Year: 1866



 The following extract referred to in an editorial. last week, was omitted bv acc; dent, ;t-. f.e

 POLITICAL PARTIES.

 SHALL THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY DIE OR I,ryrp

 The present is a crisis in the Demo- cratic Party which has no precedent in its history, as it is crisis in the progress of the country which is also without prece- dent. Never before has the Democratic party encountered events so seriously af- fecting it's future vitality as now. Not that it beholds itself diminished in the maeni- tude of it's numbers-for it is numerically stronger than it has ever been before-but that, hauing been beaten on great mational issue, as to which it believed itself to be wholly right and the opposition wholly wrong, and still so believes, it must nece,'- Mesess abandon Mat issue. for Me deision of it is yfaal-and either sit down in helpless and decaying inactivity, or strike boldly out up- on line, selected with peculiar reference, not to things as we would have them, but to things as they actually are, and in pur- suing which line it shall cease to be hold back or conservative" party, and become what it was in its palmy days, a progressave aud an aggressice party. These are the al- ternatives It will not sit down in helpless and decaying inactivity.

 What, then, shall the new line be? In the first place, must ace not cat loose from He Administration of Aaadrep Johnson, aud leare kbat hybrid concern to float on l1e sea o public

 

 and from achich DO po,rer can rescue 1? Is not the late defeat attributable more large ly to this Administration than to all the other causes combined? What is there in it's composition to command popular confi- dence? Who, belonging to it, is entitled, by reason of his antecedents or of his statemanship, to the confidence or the re- spect of the Democratic Party? Certainly it is not Andrew Johnson, nor William H. Seward, nor Edwin M. Stanton. True, this administration had right policy, and the Democratic Party, in overlooking the chief men comprising it, and thinking on- ly of the rightfulness of the policy, dis played patriotism whose purity was nev- CT excelled; but the policy having failed and having failed, too, through the feeble ness and folly and offences against public propriety of the administration-why should not the Democratic Pary abandon the dead body, longer adherence to which is also death to itself

 What next? Can the Democratic Party succeed until the negro question shall be gotten out of the way? It cannot. What next? Is not negro suffrage inevitable, and is not e quickest ecay to get tue negro question out of hse avay to ct once concede tue suffrage, nsaking issue oaaly om the degree to aclsich it shaN be conceded? We know that many De- mocrats have not reached this advanced view of the case, and that such still feel greatly inclined to revolt at the proposition of negro suffrage in any degree; but let us tell them that it is always wise to accept the inevitable when the inevitable comes. Ne gro suffrage, we say, is inevitable, and whether it shall be qualified or universal, depends upon the promptness or otherwise with which the Democratic Party shall move with reference to it. The South will speed fly yield qualified negro suffrage upon the motion of the Democratic Party because, if for no other reason, she will soon see, if she does not already see, that if she does not yield it, she will ultimately be compell- ed to accept universal negro suffrage.

 Qualified negro suffrage yielded by the Southland by this we mean impartial suf- frage, or suffrage dependent upon the in- teligence of the man, irrespective of color, as is now the rule in Massachusetts negro question will have been disposed of, and the occupation of the Northern Repub- ican 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 those material questions of public policy the right disposition of which is so essential to the public prosperity. It will be upon these questions that the De- mocratic Party will triumph, and it will be by this triumph that constitutional govern ment and our Federal system will be pre- served.

 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 it's own self-respect, and rid the country of the most vexatious 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 restoration. This machinery con- sists, of course, in Conventions to revise the State constitutions Chicago Times.

 SHALL THE NEGROES VoTE?-The follow ing is from an intelligent and sagacious of ficer, now in command in South Carolina:

 s'As for the state of feeling with regard to the sman and the brother it is about the same here as at the North. The higher classes treat him well and want to see him do we'll; the 'low-down,' as the poor white folks are called here The former owners still take an interest in their old slaves, and will occasionally go to law for them, at least so far as they can afford.

 The true loyal men here are the men who fought against us on the field of battle. They give no trouble, and they are tolera- ply right in opinion. It is the fellows who lived in bomb proofs during the war who are now blatant; the men who did not shed their blood when they had chance. l must say that I like the ex-Confederate sol, diers; they are manly under their defeat, and accept the surrender honestly. Large numbers of them are in favor of passing the Constitutional amendment, and there is growing, though as yet silent party, looking to that settlement.

 k I hope that Congress will stick to the o,,J ocB o, =. <,...