Year: 1868

%The triumphant election of General
Grant is not only the ratification, but it is
a final Interpretation of the war. From the
moment that General Lee surrendered to
General Grant in the field there has been
a loud debate as to the real significance of
the war, and what was actually settled by
1t. The Democratic theory was that moth
ing had happened but riot, during which
slavery had ceased to exist in the old form.
The Presidents theory was partly this,
and partly something else which was not
very Ineligible. He declared that the
States were suspended, lying IN kind of
political catalepsy, from which he propos-
ed to awaken them by assuming absolute
power, which he did in his North Carolina
| proclamation. This was, of course, a
hopeless confusion, and gradually the
President has disappeared in the Demo
have contended that with slavery fell
every thing that sprsng from slavery, and
they have insisted that not only Justice
and honor, but reason and common sense,
indicated equal suffrage In the recovered
States as the only security of order and of
the restoration of the normal situation
under free popular government.


The election was Joined upon this issue
| The Southern leaders returned to the Con-
Vention at Tammany Hall, and took their
old places at the head Of the party. They
repudiated everything In the Republican
| policy of reconstruction, declared for the
national dishonor, and nominated canGi-
dates that pleased them. The consequence
was that there has been no Obscurity as to
the real point of the canvass. Shall the
general Congressional policy of recon.
struction be sustained or abandnnedg was
the question. Are the people of the
United States resolved that they will re-
construct the Union upon principles
agreeable to them, or do they prefer that
the late rebels shall reconstruct it as they
prefer? Are the people afraid of negro
supremacy, or do they believe with Gen.
Longstreet, and with the testimony of all ex-
perience, that the cry of negro supremacy
is the nero cat-call Of a canvass Do they
think that they can not constitutionslly
saya word upon the subject OF reconstruc-
tion, or is their authority, under the
circumstances, supreme? Have they learn
ed that the Democratic cry Of "nigger,"
which has been sounding for generation,
is merely a noise to confuse the public
mind that 1t may not see that ignorance
and injustice of every kind mean endless
agitationi Is the North resolved that its
idea shall govern the country as the idea
OF the South has governed 1t for many a
dreary year,fl


These were the questions, simple, sharp,
clear, and the answer Is tremendous. A
futile effort was made TO obscure the real
point, and to FIX the public attention upon
financial questions. But every man in-
stinctively knew that the political interest
necessarily takes precedence at such
time as this of the financial. When a
great party, which, as party, has favored
the rebellion Of its chief wing, returns TO
the control Of that wing, and under
lts lead demands not change Of policy,
not new measures under the Government,
but the torcible overthrow of national
law, It is a question of national order and
existence and II was as foolish to hope TO
divert the public mind from II now as II
was In 1854 The result shows that II was
so. Il is not defeat so much as an ex.
tinction of the Democratic theory Of the