Year: 1866

From the Chicago Times, November l2, 1885,
! Lives


! The present is crisis in the Democrat,


party which has no precedent in its histo


ry, as it is crisis in the progress of tn,


country which is also without precedent


Meyer before has the democratic party en-


countered events 50 seriously affecting its


future vitality as now. Not that it beholds


itself diminised in the magnitude of its


numbers,-for it is numerically stronge,


than it has ever been before, but that


having been beaten on great national


issue, as to which it believed itself to he


wholly right and the opposition wholly


wrong, and still so believes, it must never


theless abandon that issue-for the decision
OF 1t is final-and either sit down in help


less and decaying inactivity, or strike


boldly out upon q new line, selected with
peculiar reference, not to things as we
would have them, but to things as they ac-
tually are, and in pursuing which line it
shall cease to be hold-back or ''conserya-
tive party, and become, what it was in it's
palmy days, progressive and an acgres-
sive party. These are the alternatives.


1t will not sit down in helpless and de-
caying inactivity.


What, then, shall the new line be? In
the hrst place, must we not cut loose from
the administration of Andrew johnson,
and leave that hybrid concern to float on
the sea OF public contempt into which it
some time since entered, and from which
no power can restore it? Is not the late
defeat attributable more largely to this ad-
ministration than to all other causes COM
bined? What is there in it's composition
to command popular confidence Who,
belonging to it, Is entitled, by reason of
his anteccdents or of his craftsmanship, to
the confidence or the respect of the demo-
cratic party? Certainly is not Andrew
johnson, nor William II. Seward, nor
Edwin NJ. Stanton. True, this admins
tration had right policy, and the demo-
cratic party, in overlooking the chief men
it, and thinking only of the
Of the policy, displayed
patriotism whose purity was never excel
ed; but the policy having failed, too,
through the feebleness and folly and often
ces against the public propriety of the ad-
ministration,-whys should not the demo-
cratic party abandon the dead body, longer
CHCC " WHICu 10 uCStIu ulSO W lIScll I.


What next? Can the democratic party
succeed until the negro question shall be
got out of the way? 1t cannot. What
next? Is not negro suffrage inevitable,
and is not the quickest way to get the ne
gro question out of the way to at once
suffrage, making issue only on the
degree to which it be conceded ? We know
that many democrats have not reached this
view of the case, and that such
still feel greatly inclined to revolt at the
of negro suffrage in any de-
gree; but let us tell them that it is always
wise to accept the inevitable when the ine-
vitable comes. Negro suffrage, we say,
and whether it shall be quail
fed or universal depends upon the prompt
ness or otherwise with which the demo-
cratic party shall move with reference to
it. The south will speedily yield qualified
negro suffrage upon the motion of the
party; because, if for no other
reason, she will soon see, if she does not
already see, that if she do not yield it, she
will ultimately be compelled to accept uni
versal negro suffrage.


Qualified negro suffrage yielded by the
south, and by this we mean IMPARTIAL
SUFFRAGE, or suffrage dependent upon the
intelligence of the man, irrespective Of
color, as Is nor the rule in Massachusetts,,
THE NEGRO QUESTION WILL HAVE BEEN
DISPOSED OF, AND THE OCCUPATION OF THE
NORTHERN REPUBLICAN RADICAL PARTY WILL
BE GONE FOREVER. Not one inch of ground
will it have to stand upon; and the country
can once more turn to these material ques-
tions of public policy the right disposition
of which is so essential to the public pros
perity. 1t will be upon these questions
that the democratic party will triumph,
and it will be by this triumph that consti-
tutional government and our federal sys-
tenn will be preserved.


If the south be wise, it will not wait, on
this suffrage question, even for the motion
of the democratic party. If it be wise, it
will lose no time in putting in motion the
necessary machinery by which it will at
the same time save itself from humiliation,
preserve its own selfrespect, rid the coun-
try of the most vexat;ous question that ever
distracted any country, kill the worst


political party that ever existed on the globe,


and put the union in the way of speedy res


toratiom: This machinery consists, of


course, in conventions to revise the state


constitutions.