Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 January 1877 — The Democratic Line of Retreat. [ARTICLE]

The Democratic Line of Retreat .

The presidential contest was a close one. The democratic party, UlogioeL at all times, reasoned that a close contest necessarily meant viotory for democrats. The republic an party was expected to retire from the field, crestfallen and crushed; but, instead, it rested on ' its armq and awaited ths facts. This refusal to be crushed, this disposition to eoolly await the facts, was, in-the eyes of the democrats, a crime little short of treason. Discovering that (hey had not won the battle, discovering that the republican party still held the field, they adopted the plan of boldly claiming all that wan in dispute, and undertook the difficult task of convincing the people that lor a democrat to claim a thing was to submit evidence that he possessed it. The position was, in short, to present a bold and threatening front and wring victory out ot defeat. The advance line was well formed. The position occupied took in Wisconsin, Oregon, Nevada, Louisiana, South Carolina and Florida as democratic states, They had carried them, aud the man who said they hadn’t was a falsifier and a traitor. The democrats had pledged their fortunes aud their sacred honors to maintain the integrity ot this democratic line of states. We desire to emphasize the point that they were frantically earnest and proportionately noisy about this claim. To question it was criminal. This was the advance position occupied by the democratic party for a week after the election. Then commenced the retreat. They yielded Wisconsin, Oregon, and Nevada, and formed anew line in Florida, South Carolina, and Louisiana. They made a show of a stubborn fight, which consisted principally in much beating of drums and much throwing of dust. This was the Corinth ot their campaign. When the republicans advanced the democrats retired from Florida and South Carolina without firing a gun. They had not the semblance of a case. An-attempt'was then made to regaih;Oregon by trickery. It was a dismal failure. Louisiana became the “last ditch” of their campaign, and Giq end will be a surrender. This'much * as to claims as to .states; how as to the claims put as to methods of settleof constitutional questions. After weeks devoted to elucidation and eulogy of a plan that would send this final decision of the great, questiofi to the supreme court, the deihocrats suddenly decline to Consider such a proposition. The two bousjej; must agree upon a plan for counting the vote was a democratic inspiration. A democratic speaker made this impossible by dexterhousecommittee that would nqt agree on any plan. The twenty-second joint rplo was in foppe, democrats said,, but it was scarcely said until it w>s unsaid, and there was a'diuded camp. Every plan suggested as to a settlement, whether proposed by democrats or republicans, has been rejected by the democrats. The line of retreat led them to abandon every disputed state except Louisiana. Without a chance for holding that, they repudiate every suggestion looking to settlement. There is no course open but surrender, and even that cannot now be accomplished gracefully. In noticing this failure of the democratic party to establish a single claim, to carry a single point, to maintain itself in a single position deliberately taken, the people will observe that the republican position has not altered. They have quietly awaited the facts. They declined to ooncede Wisconsin to the democrat&-*rthe democrats ended by conceding it to the republicans. So with Oregon and Nevada. The republicans declined so admit that South Carolina and Florida were carried by the democrats, After weeks of investigation a congressional committee, appointed by a democratic speaker, officially promulgates the fact that Haves carried South Carolina beyond question, and a recount of the vote iu Florida, made under deiqocratic manipulation, concedes that state to Hayes. The republicans declined to admit that Louisiana was democratic. Learned democrats emigrated to that state to watch the count and to abandon any claim to it by admitting the constitutionality of the returning board. Th*ey will end iu an open confession that the state is honestly and fairly re-publican.—lnter-Ocean. There has beetrsome talk of a new flection. The republicans of Indiana would be quit» : vrilling to pick' their flints aud try it again. If the election were to take ptjice.to-day they would, carry She state by m larger .majority■ than the democracy got In October or November- Thy recent, special elec*! tiona for stole representatives show, a net republican gain In thVibree.countiee, of Jfadison, Montgomery and: Parka, lor «hppt 1,600. sipae October, That alone jriMs out more-tbaa one*, fourth of TfldenV majority—unapoHe _ * r j