
the right and duty to secure honesty and
order in popular elections in the front of
the authority of the national government.
He explains how the means taken by the
saviors of the nation to perpetuate, in a
practical way, the results of the war, though
not nullified by open constitutional or legal
enactments, are just as effectually thwarted
by other methods. The very measure
adopted by the nation to complete the work
of reconstruction, the gift of the ballot to
the negroes, has been taken from them by
fraud and violence, and the increased repre-
sentation the south secured by the admis-
sion of the negroes to the rights of citizen
ship, " is now the sole reliance to defeat the
party which represented the sovereignty and
nationality of the American people in the
great crisis of our history" lie properly
concludes on this subject that the great
party which saved the nation will not have
fulfilled its mission until liberty of
thought, conscience and action, and equality
of opportunity shall become not merely cold
formalties of the statutes, but living birth.
rights, which the humble may confidently
claim and the powerful dare not deny"
General Arthur's views on civil service were
naturally looked for with unusual interest.
Any person who can fairly criticise the cor
rectness and soundness of his views on this
subject is an impracticabe theorist who
knows as little of the true merits of the sub
ject as he does of the principles on which sue
cessin private business enterprises is attained.
The largest and most successful commercial
and manufacturing companies, our railroad
and steamship lines have secured their
vast corps of keen, vigilant and effective
employees by the practical application of pre-
cisely those principles enunciated by both
Garfield and Arthur. If they are applicable
to the affairs of individuals and of gigantic
corporations, they are equally applicable to
the business of the government, and in their
faithful and persistent application and en-
forcement the present administration has
attained all the success it has achieved at
all. In all beyond these plain simple pre-
cepts it has failed, and long ago tacitly con-
coded its failure. Each of the two candi-
dates, in their letters of acceptance, have ad-
vertised for just what they can fulfill. In
the moderation and fairness and honesty of
their pretensions, on this as well as ON all
other subjects, they commend themselves to
the unreserved confidence of their fellow
citizens. The platforms of political parties
| and the manfestoes of candidates have fire.
| quently been too much like the Illuminated
show-bills of circus companies, and their de-
gree of fulfllment has so often fallen to the
same low level that they have become terms
| of reproach, and are received with undis.
guised distrust. The records of the Repub-
lican candidates are full of promise that the
highest assurance given in their letters will
be more than fulfilled They, and their
party through them, will thus gain a moral
advantage as great as the loss of prestige,
and moral and political power has been
damaging, by promising and undertaking
| sheer impossibilities.