Rensselaer Union, Volume 3, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 June 1871 — The Democratic Scylla and Charybdis. [ARTICLE]

The Democratic Scylla and Charybdis.

“Mb. Orator Puff had two tones in li is voice,” and consequently, as the affecting narrative informs us, he' could not eseiq>e from the pit. The Democratic party, with the same vocal variety, is in imminent peril of similar catastrophe. Its Northern voice and its Southern voice sing different tunes; and as its object is to lull thepublic into gentle slumber, it is naturally angry to find that thcdiscordonly more thoroughly arouses the country. Mr. Vallaudigham had scarcely blandly alluded to the fact that the goose hung high when Mr. Jefferson Davis savagely retorted that not only did he not “ accept the situation,” but that he ‘‘accepted nothings” So,also, while Tammany Hall complacently heard the praises lavished upon it by the fire-eat-ing Mobile /feyister, it was confounded by tlie vigorous observation of the same journal that, of course, Tamftiany would not expect to fbmiiiatc its candidate! Alas for the “gnat statesman” of New York, the executive agent of the Erie Ring! Indeed, a more laughable tragi comical spectacle has not been lately seen than .the present situation of the Democratic party. It is engaged in the praiseworthy but not hopeful attempt to dissolve, oil in water, ana to mingle in sweet silence gunpowder and lire. It is divided into two factions, the Northern and Southern. The cleverest of the Northern leaders are anxious to break the chain that binds them to the corpse of slavery and the disastrous past of their party —a party false to the country, to liberty, and to human nature. But they ■ have no platform to propose except acquiescence in Republican action and denunciation of Republicans. This, tacit confession of the total failure of their own party and a repudiation of all its traditions, does not ,warmly commend itself to Hye mass of tlie Democratic voters. It seems to them, and very naturally, an insincere course; and they declare, wit It animation, that such counsels are offered by those who have no faith in Democratic principles, and who are, therefore, no better than tlie enemy. “If holding the offices and sharing the public plunder is , the only principle involved in the politics of to-day,” says a Kentucky Democratic paper, “there is no necessity for keeping up two political organizations.” While thus some of the more sagacious Northern Democratic leaders advise acquiescence in the situation, the Southern chiefs, who have been both the brain and the heart of the party, with scornful and defiant brows insist upon what they call the principles for which the Democracy have always contended. Those principles are really the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions of nearly eighty years ago—resolutions which assert State sovereignty to j point which is incompatible with national supremacy—that! is to say, the Southern Democratic chiefs insist upon-the right of secession. They declare that the “ lost cause ” is traditional Democracy, and that when you abandon the constitutional principle upon which that cause is justified, Democracy, as a party name, is meaningless. Indeed, there are a large number of those who were the" sincerest rebels, who lost every thing in the war, and who now insist that, the Democratic principle having been overpowered, there should be no hesitation in abolishing the State Legislatures, and in establishing “ one right, one government, one law.” The ablest of the Southern leaders and papers insist upon the lost cause as the only rational Democratic platform. And Jefferson Davis, the best-beloved Democratic leader in the Southern Slates, declares in reply to the “new departure" Unit a little patient waiting only is necessary to secure the victory for ■which he ami his Mends contended. • This was the spirit and these were the chiefs who controlled the Democratic party at the last Presidential electipn. They propose to contest the mastery again next year, lhey deride and denounce the Northern acquiescers as men of no faith in principle, as mere temporizers and • Laodiceans. sostrouii' ly taken, and the censure is so free that the Northern leaders are already angry. The very warmth of their tone shows their alarm. For while they are profoundly persuaded that their is no other chance of Democratic success than express acceptance of the situation, they are as profoundly convinced of the tenacity of their late masters at the South* A few weeks ago the Southern trlews were described by the Northern managers as the eccentricities of “ our gallqpl and cbivulrons friends,” who would, as gbod Demb crate, graceftilly, yield when “we” knocked them on the head in the Convention. But all this is changed. The Albany Argue now disposes of our gallant and chivalrous friends in this manner: “The boisterous Montgomery Mau is dead. The senile

Mobije Register has changed its coat and fallen into line, an humhle and, we trust, repentant follower of those whom ii tried to browbeat in its waved up folly. The Memphis Appeal alone remains as a vociferutor of nonsense and a gabbler of platitudes.” And the New York World, the friend of the Erie agent, says of the other great statesman of its party: “ The truth is that Jefferson Davis is not only a badly beaten general, a failure as an executive head of a resisting people, a thoroughly whipped rebel, but a politician who stupidly, criminally (to use the mildest phrase) blundered." And these be brethren! From all this it is plain,Ulrst, that the Northern Democratic leaders are convinced that the Southern voice must be silenced or the party is already defeated; and second, that they feel much stronger than they did in 1868, and propose not to wheedle but to lash the recusants into submission. But the fact is none the less evident and significant that the support of the Southern wing is indispensable to Democratic success. Therefore, if, in the National Convention of the party, Mr. Vallandigham, who, in 1864, made the Chicago platform of surrender to the rebels, should, in 1872, make another platform of surrender to the Republicans, it would certainly be an occasion of satisfaction to every patriot that the party did not take an openly revolutionary position, but it would as certainly be no ground lor sup porting a party which contains every revolutionary ana disturbing element. The question, as we stated last week, would then btrwhether a purer administration or greater fidelity to the new order could be more reasonably be expected from the Democratic party than from the Republican party. There can be little doubt that the Vallandigham platform would help the Democratic party in the Northern States, but it would as surely exasperate the staunchest • Southern Democrats. Meanwhilethose who are disposed to think that the Democratic party is always handled with admirable sagacity, and that it can rely upon its stern discipline, may refresh their memories with the history of its last three National Conventions in 1860, 1861, and 1868, of which it may be said that each surpassed the other in political blundering.— Harper's Weekly.