Democratic Sentinel, Volume 4, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 August 1880 — THE CHANGED REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN. [ARTICLE]

THE CHANGED REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN.

'fi'lic NcwCliatlcngc 'Jhcj- Have Sow Put Forth. [From the New York Herald (Imlepeuilent).] It is less than two years since Gen. Garfield, on tho floor of Congress, , painted the following patriotic sketch for the conduct of the Presidential campaign of 1880 : ‘ ‘The man who attempts to get up a political excitement in this country on the old sectional issues will find himself without a party and without support. The man who wants to servo hivcountry must put himself in the line of its leading thought, and that is the restoration of business, trade, commerce, industry, sound p Tit ical economy, hard money, and honest payment of all obligations.” Circumstances unexpected by tho art ist put him into a position two monthago, by liis nomination as a Presidential candidate, to exert as much influence as any other man in the country to realize his own patriotic picture. Is it unfair to judge him out of his own mouth and by his own behavior? What has lie been doing this week? Has he been attempting “to get up a political excitement on the old sectional issues,” or “to put himself in the line of the country’s leading thought ?” Let the proceedings of the Republican conference in this city on Thursday answer. Beyond peradventure the four representative speakers in that conference were Senators Blaine and Logan, Secretary Sherman, and Gen. Harrison. What did they set up in tbyir speeches for the issues in this campaign ? Mr. Blaine said that the issue is whether “ the men who fought the civil war shall surrender to the men who fought against the Union. ” Mr. Logan said that it was whether “ the loyal men of this land, who stood by her constitution and flag when the sword and flame were applied to the temple,” or “the rebel army and the copperheads of the North” shall have the “right to govern this country.” Mr. Sherman said it is whether “the Republican party shall resign to tho solid South, headed by Wade Hampton and the Ku-Klux Klan, and a little segment in the Northern States calling itself the Democratic party.” Gen. Harrison said it is “how we will defend Washington against the enemy that once opposed it in arms. ” If these assertions are not a revival of t > old sectional issues, what are they? i\ot a word was uttered in the conference from first to last concerning the line of the leading thought of the country—concerning business, trade, commerce, industry, sound political economy, hard money, and honest payment of all obligations, with the solitary and melancholy exception that Mr. Sherman announced that the Republican party, has ‘ ‘ accomplished all the results it proposed to accomplish of a financial character,” although hundreds of millions of legal-tender greenbacks are outstanding, and eighty-eight-cent silver dollars are coining monthly by the ton. It was entirely within the power of Gen. Garfield to check this torrent of sectional passion if he had willed so. He sat in an adjoining parlor, and knew what was doing. At any time between noon and 6 o’clock on Thursday, he had only to walk out of one room into another and repeat his own words, which we have quoted at the beginning of this article, to have given an entirely different complexion to this Presidential campaign on the Republican side from that which he has suffered it to assume.' But he willfully withheld from “ serving his country. ” He willfully ratified a partisan policy, which he himself has stigmatized as so unpatriotic that the man who puisnes it deserves to find himself “ without a party and without support. ” He starts back to his Ohio home this morning with the internal consciousness, whatever show of stolidity he may put on, of having been false to his own ideal of patriotism. With his full assent. by the concurrent voices of his party’s leaders, “ thq old sectional issues ” are adopted for the main issues of the Republican canvass, and “the line of the country’s leading thought ” is. subordinated to them. Can the Republican party elect Gen. Garfield President upon issues which he himself, not two years ago, nobly oon-

demned as unpatriotic ? It is* too early to predict. Much will depend on the good sense of the Democratic leaders.