Year: 1869

There can be little doubt that the pol


tics OF the country are about to be shifted


to new basis, and that the political par


ties will have to take new points of de-
.Parture. Among wide awake,.intelligent
and practical people It IS inff.5s@.rJf sAir.
political organizations to command the


respect and receive the support of the pub


lic unless their efforts are directed to the


solution OF the live practical issues of the


day. The public cannot be occupied long


with questions already settled. No matter


how much interest Il question may have


elclted, while it was living, practical


issue, when it is once settled, so that it no


longer has any practical bearing, it ceases


to occupy the public attention, and is no


longer available for the purposes of party


capital. Every period has its own partic-


ular questions, and political parties, if they


would gain public support and contest for
supremacy, must take their position and


conduct their canvasses with reference to
these questions. As for instance, in 1861


the question of secession agitated profound


ly the public mind, and 1t was of the first
Importance that political parties, if they
wished to attract public attention and gain
public support, should define their position
on that point. 1t was not sufficient that
they should be able to point to history
OF glorious achiev meuts, to patriotic and
unblemshed record in the past At such
a moment all this availed nothing. The
public was anxious to know their present
attitude on the engrossing question Of the
moment. If that was satisfactory, it was
read y to accord them its confidence and
support without any close scrutiny into
their past history. If however their pre-
sent position was unsatisfactory, it was con
doned by any reference to the glory of
their past. SO, also, has it been with ref
erence to the questions that have occupied
public attention since then. Political par
ties have had to rely mainly for support
ON their position on the questions occupy
Ing the public mind for the moment, rath-
er than on their history on questions already
obsolete. In a word, political parties to be
successful must be organized and conduct
ed with reference to living issues; they
must appeal tQ the pubEe for support On
the ground of their position on the ques-
tions eng1 tossing public attention.


Regarding these views as automatic,
we have no hesitancy in declaring the be-
lief that our political parties are about to
be organized and conducted on new bases
The questions which have served for the
last fifteen or twenty years as the bases for
The organization of political parties, and
which have furnished the principal mater


al of our political canvasses during that
period, are about absolete, and will soon
pass from the arena of politics. Slavery
in all its phases and the multitudinous
questions that grew out Of it, have about
reached final settlement. They are no
longer practical matters they no longer
interest the public mind. When the pro-
posed Fifteenth Amendment is disposed of,
either by Its ratification or rejection-and
this consumation will soon be reached, as
the Legislatures already chosen, or about
to be chosen, will decide the matter-the
last of the questions growing out of slavery
and the negro race will be settled. If the
Fifteenth Amendment be adopted the ques-
tion of suffrage will be settled by confer
ing on all citizens, irrespective of race or
color, and without regard to State author
ity, the right of the ballot. If however it
be rejected, as seems more probable at
present, the question of suffrage will re-
main, as ii was established by Washington
and his compeers, subject of State con-
troll. In this attitude it would be a legit,
innate subject of State agitation, but could
not become question of National politics.
In either event-whether of its ratification
or reiection-it is now practically out of
the field Of politics. 1t, like the questions
of secession, the war and reconstruction,
belongs to the past. No political canvass
will ever again be made with reference to
any one Of them.


What then will be the questions which
will engage the politics of the near fnture
Without presuming to point cut them all,
we may venture to predict that the ques-
tions of the currency, the bonds, and pro-
tsctive tariffs will figure largely in political
platforms for sometime to come. As they
did, before the advent of the anti slavery
agitators, so again the questions affecting
the great business interest of the people
will become, the bases OF the organization
of the political parties of the country