Rensselaer Union, Volume 11, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 April 1879 — The Democratic Return to Power. [ARTICLE]

The Democratic Return to Power.

In the session 'of Congress which opened the other day, the Democratic party, for the first time in twenty years, will have a majority in both houses. The last Congress in which the Democrats held the same degree of power was the Thirty-fifth, and even at that time their waning influence had received a severe check In the election of Mr. Banks to the Speakership of the previous House, after a struggle lasting from the 4th of December ,to the 2d of February, and embracing one hundred and thirty ballotings. Still, the organization of the Democrats was in appearance compact, add their numerical strength great They had 39 members of the Senate, to 20 liepublicans and 5 Americans, and 131 members of the House, to 92 Republicans and 14 Americans. In the next Congress the Republicans had reached 25 in the Senate, to the Democrats 38 and Americans 2, while in the House they-hajdll3,to.the-DoßmeratslOl and Americans 23. And of the 101" Democrats, 8 were opposed to the Administration of President Buchanan, and represented constituencies which soon became Republican. Before the Thirty-sixth Congress came to an end

the Southern Senators and most of the Representatives, had withdrawn froth the capital, and left the Legislative Department of the Government in undisputed possession of the party which was from that moment to cany it through the terrible trial of Civil War and the scarcely less severe ordeal of reconstruction. "The issue on which the Democrats lost the Government was in form and general outline verf simple, though as wide aa the land in its application, and involving many and complicated results in its settlement. It was. Is slavery or freedom national P and the ift&indiale measure as to which the principles of, the opposing parties were asserted was, Shall Congress prohibit or protect slavery in the TerritoriesP On that question the South, seeing tho tendency of public opinion In the North overwhelmingly and permanently against it, rejected the arbitrament of the ballot and challenged that of Civil War. Although the Democracy for mapy years before the war had held professions of the loftiest devotion to the Union, its animating spirit was essentially sectional. It was for the Union so long as the South was dominant in the National Government. As a party its love for the Union broke down the moment the National Government passed into the hands of its opponents. During the war, as before and since, it was constantly hampered by its blind attachment to its Southern leaders, its besotted sympathy with the powerful section which nad always controlled its counsels and shaped its course. With the approach of war, a noble opportunity was presented to it. Had it had the sagacity and the moral courage to repudiate completely the aims ana principles of the South, to let slavery die as the consequence of the crime of its supporters, to hold up the hands of the Administration in the most energetic measures for the suppression of the rebellion, and at the same time to concentrate its force on the task of moderating and regulating the policy of the Republicans, it might have made for itself an honorable record, and disputed far sooner than it did the supremacy it had lost and which it has now partly regained, by means not creditable to itself or of advantage to the country. The Republicans assumed the reins of government at a time of intense excitement, and surrounded by immense perils and difficulties. Its leaders were in great degree untrained, and its opinions on all, except the one supreme Question of freedom and the Union, jvere unformed. It plunged almost immediately into serious errors. Its fiscal measures were crude, wasteful and extravagant; Its financial

measures were even worse, its organization of the civil service was blind and reckless. Had the Democrats, skilled as many of their leaders were, chosen the part of a rational and loyal opposition, they might have at all times commanded respect; they might not unfrequently have won important victories; and they would certainly have maintained a party existence very different from the shameful and humiliating one which they led for the next fifteen years. When they finally came again to have a majority in Congress, they would have been a party of distinct and practical principles, capable of administering the Government in a wholesome, and conservative, and honest fashion. That they chose an opposite course shows how true is the judgment that the essential spirit of the party was that of servitude to the South, and that once having lost the guidance of the leaders of that section, within the Union, they had no sound and living principles, based on an honest interpretation of the Constitution and a' sincere appreciation of the public interests, to fall back upon. The justice of this judgment is still further sustained by the manner in which they have partly regained power. The Democrats to-day have no positive and substantial claim to the confidence of the country. They owe their return to power in part to weariness with the ill use which the Re-

publicans have, to some degree, made of their opportunities, in part to fraud and violence in the solid South, and, in great measure, to their most outrageous pandering to the dishonest desires and ignorant prejudices pf a portion of the people with reference to the finances. There is not a single principle of sound Constitutional interpretation which they are expected to apply, not a single measure of wise administration which they are expected to enact. Under an entirely illusory and deceitful profession of extraordinary devotion to the rights of the States, it is known that they will not only refrain from repressing, but will encourage the attempts of the South to wrong the entire country by the perversion and corruption of the suffrage. Under alike pretense, equally known to be false, they will try to turn the ballot-boxes of the North over to. repeaters and fraudulent Canvassers, such as were furnished by Tammany in its palmy days. At the same time, in flagrant defiance of the principle they profess, they will try to sustain the most enormous and dangerous centralization of poWer in the houses of Congress, simply because these are in their hands. With like inconsistency as to centralization, and with a defiant disregard of sound financial principles, they will seek to make the Federal Government the absolute and arbitrary possessor of thp power to enrich or impoverish individuals by the control of the currency. By these two signs—the solid South and the usurpation of the power of Federal interference in finance—they have conquered, and by these they must be guided. It will be for the leaders of the Republican party to say whether their dangerous tendencies shall be brought to condemnation before the people, and whether a wiser, stronger, more honest party shall check their progress, and give to the country the substantial blessing of a wsally reformed Government. — N. T. Times. , ki*