Providence Morning Star

POLITICAL PARTIES.

The planting of a new party having failed through the good sense of the people, the politicians are completely at sea upon the true dividing line between themselves and the wicked men on the other side. Nor could wisdom itself tell us what goes to make up, in this blessed year 1877, a good Republican and a true Democrat; since the latter claims for himself what might be credited, with a certain show of truth, to the former. The luckiest thing for the Democrats, however, is the quarrel in the Republican camp, because this loud talk, as compared with the perfect silence of the Democrats, justifies, apparently, that ridiculous talk about a solid South and Democratic harmony produced by stern discipline. But it happens that the South was not so solid during the Presidential election, and that, from the very nature of things, it can never be a "solid unit" as against the North or West. It happens, moreover, that the fourth of March literally and absolutely ushered in a new era of good feeling in which all participate, except the soreheads and the wire-pullers of the old school. The historic school of Democracy up to that time was kept alive by the unpardonable blunders of Republican managers, from Appomattox to the inauguration of President Hayes. That fruitful breeding of honest opposition having been happily removed, pray, where is Democracy? What does it live on? What does it propose to do?

The truth is that the days of Jefferson and Jackson are past beyond recovery; they are irrevocably gone, and the Democrats of the old school must either give up their old ground, or they must fight the windmills. The Democratic party is dead, and unless it be buried soon it will be an offense before the summer is over.

Nor can there be any reasonable doubt that the Tildens, the Bayards and the Pendletons, that the New York World, the Chicago Times and the Louisville Courier-Journal see this much better than we Eastern Republicans can. If the Republicans of the country were a party in the sense of Chandler and Morrill, or in the sense of many good-natured citizens who are habitually voting the Republican ticket, or in the sense of 1860, it is but justice to confess that such a party is likewise as dead as a doornail. But the Republicans are not a party in the sense of British Whigs or French Republicans, and have no resemblance whatever to that organization which is so mysteriously alluded to in the conversations of the laboring chiefs. This force in our political life is simply national, and every line of division drawn by geography or ethnology is manifestly unhistorical and absolutely absurd. This political and national force emanates from our whole history and from our whole civilization, and cannot be subdued until it has spent itself, after leaving its present youth, and long after it has forgotten the coming days of its maturity.

It is not idle newspaper talk, if we add, that the American people know this to be a fact, and that it is felt most keenly by those who up to this year had a right to call themselves Democrats. What then is to become of the old Republican and Democratic parties? As such they will vanish, as such they must disappear even from the thoughts of the people. The leaders, of course, will use many vain words about democracy and treason, but let the people not be confounded by the death song of these black swans. Let the people rather share in the solemn burial of these ancient and once glorious managers, and then turn away from the past to the living present and the dawning future. And what are the prospects?

The Republicans, not the Republican "party," are bound to give the country honest laws at home and a spirited policy abroad. The former implies an early return to gold as our currency, an improvement of the civil service and some reform in our commercial laws. The opposition will help to make these movements definite and lively. It is possible even, judging from late events in Ohio and Illinois, that a new party may be formed in the course of this opposition. Such a party may pledge itself to a vicious currency, or to absolute free trade, or to absolute protection, or to national subsidies, or to the system of patronage, or to strict party rules, but it is evident that any and all of these factors will send a great many Southern and Western Democrats over to the Republicans, while the disappointed egotists now among the Republicans may prefer to throw their lot with the opposition. The two camps will then contain respectively a national school of Conservatives, and a special party of Democrats, the latter pledged to some particular scheme, the former loyal to the general traditions of the Republican school, of which they are the legitimate heirs. It is possible even that such a new party of Democracy may soon gain size and strength, for we cannot hope that our history, so full of healthy action, will escape from time to time some violent reaction. In the mean time our Democrats of 1876 should see their inevitable fate, while the Republicans should learn the duty of the hour and the labors of the morrow. And all men should see that the days of sectionalism are over, that the days of class legislation are spent, that we have but one country and but one duty, that of serving it with honest and heartfelt loyalty.