Pine Bluff Daily Graphic

PERILS OF BOLTING.

The Democrats elected James Buchanan President in 1856, says the Arkansas Democrat, and failed to elect a President in 1860 by reasons of discord and dissensions that confront us at this time. Partisan and sectional feeling ran so high in the latter year that a division of the party was inevitable with three tickets in the field against the Republican organization headed by Lincoln. The result was that the Democrats paid the penalty of their folly by being excluded from power until 1884, a period of twenty-eight years, when they elected Grover Cleveland. In a most critical period of the party's history, when it required a united front to win victory, madness ruled the hour, the party divided and suffered the penalty of defeat for more than a quarter of a century. Can it be that all the costly lessons of experience are to be lost upon us, and that by reason of a refusal to accept the principle laid down by the great apostles of our party, absolute acquiescence in the will of the majority, we are again to go down to defeat? Is history to repeat itself? It is by no means certain that we can win the election this year if union and harmony prevail, but it is absolutely certain that we shall throw away the last chance left to us if we fail to present an unbroken front to the common enemy. We must harmonize or we are lost. We must come together and agree to abide by the clearly expressed will of the majority or we go out of power to remain out many years to come.