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Show POLITICAL REVULSIONS. Blnce Jackson's Time They nave Maltl- pllml. Special Correspondence. New Yohk, Nov. 20. The moral o,' the late election, arithmetically speak- ing, is solf evident the older the country coun-try grows the more doubtful each election elec-tion becomes, and a comparatively small change in the popular vote makes an enormous change, in tho representative j vote. Garfield is supposed to have had a "sweeping victory" 214 electoral votes to 135. Vet his plurality on the popular vote was but 7,08 out of 8,801, 088 for the two leading candidates less than one-tenth of 1 per cent! A change of one vote in sixty in one state in 1888 would have elected Cleveland. Vet Harrison had 233 electoral votes to 108. Fifty thousand votes, or one in 230 of the total, located in close states, would have given Cleveland an "overwhelming victory" in tho electoral college. And whore is tho politician wise enough to foresee the trifling accident that may change one vote in 230? Except in 1800 the result was a foregone fore-gone conclusion at each election till 1824. Then the foundations of the great political deep were broken up. Of the four candidates John Quincy Adams was chosen by the house of representatives, representa-tives, although Gen. Jackson had a much larger popular and electoral vote. Tho people wore angry, yet, strange to ' pay, of all the great men then living not ' one foresaw the revolution of 1828 the first great political revolution of our history. his-tory. The scandals of that campaign were simply frightful. Those good old people l who think the world is growing worse I should read some of tho campaign ' papers of 1828. It is scarcely an exag-I exag-I deration to say that Mrs. Jackson was j murdered. She saw her name paraded j in the public prints as that of the vilest of women, but bore up till the election was over and then died nominally of ' heart disease. On the day of the election the great Whig leader indulged in a confident prophecy. The whole number of electoral elec-toral votes was '261, of which Jackson received 178 and Adams 83. For vice president Cullionn received 171, all others 00. In the house of representatives representa-tives then elected Andrew Stephenson was chosen speaker by 153 votes to 39 for all others. And yet issues were so little defined that there was a majority in congress for the United States bank. Tho election of 1832 could not be called revolution, yet it was even more surprising. sur-prising. It was exnltingly proclaimed, and not denied by Jackson's friends, that nearly all the wealth and three-fourths of the profwsional men were against him. The number of electoral votes was 288, of which Jackson received 219 and Clay 49! Vermont voted for Wirt, anti-Mason, anti-Mason, and South Carolina for John Floyd, whom the historians have charitably char-itably allowed to be forgotten. In 1838 Van Uureri received 170 electoral elec-toral votes and Harrison but 73. The panio of 1837 "obiterated the ancient landmarks," as the jonrnals of the day expressed it, and the congress of 1839-41 showed a great falling off. Still the Democrats were ablo to elect as speaker the once noted and often ridiculed Robert Rob-ert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter, of Virginia. Vir-ginia. In 1840 the revolution was complete com-plete Harrison received 234 electoral votes and Van Buren 001 This was not so great a surprise then as it now seems, for the country really was in a very bad way. Two years later came the greatest surprise perhaps in our history the Whigs elected but 09 congressmen and the Democrats 140. In 1844 the figures remained nearly the same, yet in 181(1 the Whigs chose 115 congressmen and the Democrats but 108. The election of Taylor in 1818 was due to a Democratic "split" in New York, so the subsequent 'steady decline of the Whigs was no surprise. Their last fight was in 1852, when they got but 71 congressmen con-gressmen to the Democrat 159. Two years later came the fourth great political polit-ical revolution in our history. The division di-vision of parties in tho Thirty-fourth congress con-gress was not clear, but the Democrats were iu a "ninority, and a combination of Republicans and others controlled the house, N. P. Banks being chosen speaker. Tho slavery agitation was reopened, but parties remained more evenly balanced bal-anced than appears on the surface. At any rate, there was no "great revolution," revolu-tion," and in 1800 Lincoln received but 41 per cent, of the popular vote, yet he had 180 electoral votes to 127 for all others. The law of politics that the party in power loses ground in the "off year" asserted itself in the very heat and fury of civil strife, and in 18H3 all the "close states" went against the administration. adminis-tration. The next three elections must be regarded re-garded as exceptions to the general rules; nevertheless the Democrats, who had elected but 40 congressmen in 1804, got 88 in 1372, to the Republicans Republi-cans 195. Then came the greatest of all "revolutions," both popular and representative. rep-resentative. The majority of 7W,000 for Graut in 1872 gave plaoe to a Democratic Demo-cratic majority of about 400,000 in 1874, and in the Forty-fourth congress the Democrats hud 178 to the Republicans, 108. The change iu the popular vote is not easy to estimate, as tho vote on president presi-dent and congressmen in 1872 varied greatly, but it fell little short of 1 ,000,000. The next "revolution" was not so surprising, sur-prising, but it was big enough, for the small Republican majority iu the Forty-seventh Forty-seventh (Garfield) congress was changed in 1882 to a Democratic majority of 81. Thechange from 1884 to 1880 was not sufficient suf-ficient to wipe out the Democratic majority, ma-jority, and even in 1888 the apparent popular majority was Democratic. So the year 1890 must stand in pur history as the era of the greatest overturn until ? From the foregoing summary the intelligent reader can properly estimate the fellow who is positive he l:nows just how the next election is going. J. H. Beadle. : |