Rensselaer Union, Volume 3, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 April 1871 — Machiavellian Democracy. [ARTICLE]

Machiavellian Democracy.

A few days ago we called attention to the gingerly rebuke administered by the New York World to the Blair-Stephens Democracy, in the attempt to revive the reconstruction and negro Issue. After waiting a few days, just long enough to hear the echo of its sentiments, that sheet waxes braver, and soundly berates the reactionary faction. It tells Blair & Co. that the negro is sure to vote at the next Presidential election, and that to array the black element against the Democratic party would be a fatal blunder, and then, in an under tone, it adds: “If we can elect our candidates in spite of their votes, negro niff rage is not wry formidable.'' It requires no special sagacity to see what this means. The plain English of it is: Don’t raise the Blair issue; out, if we once get into power, we will cany out his programme. The difference, then, between the World and the Blair Democracy is only one of honesty, the advantage on this score being with the latter. Because the Missouri Senator blurts out the real design of his parly, be is kicked as a “ hotheaded impracticable ” —a politician without sense enough to understand his epoch. , The Machiavalian policy is, beyond a doubt, the wisest one for the Democracy. Every speaker or writer of the party should have it impressed upon him that “ mum’s the word.” Other wise they will foredoom the party to a worse defeat in 1872 than it experienced in 1868. In trying to carry out this gag policy, the party masters will have a hard job. It is rather late In the day to try. The utterance of insurrectionary sentiments ought to have been prevented by private counsels. If that were impossible—and Blair is as irrepressible as exploded steam —then surely the party press could have raised a simultaneous howl against his speech, and so have cleared the skirts of the party; but no, the papers very generally published his speech, and either indorsed it point blank, or said nothing either way. It is only after a delay of some weeks, and the impolicy of the expose has dawned upon their opaque minds, that the Democrats begin to decry Blairism. No one of any judgment can be deceived by this eleventh-hour repudiation. No, gentleman of the Democracy, your disclaimer comes too late, especially as it is coupled with a suggestion which means, if it means anything, that, should the party once get the reins of power, it would find the constitution “nothing very formidable ” in the way of carrying out a plot, which, for prudential reasons, must, for the present, be kept in the dark.— Chicago Journal.