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Show THE COMING STRUGGLE. <br><br> Every breeze that blows from the east is laden with premonitions of the coming struggle for political supremacy in the United States. The clans have donned their armor and but wait for their respective chiefs to be placed in the field to rush with them to glorious victory or inglorious defeat, and just what the outcome will be can scarcely be conjectured with any degree of satisfaction, even thus late in the day. But whatever it may be - wholesale victory shall perch upon the crest of the resolute hosts who bear the banner of Democracy, or alight upon the helm of the defiant and aggressive hordes who marshal themselves in piebald array behind the ???? of the Republican part - one thing is well enough assumed?, that the winner will have a close and hotly contested race; there will be no "walk over" for either side; and in this very fact the student of politics may find the elements of another struggle more intense, more exciting and more threatening to the peace and welfare of the nation than was that of 1873. Should General Grant be the ??? of the Republican party - and present events point strongly to such result - his nomination will be owning solely to the action of the political machine independent and in defiance of the judgment and wishes of the better element of that party, many of which class would retaliate by acting independently at the polls or not going there at all; this would make such inroads upon the "positive strength" which the supporters of the ex-president claim that he is possession of, as would make the contest more nearly equal than when he last ran for the Presidency, and count strongly for the other side. Knowing this, as they undoubtedly do, his managers still insist upon his nomination, because, as they have repeatedly stated, he is the kind of man that, if elected, would take the seat to which he was chosen. This line of argument becomes quite diaphanous when submitted to the analysis? of logic and comparision [comparison]. The Democratic party has never, in any instance, ??? the right of a successful Presidential opponent to his seat; on the contrary, to avert civil war, they have permitted the Republicans to defraud them out of a well and honestly earned victory, and that is the only case of the kind in the history of the country. There is - there must be - something ??????? all such talk, and to the thinker and reasoner, what motive in that connection looms up more vividly than the one that the Grant henchmen propose to treat the election as a mere formality and ran in a man who would if needs be grasp the reins of government by military force? The last election showed the Republican party to be in the minority in the United States by more than a quarter of million votes; it held over, however, by the sheer force of fraud, and, knowing by the past that the Democracy are slow to fight even for what belongs to them, what conclusion more rational than that they will place in front a man who knows more of fighting than anything else in order, if possible, to overawe the enemy on the eve of the battle, and failing in the that, to walk off with the prize ??????. <br><br> But, after all, such calculations may be based upon bad premises. The rejections? of history? are generally divided by a more extended period than the brief span of four years, and it does not follow that a surrender for peace in 1873 insures a repetition of that programme [program] in 1881. Vastly otherwise. The Democracy, still smarting under the infliction of the fraudulent practices by which their last victory was converted into a defeat, may hereafter conclude to favor their party more and their country less; they or many of them, have already announced that they will not submit to an 8-to-7 scheme again; so that, if ???? can ???? should be as unquestionably elected as when Tilden four years ago, there will be trouble in the land. In other word, the Democratic party does not propose to turn the other cheek, and we can see no sufficient reason why it should. |
