The Highland weekly news. [volume] (Hillsborough [Hillsboro], Highland County, Ohio) 1853-1886, 1882-04-20
The Political Situation.

ans are holding power on the general is
sue of their demonstrated fitness and ca
pacity as against the unftness and inca
pacity Of their opponents, made plain in
the last three Congresses. The country
is prosperous, business thrives the
wheels Of Government are not CreaHng
much more than usual, the people are
moderately cOntented, and thus far in
the present session of Congress no
burning question - has been opened
upon which the Democrats can base a
reasonable hope of disturbing 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, certainly no pending ques-
tion upon which party lines can be
drawn. They are drawn, to be sure,
| whenever the tit takes Democratic mem-
| bers to obstruct proceedings and delay
the public business, as the other night
when Blackburn and Springer cried:
''To your tents, o Israeln' and they ar
/ rayed themselves solidly against the
| passage of a simple resolution relating
/ to the order of business. But they seem
to do that instinctively or from force of
| habit No other emergency is capable
of huddling them together. Upon every
] NutollOl VI any llOlltAI VI AIdNlLN lUtN
are either divided or all ut sea. They
make confession of bankruptcy when
| they 90 hunting 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
clamor 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 utter
ances of some of their most eminent
leaders, it hardly needs to be pointed
out that when they adopt that they fall
hopelessly asunder.
So, there being no burning ques-
ton, we have something like polite
al 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 intervened between the
final defeat of the Wing party in 1852
and the reopening of the slavery
controversy by the Kansas-Nebra
ka bill, was there such an alb
sence 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 be-
tween 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 in
stitutiOns nor in the temper of our peO-
pie that this period of rest from political
controversy should long continue. PO-
litical agitation is the safety of free insti-
tutions and the life of a sef-gOverning
people. We had our of-year elections
last fall with very little excitement OF
noise and much more strife between
leaders in the same party than between
the parties themselves. Our State Leg
islatures 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 other
wise, and without having done anything
to change materially the aspects of the
, situation. Congress has been four
months in 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
: cohesion.
! But we elect a new Congress next
November, a Congress that holds over
to the Inauguration of new President.
, in a few months we shall be in the midst
+ of the Congressional campaign, and to
. all appearances nothing Of the old diff
, ferences between the two parties re-
mains, except the names, upon which
r issue can be joined Each party dwellS
with satisfaction upon the fact that there
{ are internal dissensions in the other,
! but Republicans are cOmfOrted by the
thought that while their divisions are
r local and temporary, those Of their Op-
) ponents are general and permanent
- Moreover, they are in possession and
y entrenChed, and their adyersaries have
= not been able as yet to discover point
q of attack. To a casual observer looking
J | over the field, seeing how the Demo-
I cratic party, after suffering a great de-
, feat in the Presidential election and
: losing both branches of Congress. has
: broken into factions in New York and
+ is disintegrating in its great stronghold,
the South, and how it has not Onlyfail
+ to find point of attack in the Repub-
: lican lines, but even to hold itself in line
N NlOlL tlllN peAA IuNnNlbAA III N'll4s I99r
: it would seem the most natural thing
n in the world for that party to
3 throw up the sponge and abandon the
+ fight. But that is not to be expected.
4 They will keep it up though all the ques-
/ tiOns upon which they begaD it are dis
i, posed of. What are you fellows fight
ing for, now that Lee and Johnston
have surrendered and the COnfederacy
+ has gone up?' shouted a Union soldier
h to a rebel picket in the Southwest in the
n last days of the war For our rights
i IN the Territories under the Dred Scott
o decision" was the stubborn answer.
Il And perhaps that is what the Demo-
cratic party is fighting for. Who knOws9
1t is a curious outlook. At no time
in its history has the Democratic party
been so utterly destitute of either prin-
s. ciple of union or rallying cry. Nor has
l. the Republican party ever seemed more
i deserving of public confidence; we
a doubt if it. ever stood higher in popular
# esteem. We do not pretend to read the
Il political horoscope, but the existing
N conditions seem to us 10 point to the
! probable continuance of Republican as
r. cendancy for many years to come. Moth,
" ing but their own mistakes or the am,
n bition and folly of their factional lead,
n ers can prevent it.-N T. Tribune.
y -Guiteau has raised his rates foI