The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1882-04-08
The Political Outlook.


on the general issue of their demon
strated fitness and capacity as against
the unfitness and incapacity of their
opponents, made plain in the last
three Congresses. The country is
prosperous, business thriyes, the
wheels of Government are MOI creak-
ing much more than usual, the peo-
pie are moderately contented, and
thus far in the present session of Con-
gress no "burning question has been
opened upon which the Democrats
can base reasonable hope of disturb
ing the hold of their opponents upon
popular favor at the next election.
II might almost be said that for the
moment there are no politics ; Ger
tainly no pending question upon
which party lines can be drawn.
They are drawn, to be sure, whenever
the fit takes Democratic members to
obstruct proceedings and delay the
public business, as the other night
when Blackburn and Springer cried
ITO your tents, o Israel ~ and they.
arrayed themselves solidly against
the passage of simple resolution re-
lating to the order of business But
they seem to do that instinctNely or
from force of habit. No other emer-
gency is capable of budding them
together. Upon every qrestion of
any moment or gravity they are
either divided or all at sea. They
make confession of bankruptcy when
they go limiting for an issue AS they
have been doing for the past six
months or more, and the desperate
straits to which they are reduced are
disclosed by the calmor of the free
traders, to which no answer can be
made, that the tariff question is alb
solutely the only issue left them. In
the light of the last campaign, 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 hope
lessly asunder.
So there being no "burning ques
tion," we have something like a
political calm. We do not recall the
time when political questions were
so little discussed and with So little
partisan feeling. Not even during
the brief period which interviewed
between the final defeat of the Wing
party in 1882 and the reopenlng of
the slavery controversy by the Kan
sas-Nebraska bill was there such an
absence of controversial bitterness in
political discussion. Not that there
are no controversies nor that bitter
ness has disappeared. We are not so
near the millennium as that. But
they are controversies within, rather
than between, the two great par
ties; and are so largely personal
in their character that the masses of
the people take only a languid in
terest in them. This state of affairs
cannot last long, of course. 1t is not
in the nature of our Democratic in
nor in the temper of our
people that this period of rest from
controversy should long con-
tinue. Political agitation is the safety
of free institutions and the life of
self-goyering people. We had our
off year elections last fall with very
little excitement or noise and much
more strife between leaders in the
sane party than between the parties
themselves. Our State Legislatures
have held their annual winter ses
sions and are drawing near the period
of adjournment without having open.
ed any serious new causes of indiffer.
ence between the great parties, local
or otherwise, and without having
done anything to change materially
the aspects of the situation. Con.
s ress has been four months i'm session,
and, strange to say, the party in the
majority has committed no blunder
to furnish capital for the opposition,
and the minority has not yet found
a feasible issue or a principle of cohe-
sion.
But we elect new Congress next
November, Congress that holds
over to the Inauguration of new
President; in few months we shall
be in the midst of the Congressional
and to all appearances
nothing of the old differences between
the two parties remains, except the
names, upon which issue can be join
ed. Each party dWells with satisfac
ton upon the fact that there are in.
ternal dissenti0ns in the other, but
are comforted by the
thought that while their divisions
are local and temporary, those of
their opponents are general and per-
manent. Moreover, they are in pos
session and intrenched, and their adj
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