| OCR Text |
Show ABOUT PARTIES. The Herald took the position some time ago that the two groat political parties of the country the Republican aid Democratic wero virtually dead. Republicans were indignant at the supposition and Democrats repudiated it with ecorn. Vet it was and is correct. cor-rect. The Republican party has ob-aned so gravely in its principles and leaders, that it has ceased to be tho aamc great party which held almost unlimited power in the country for twelve years. Its founders and most prominent leaders have severed themselves them-selves from it, and still claim to be good, honest, sound Republicans, maintaining that the rank and file are led astray by designing partisan chiefs ; and if the Republican candidate for President be re-elected it will bo by the voteB of the moat ultra Democrats in the country, who hating Greeley with a fervent hatred havo urged the formation of Grant Democratic clubs, and have labored diligently lor ms euocesa. On the other hand thero is just as little left of the Democratic party. The "Bourbons" are undisguisedly working with tho ultra Republicans; whilo the great body of the party, having cast aside the dead issues of the past, are more Republicans than were the Republicans four years ago in all except in tho theory of centralized government, which the fusion of Liberal Lib-eral and Democrats repudiate. The contest of to-day is not so much between two greal parties, as between two partially organized armies of voters, vo-ters, each having a large body of auxiliaries, aux-iliaries, skirmishers and free lances; and tho result of the Presidential election, elec-tion, however it may go, will not be a triumph of any party so considered a year ago, but of forces yet to be or-pnotzed or-pnotzed and trained to act under recofe-nucd recofe-nucd leaders. The parties oft he early future wUl be radical and conservative; the one pushing on towards attaining the unattainable; the other struggling to preserve at least a semblance of th; government as it was founded nearly a oeatury ago; the one striving for uncontrolled un-controlled and unrestricted domination, holding party paramount to country or patriotism, the other seeking to retain local self-governmeut, a democratic republicanism re-publicanism in harmony with tho constitution con-stitution as it is interpreted by the highest judicial tribunal in the coun try. It is possible that the names of these parlies may remain Republican and Democratic, but their principles, policy and representative men will show a marked change between the parties whioh commence the struggle for President Presi-dent in 1S70, and those which commenced com-menced it in IS 72; and this no matter how the election now pending may go. |
