Year: 1872

BPludDS Lllt OIdiOIS anu
ministration have borne too heavily on tne
charge that the Liberal movement Is pureiy
in the Democratic interest. People, at any
rate. are beginning to ask, Well, what OF u
This NAV seem bold in the face of such con-
slant denunciations of party which stlll
bears a venerable name; but 1t Is true, never
tbeless. What divided Republicans and Dem
ocrats ten years agO3 The cOnduct
of the war and the question OF slavery
which pervaded the whole struggle. what were
tbe issues which still existed when the war
was over and Grant and Seymour were before
the People as Presidential candidates The
adjustment of several political questions when


grew out of the Civil War, but notably those
of providing for the payment OF the National
Debt. the prevention of oppression OF the
Freedmen, and the adjustment of the de-
ranged political machinery of the South On
such issues as these or their cOrrelatlyes the
nation was divided into two great parties IN


1864 and 1868. Are those issues not settled
now \ And if they are not will they ever
beq VIII they be quoted amicaby in
1876 in 1901 in 1884 If then, why not
nOwG


Plainly, what is the issue now before the
country on which voters may logically be
divided into two parties under old party
names7 1t is not enough to answer this query
with a vague flourish about danger to the
finances, and aiding and abetting treason. All
of these matters were either settled by the
war or by subsequent legislation. Can you,
brother Republican, put your finger on one
Cardinal political doctrine wherein you differ
from the majority of men who call themselves
Democrats? Is there a single point of radical
difference between you and your Demo-
cratic neighbor, unless, possibly, you and
he support different men as Presidential
candidates? Is it not, after all, a question in
governmental management, more or less
coored by personal prejudice, which divides
you7 Let us examine the points of difference
which existed in 1864 and 1868 and see how
wise you are in bringing them into 1872: No
body proposes so far as we know, to make
another attempt to build a Southern Con-
federacy. Nobody preteuds that it is possible,
desirable or expedient to reGnslave the Blacks
1t is equally impossible to reopen the question
of Negro Suffrage and the political status Of
the Freedmen. Ample and rigorous provision
viz
Public Debt; and equally safe preventives
against any assumption of any part of the
Rebel Debt by the United States have also
been made. These principal points of
national concern have been built into the
amended Constitution of the United
States. They cannot be taken ont by
this generation there is no party, nor even a
fragment of party which proposes to attempt
to take them out. Why, even some of the
men who fought longest for American Slavery
and a Confederacy founded thereon, both
during and since the Civil War, are against
u.s. Even the sanguine and sanguinary Mosby
sees no hope for the Southern Empire in
Greeley's election. He is for Grant. And even
VIM. Lloyd Garrison, n seed-sOwer of Adolf
tionism, passionately declares that it is idle to
talk longer of the infinite wrongs of the
African" He is able to shift for and defend
himself. So both of these extremists are
agreed that their old ideals have no part in
this Presidential contest. And is it not little
illogical, not to say dishonest, for men to pro-
fess anxiety about the National Finances while
they are upholdng an Administration which
has sustained the Southern State governments,
in running their people into debt 1--WE Will here
not say plunderng them) to the amount of
over S2OO,OOO,OOOi


IT, then, Democrats propose to unite with
Republicans in undertaking what seem to be
vitally-needed reforms in the Government,
where is the possible objection We have
shown that the old party names are as mean
ingless now as the old party divisions are use
less. Why, then, fight the old battles over
again7 In peaceful canvass which proposes
a readjustment of the powers of the Govern
ment and correction of growing abuses
which threaten the very existence of that
Government, what place have the Virginia Res
olutions of '9Si or the political platforms of
1860 or the battles of Bull Run and Apo
mattox Court-H The Liberal party, as
we call the new combination of voters, pro-
pose, not only to stand by the public credit,
and the men who fought to keep it, and the
people who were freed during that fight, but
also to return to every State, Southern
as well as Northern, the power OF self
government prune down the enormous pat
ronage of the National Government, reduce its
excessive cost, purify the Civil Service of all
possibility of Dents, Caseys Buffers and their
like, and break down the unnatural barriers
which have been maintained between the
North and the South by designing men. That
there should be virulent opposition to this
work is inevitable. The great horde of official
incumbents and their relations will oppose it.
Men who have the dispensing of the patron
age of this Administration, but know not where
they shall fall in the next, will oppose it.
And, above all, every man who has any per-
sonal or political interest in keeping apart old
Observation-Disclosures on the field of battle or
field of politics-will oppose it. But, with faith
in the honesty aud good intent Of the People,