Year: 1875

For ten years past the Radical Repub-


lican party has ruled Qhis country lite


rally with rod of iron. The iron, it is


true, has been tipped with lead, tipped


with lead indeed at both ends, loaded


with bullets at the butt, and crowned


with stupidity at the top. But none the


less rod of iron. The purse it has held


and emptied as it pleased The sword il


has held and welded as it suited il. In
all the rest Of the civilized world there


has been no such absolute rule over any
people as that of the Radical Republi-
can party over the people of the United
States, their lives, their fortunes and


their sacred honors." The Radical Re-


publican party has controlled the Exec
utive. When it found in the person of


Andrew johnson, ten years ago, man
just deeply enough imbued with respect
for the laws and the Constitution of his
country to shrink from making the Pre-
sidency convenience of lawlessness and
corruption, it forced the House of Rep
resentatives to impeach him, and did its
best to coerce the Senate into convicting
and ejecting him. 1t bargained with q
successful soldier Of fortune, a man alb
solutely destitute of political convic.
tions, for the succession of Andrew
johnson, closed the transaction and put
| him into power. Through him and with


him for decade it has worked its will,
its whole will and nothing but its will
upon this hapless and helpless land. 1t
organized and disposed Of the army and
the navy. 1t has made and unmade laws.
It has represented the American people


abroad. 1t has ruled the American peo-
pie at home. For several years after the
close of the war the supremacy of the
Radical Republican party in the United
States was like the supremacy OF Pagan
ism under Julian the Apostate or like
| the supremacy of Christianity under
Constantine the Great. To belong to the
| Radical Republican party was to be
| yirtuous, to be respectable, to be sue
cessful. To oppose the Radical Repub-
lican party was to be dishonest, to be
corrupt, to be unsuccessful. What was
| United States were deluded and bedevil-


led into conceding this unexampled Ii
cense of power to this partyp 1t was
| the pratence that this party had carried
| the war for the Union through to O vie
| torious termination, and therefore that
| this party had right to insist that it
| should be intrusted with the task of re-
| organizing and reconstructing the coun-
try after the crowning hour of triumph
had sounded. A plausible pretext enough
this was! 1t happened to be founded,
indeed, upon lie. The armies of the
United States by which the war for the
Union was waged through to victory
were originally made possible by the
military genius and the military skill of
Democratic generals. The heroes of Big


Bethel and of Bull Run were the chief


contribution made by the Republican
party to our military history in the out
set of the war. The soldiers who fought
out victoriously that long and weary
contest We're drawn as freely from the
ranks of the Democracy as from the
ranks Of the r Republicans. The fnan-
cial burden of the conflict would have
been dropped in despair very early in
the strife but for the constancy and the


abilities Of the great financial and DEM
ocratic metropolis of the Union. But
the lie prospcred, as lies for time are
apt to do, and the Radical Republicans


having made a Radica! Republican Presi-
dent Of soldier whose only political
vote had been thrown for a Democratic
candidate, undertook to regenerate the
republic Of which they had impudently
pretended themselves as the sayiors. .
For ten years the country has given
them their head. For ten years they
have been utterly free to do their best
and their worst. For ten years they
have enjoyed practically undisputed
mastery OF the whole position. What