Year: 1872

Coalition.


A tidal wave has indeed swept over the
country, and upon its foaming crest General
Grant rides victoriously into another Presi-
Dental term. The crucial test of the Penn
| sylvania October election throughout the
North appears to have reduced to collapse
the opposition coalition upon the Cincinnati
ticket Of Greeley and Brown, while in the
South, as in 1868, the democracy seem to have
been inspired, even in ''the last ditch" with
high hopes of success but as the uprising of
the sea from the throes Of an earthquake, which
some years ago with mountain wave, at
st. Thomas, carried up and deposited cart
loads Of fish on the neighboring hills, so now,
as by a tremendous groundswell, all the en-
gineers and the machinery of the Presidential
opposition alliance are, with Greeley and
Brown, left high and dry miles away from the
water. Account for it as we may upon the
popular strength of General Grant OF. the
weakness of Mr.. Greeley or upon the feeble
ness of the Greeley republicans, or the bolt of
the democratic Bourbons, or upon all these
things combined, the result is in many re-
spects the most remarkable of any Presidential
election in the history of the United States.


For the details of the elections of yesterday,
as far as received, we refer the reader to
other pages of this paper, and we would
especially commend to his thoughtful perusal
the vote of the empire State for Grant and
Wilson and Dix and the republican State
ticket It will be perceived that our anticipa-
tion of decisive defeat in this State of the
opposition alliance upon their Presidential
ticket and their State ticket are amply fulfilled
in the results. Whatever Of popular strength
was promised the democracy from Mr.. Greeley
was lost in the unwise and inopportune nomi-
nation Of Mr.. Herman against General Dix,
and SO the verdict of New York is strength
ened against Greeley and Brown by the
blunders of the democratic managers at
Syracuse.


And now this embittered exhausting and
demoralizing conflict having terminated with
the verdict from the people which gives an
other lease of four years to the present admins
tration, we may turn to consider the causes of
this opposition defeat and the probable conse-
quences. It will doubtless be said by the





candidates and platform was the fatal blunder
that the liberal or anti Grant republicans,
represented to the democracy as a powerful
party, turned out only corporals guard of
disappointed ofice-seekers here and there
that Mr.. Greeley's popularity had been magni-
fed to ten times its actual proportions the
scattering reinforcements which he brought to
the democratic party were greatly outnumbered
by the democrats driven off by his name
with his obnoxious radical antecedents that
his nomination as the democratic Presidential
standard-bearer demoralized and paralyzed the
party, and that in the results of the North
! Carolina election it was discovered that this
old and powerful organization had sacrificed
itself upon the altar of Mr.. Greeley and negro
suffrage for less than mess of pottage


We expect now to hear some such COM
plants as these from the democratic party,
while from the liberal republicans we appre-
hend the retort will be given that the demo-
Gratis in this joint stock arrangement did not
in good faith fulfil their part of the compact
but that, what with their lukewarm support
and apologies for Mr.. Greeley and what with
their Louisville straight conventions and
Bourbon meetings and manifestoes, and what
with their general apathy and their desertions
in the elections from August to November in.
elusive, they brought defeat upon the move
ment which otherwise might have been glori-
GUS success. These accusations on both
Sides at all events, may to great extent be
justly made. The popularity Of Mr.. Greeley
W as unduly magnifed from the outset by his
too enthusiastic admirers and their estimates
of his followers from the republican camp
were preposterous On the other hand, it is
equally true that the democratic party, rank
and file, never responded SO carelessly or flip
PANTY to democratic Presidential ticket as
they responded to the nominations Of Greeley
and Brown. And yet, under all the peculiar
difficulties of the party, it had but little to lose
and much to hope for from the new departure
From the significant general results of the
State elections of 1871, including the revolu-
ton in New York against Tweed and his
Tammany Ring, the conviction had fixed
itself in the minds of the democratic mag
mates, oracles and arithmeticians, that without
reinforcements from the republican camp the
democratic party would enter the Presidential
campaign of 1872 against General Grant
without q chance or hope of success.
Hence this fusion with the Cincinnati anti
Grant republicans. Nor can the defeat Of
this coalition be limited to the weakness Of the
anti Grant republicans and their ticket, or to
the indifference and Generalization Of the
democrats. The ticket would have answered
the purpose, and the coalition would have
been sufficient to carry it through, with case
against the administration commanding the
support of the floating element of the coun-
try. But the case against General Grant was
too weak for this purpose. Made up of
charges of corruption not established nor