Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1883-11-21
TWO NATIONS.

The last time Charles Sumner was IN
Chicago he addressed an immense audi
ence upon the subject, care We a Ma
tion?" stoutly contending in the affirma-
tive. Roscoe COnkling. according to d
report published in the Inter Ocean yes
| terday, took the ground in 1877 that we
are two nations, in certain very real
sense. IF he thought SO then he doubt
less thinks so now, for the logic of inter.
vening events favors his idea, and the
recent triumph of Bourbonsm in Virgin
ia makes its publication at this time es-
pecially pertinent.
According to the report in question Mr..
Conkling sees in the North and the South
two nations, and in the two parties their
mere Instruments The line of demarka
| ton is geographical. Two contrasting
types of civilization are contending for
the mastery. Distinct social systems and
party managements are arrayed against
e. ch other as much now as they were
when Mr.. Seward made his farnous ire,
pressible conflict speech. "The only
question is, which Of these two nations
shall control, the lesser or the greater. y
The idea of breaking the solidity of the
South was characterized as "a farce based
on a chimera." 1t is, rather, tragedy
based on a grand ideal. The repeated
failures of attempts to destroy the sec
tional lines that divide the parties attest
the difficulty of the task, but do not jus.
tify despair. Malone carried several
successive elections, and the chances are
strongly in favor of bis success at the next
election, and once make such perman-
ent iuroad upon Southern Democracy as
that and the general effect would be dis
integrating to the Southern Democracy.
ft is now twenty-three years since the
| Northern civilization wen its first Nation
al victory. 1t has never suffered a Ma
tional defeat since then. The secession Of
the Southern States which soon followed
in swift succession, was accompanied by
a series of speeches in Congress from that
section all breathing defiance and scoru
If allowed to depart in peace we may
come back, they said, but if you attempt
to coerce us the union is now broken for
ever. That was the burden of all the
speeches made by Southern Congressmen
during the winter of 1860-61, and the
spirit of Virginia Bourbonism to-day il
equally malicious, if shorn, of its defnce
of National authority. Instead of bull
doing the United States Government the
Southern "civilization" cracks its whip
over the Republicanism of the South,
white and black, Straightout and Read
iuster. This difference is an incalcnlable
advance over the condition of things
which produced the war. An so far from
agreeing with Mr.. Conkling, that "no
political effort for experiment will prove
effective in disrupting the solidity of the
South, we believe that such disruption
is inevitable, and that through politial
effort and experiment. If one move
ment or method prove imperative try
another and anotaer till successful.
The cause for which the soldiers of the
Union shed their blood will never achieve
complete victory so long as these states
are, in the Conkling sense of the term,
two nations. The Republican party can
never rest from its labors and retire upon
| its laurels until the United States can
Justly claim substantially the same unity
in civilization as in Government.-Inte1
Ocean.