The Spirit Of Democracy

From the N. Y. Herald, 5th inst.

A Surprising Manifesto.

A remarkable announcement was made by the Tribune yesterday, apparently on the authority of Mr. Garfield. The President elect was badly advised when he consented to have that announcement made in a semi-official form. It consists of two parts, and it is not easy to decide which was intended to be the major and which the minor notification. The singularity of its being published in New York on the morning of the day when a test was expected to be made of the anti-Conkling strength at Albany suggests some inferences which we are reluctant to draw. The first part of this extraordinary notification is couched in the following terms: "The time seems fit for at least one statement about the approaching administration of President Garfield. It is not to be used as a makeweight, in pending Senatorial contests, whether in New York or elsewhere. We are fully authorized to say this, and the words are entitled to their full significance." Had the statement ended here the intention expressed would have been perfectly right; but the abstention announced is so clearly the duty of the President elect that it is surprising that he should have authorized a journal to proclaim it in so formal a manner. It seems so superfluous as to raise a doubt whether it was not intended merely as a preface to the second part, which is as follows: It is proper to say, further, that the incoming administration will see to it that the men from New York and from other States, who had the courage at Chicago to obey the wishes of their districts in the balloting for President and who thus finally voted for Garfield, shall not suffer for it nor lose by it. They will not fail of honorable recognition for their independence, their courage, their resolute pursuit of the policy they believed best for the republican party and for the country. Considering the time selected for its publication this looks like an assurance from Mr. Garfield to the anti-Conkling faction that, so far as the new President is concerned, they should lose nothing politically by fighting Mr. Conkling at Albany as resolutely as they fought him at Utica and Chicago. But this is interference under a mask of non-interference. If Mr. Garfield had known as much when he authorized it as he will know when he learns of the collapse ensuing he would have kept strictly aloof and have maintained the perfect silence which befitted his position.