Year: 1873

Party.


From the returns Of yesterdays elections
before us, including New York city and State
Massachusetts, Virginia Wisconsin. &C.. q
general collapse has apparently fallen upon
the republican party. Tammany, like giant
refreshed with new wine, rises again with
something of her ancient strength, and the
fifty-fve thousand majority of the republicans
on their State ticket last fall, if not COM
pletely obliterated. is almost reduced
to nothing. Corresponding results are re-
ported from Massachusetts,, Virginia, Wiscon-
sin and other States. The democratic victory
of October in Ohio it may be contended,


was accidental; but when we find the


East, the West, the North and the
South all drifting in the same general


direction it is evident, at least, that


the sprinkling clouds of October have


gathered and strengthened to the proper


tions of political cyclone in November In
the history of the country, since the time OF


Washington, there never was more over


whelming Presidential success than that of
1872; and in our political annals we have
never had in a single year such general
shrinkage for the dominant party from heavy
majorities to small ones. and to minorities,
as in 1873. The popular whirlwind
of 1910, which carried General
Harrison into the White House, was followed
by a marked political reaction in 1S41, and
there have been some other cases of this kind
from time to time but we have had no reac-
ton of this character to compare with this
of 1873, touching the disturbing forces at
work, including the demoralizations, divi-
sions, disaffections, discomfort and indiffer-
ence of the party in power to the conse-
quences.


There is something more in all this than
local issues and general public indifference
concerning them. We remember that the
democratic State triumphs of 1857, upon
greatly reduced popular vote in each case,
were proclaimed by the democratic journals
and accepted by the party as the first waves
of general popular reaction which would
swell into q resistless tide in 1868, upon which
the old party would be borne again
into the government. We remember
how the democratic Bourbon leaders in the
National Party Convention, held in Tammany
Hall in 1868, believing that the State elections
of 1867 signifed in their general results a
popular reaction against the issues upon which
the republicans had successfully fought the
war for the Union and the contest of Southern
reconstruction. We remember how those
Bourbon leaders declared the reconstruction
measures Of Congress unconstitutional,
revolutionary, null and void" after rejecting
the new departure Of recognition
of the fixed results of the war, pro-
posed under the banner of Chief JUS
tice Chase, and we know what followed.
We know how triumphantly General Grant
carried the country as the Union champion of
the war, and of the issues of the war as set
tied by Congress, and in the thirteenth and
fourteenth amendments of the constitution;
and we know that if the same issues were now
before the people these elections of 1873
would no more signify the rising tide of
political revolution than the elections Of 1867


But these issues of the war are settled, and
the democratic party was brought to their
recognition through their unexpected victory
in New Hampshire in the spring of 1871.
From that victory the old Bourbon leaders,
learning nothing and forgetting nothing, i'm
mediately revived their oft-defeated programme
against the fixed results Of the war, and raised
such hue and cry over New Hampshire that
they instantly revived the old Union spirit Of
the war, so that q few weeks after their great
triumph in New Hampshire they were given
rebuke from Connecticut which extinguished
their Jack-o' lantern. Then followed the new
departure, inaugurated by the sagacious Val
landigham, in Ohio, and, with the ground
thus broken, step by step the democratic party
advanced from its old democratic ticket and
platform of 1868 to the liberal republican can
didates and principles of 1872.


This complete casting away Of all the dead
issues of the past, this absolute acceptance of
the new order of things as established in the
thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth amend
ments Of the constitution, was too abrupt and
too sweeping to be at once accepted or CON-
pretended by the old democratic Bourbons.
Hence their desertions from the liberal repub-
lican ticket Of Greeley and Brown and the
overwhelming reelection Of General Grant.
Nevertheless the democratic new departure of
1872, first reproclaimed by the party in Ohio
in 1873, has become the established creed Of
the party throughout the country. Accord
ingly there is no longer an inch Of ground re-
manning to fight over in reference to the great
principles of universal liberty and civil and
rolitica1 enualitv az established in the consfi
tuition from the results of the war for the
Union. The new issues which have taken the
place of those old issues rest upon the merits
and demerits Of General Grants administration
and the party in power. The administration
and the republican party are thus thrown
upon the defensive, and the developments of
the financial pressure which now weighs like