New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1882-03-28

are reduced are disclosed by the clam0r OF the
free traders to which no answer can be made,
that the tariff question is absolutely the only
issue left them. In the light of the last cam
paign, and in view of the recent utterances OF
some of their most eminent leaders, it hardly
needs to be pointed out that when they adopt
that they fall hopeessly asunder
So there being no burning question" we
have something like political calm. we 90
not recall the time when political questions
were so little discussed and with so little par
tisan feeling. Not even during the bret period
which interviewed between the final defeat OF
the Wing party in 1852 aud the reOpenlng OF
the Slavery controversy by the kansas-Nc-
braska bill was there such an absence of con-
troversal bitterness in political discussion.
Not that there are no controversies nor thaC
bitterness has disappeared We are not so near
the millennium as that. But they are contro-
versies Within rather than between, the two
great parties; and are SO largely personal IN
their character that the masses Of the people
take only languid interest in them. This
state of affairs cannot last long, of course. 1t
Is not in the nature of our democratic institu-
tons nor in the temper of our people that this
long continue. Political agitation is the safety
of free institutions and the life Of scli-goy-
erning people We had our offyear elections
last fall with very little excitement or noise
and much more strife between leaders in the
same party than between the parties them
selves. Our State Legislatures have held their
annual winter sessions and are drawing near
the period of adjournment without having
opened any serious new causes OF difference be-
tween the great parties, local or otherwise ana
without having done anything to change
materially the aspects of the situation. Con-
eress has been four months in session, and,
strange to say, the party in he majority has
committed no blunder to furnish capital for the
opposition, and the minority has not yet found
IA feasible issue or a principle of cohesion.
But we elect n new Congress next November
a Congress that holds over to the inauguration
f anew President in few months we shall
be in the midst of the Congressional campaign,
and to all appearances nothing of the Old dllter-
ences between the two parties remains, except the
names, upon which issue can be joined. Each
party dwcls with satisfaction upon the Tact
that there are internal discussions in the other,
but Republicans are comforted by tie thought
porary, those of their opponents are general
and permanent Moreover, they are in posses
sion and entrenched, and their advcrsaries have
not been able as yet to discover point OF at
tack. To a casual observer looking over the
field, seeing how the Democratic party, after
suffering a great defeat in the Presidential
election ana losing both branches Of Congress,
has broken into factions in New York and Is
disintcgrating in its great stronghold, the
South. and how it has not only failed to find n
point of attack in the Republican lines, but
even to hold itself in lihe upon any party ques-
ton in Congress, it would seem the most
natural thing in the world for that party to
throw up the sponge and abandon the light.
But that is not to be expected They will keep
il up though all the questions upon which they
began it are disposed of. "Nhat are you
fellows fighting for now that Lee and Johnston
"have surrendered and the COnfederdcy las
gone up ~ shouted a Union soldier to a rebel
picket in the Southwest in the last days of the
wal. For our rights in the Territories under
"thc bred Scott decision" was the stubborn
answer. And perhaps that is what the Demo-
cratic party is fighting for. Who lmcwsf
1t is a curious outlook. At no time in It's
history has the Democratic party been so
utterly destitute of either principle OF union or
allying cry. Nor has the Republican party
ever seemed more deserving of public conf
dence we doubt if it ever stood higher in pop
ular esteem. We do not f,retcnd to read the
political horoscope, but the existing conditions
seem 10 us to point to the probable contlnu
aucc Of Republican ascendancy for many years
to come. Nothing but their own mistakes or
the ambition and folly Of their factional leaders
can prevent it.