The age-herald., 1898-03-08

duty was to pay his way. That, in one form or another, he was bound to do. And when the republican party again got con- trol under Harrlson, It looked upon its achievement retaining its own rather than as new conquest. It paid the price of it's success, but did it give full value for its continuance? The carelessness that inevitably comes with long familiarity had more to do with it's defeat than a dislike of it's principles.
 The visible process of repetition began in 1874, when Grant was president, owing to a general dissatisfaction with commer- cial conditions and failure to provide for specie payment, but, in fact, it commenced with the restoration of Tennessee to the union, which came in near the close of the first session of the Thirty-ninth congress, though the eight representatives were equally divided politically. The source of the restoration of the democratic party in congress was, of course, the period of re- construction. True, 1t did not regain the ascendancy in the house of representa- tives it lost in the election of 1860 until five years after the last of the seeding states was admittetd, but the processes of it's restoration were at work from the com- mencement of the reconstruction period, and in 1875, for the first time since the congress that was chosen with Buchanan, the democratic party was in control of the house. The great question between the SeCtiOIS Hdu DtSH Scltleu dflu lOTeNeT llIu- inatd from the catalogue of vital issues. but the principle involved in it that came from the old confederate congress, that of individual responsibility or the distribu- tion of responsibility among the several states in antagonism to a healthy and equitable standardization of it-this re- maned. We see in this the immutability of things that are fundamental. The par ty that first acquired power on the princi- pie of an indefinite or common authority, in contradistinction to the prime govern mental theory of Burke, of England and Washington and Hamilton, maintained 1t on the same principle, it will be seen, by Q convenient combination of northern. and southern statesmanship, for most of the time up to the end of Buchanans adminis- tration. That long record is pointed to as evidence of the security and wisdom of this party's counsel It teaches, however, di- rectly the opposite. Look at the end of it all. Questions have changed somewhat, and some of them have disappeared, but the principles of the two parties have not changed.
 It is interesting to trace the ups and downs of the democratic party, its disrup- tion that disclosed the secret of its strength, and it's restoration in congress af- ter it's reunion. But that is long history. beginning with Jeffersons presidency. Some of it excites admiration and is ex- tolled by the American people irrespective of party. But the paramount principle of it. when 1t came to a controversy of con- stitutional and state authority, lost its party aspect and became in a sense nation- al, threatening the permanent dissolution of the government 1t could no longer con- troll That was the crowning effect of the character of statesmanship that more than a half century back, by display of crafu- ness and comprehensiveness rarely eQualed in the political field, wrested power from its opponents through the disputes of their leaders, chief of whom were Hamilton and