Year: 1879

The performance which Is appointed to open
in Washington next Tuesday is anticipated
with lively interest and anxiety. 1t chances,
however, that the anxiety is chiefly on the
part of the performers, and it Is the unsym-
pathetic spectators who look for good time.
The session seems to have been called by the
Democratic party for three reasons. First,
they intended to make ready for the next
campaign by sweeping away all the Federal
safeguards against violence at the polls and
fraud in the canvass. They wished to open
wide the doors for repeaters in New Ork
and other large Democratic cities; to abolish
the inspection of false certificates of naturali-
cation; to give the rife-clubs and red-shirts
of the South unlimited leave to "bring tool
"chests to the fair" and break up Repub-
lican meetings, otherwise known as "nigger
risings." They did pretty much as they
pleased in the South last year, but the
Federal courts are making trouble for some
of their people in consequence of the trans
actions of that time, and the party In Con-
gress means to have no more of that sort of
"persecutiOn TO say nothing of its un-
pleasant effect upon leading Southern states
men, it is dscouragng to their political
operatives at the North. Secondly. the Dem
ocracy was in haste to make some use of
its power in the House of Representatives
before the penitentiary swallowed up its
that party controlled both branches of Con-
gress and it is not likely to have such q
stroke of luck again in the lifetime of this
generation. Thirdly, there were several
clerkships and other small places to be had
in the Senate, and an army of applicants
making great row at the door, too hungry
to wait till December. These were the
reasons for calling an extra session.


But already our Democratic friends are be-
ginning to realize that they have blundcred,
as usual. 1t Is true that they will succeed in
using few votes which may be lost to them
before Winter; but it can hardly be thought
that they will derive much solid comfort from
the cooperation of members who are only tar
rying at the Capital for few days, as it were,
on the way to Jail. And with respect to the
other and more important objects of the ses-
sion, the actors in the advertised revolution are
now sinking under the dreadful conscious
ness that they don't know their lines and are
wholly incompetent for their parts What if
the public, instead of being thrilled and ex-
cited by the drama, should guy the performers
and bring down the curtain amidst shouts of
derisionf Even change of doorkeepers is
not to be made with anything like the ease
the Democratic Senators expected, and it is
not at all unlikely that the new majority
which was going to turn the government of
the United States short around in five minutes,
may find itself hardly strong enough to expel
Radical messenger and save the country by
the installation OF a corps of Democratic
pages


AS for the election-law conspiracy, that will
surely be met by the Republicans in Congress
with stern resistance, which the disOrgan-
izers will be wise not to underestimate. We
stand firm for the Constitution, the laws. q
free ballot, and fair count nt,-resoved not
only that there shall be no liberation fol
frauds upon the suffrage. but that there shall
be no legislative usurpatiOn of the clearly de-
fined functions of the Executive, and no abro
CATION of statutes except by regular constltu
tional means. If the Democracy see fit t,
attack US in such a position, We welcome then