PUBLIC OPINION IN THE UNITED STATES.

Globe, Volume V, Issue 528, 26 February 1876, Page 3

PUBLIC OPINION IN THE UNITED STATES.

A correspondent of the Pall Mall Gazette writes :

The result of recent elections in the United States has been attributed in some quarters to a revulsion of public opinion—for the Republican party in the North, and against it "in Dixie's Land. There is no doubt about the result, and it is devoutly to be wished that the means suggested were the true moving cause ; only I, for one, am unable to accept them. To say that there is no public opinion in America is high treason there, and will sound paradoxical abroad ; but lan afraid it is the truth. We hear a great de vl from the stump about what " this people" mutt have, and what " this people" will not endare; *ll of whioh in but the

striking of the hook into "this people's" nostrils, as a preparatory to leading them where the politicians list. There is class opinion, party opinion, sectional opinion ; but public opinion, as you understand the phrase and its power, is x in the problem. Take one example. Suppose! President Grant had issued a famous Admiralty Circular (and he has done things quite as wild), public opinion would not have denounced it, Republicans, and all who had anything to hope from that party, would have supported it and him, no matter what they thought on the subject. Democrats and every one who hungered for possible Democratic loaves and fishes would have assailed it and him. " This people " would have joined a chorus in the key of its several newspapers, which would have taken sides rabidly. Something spicy would have been published about the wife or daughter in-law of the Secretary of the Navy, and the thing would have stood its ground as though nothing had been said against it. I wag told the other day, apropos of this affair, that a Government that would " go back on itself," like that of Mr Disraeli, "wasn't worth shucks."

Republicans are delighted over the score of their second innings. In the first, played some two years ago, they were beaten—they say because the President had made bad appointments and suffered the Third Term phantom to arise. Now he has repented of such evil ways (which he hasn't) and exorcised that bogie (which walks still) with printer's ink; and therefore the strayed sheep have come back to their fold. Democrats fiie salutes of 101 guns in honor of the victory in Mississippi, which doas not help their cause in the least; and both sides pour out libations to public opinion much as belligerents used to sing "Te Deums" for doubtful victories.

A split in the Democratic camp in New York is the true reason for Republican gains in that State. The Tammany of Tweed and Sweeny fought the irregulars of Morrissey, ex-prize fighter and present proprietor of gambling houses, and the result was as of old when the lion and the bear had an unpleasantness over the carcass of the stag. The Republican fox stole in, and nearly got the stakes. If public opinion had been alive, it would have sent them all three to the rightabout. Tammany, hard hit, would have been honest if it could, but its late Sachem, though in a gaol, and enjoying the prospect of changing it for the Penitentiary, is a power still. He can " split "if his friends, who are working hard to save him, are not taken care of. The constituency which supported the banker at Saratoga was perhaps as brutal and corrupt as ever disgraced a city. It had but one good man and one good cry. The man was Hackett, the Recorder ; the cry, against those who would put him off the bench because he had done justice upon it. Tbe same votes used to elect Mr Fisk's justices, and would poll for Beelzebub himself ifghis party record was square. Public opinion did raise a feeble voice for Hackett (and it is a thousand pities that it did not provide him with better company), but it did not elect him. Political morality was improving in New York because it had touched bottom, The Park scandals and the police scandals were the residuum of a past rule of wrong. If you will make an administrator pay about ten years' purchase for a place he cannot hope to hold for more than three, and which brings nothing in the shape of honour, but rather the contrary, you know what to expect. If you make it the chief business of your police to propitiate voters, you must not be surprised if the thieves prosper. _ It is just, however, when sick people are improving that they feel most acutely what they have suffered. And so it is with States. Charles 1. of England and Louis XVI. of France were not the worst of their families though public opinion sent their heads rolling. But there public opinion set up something quite contrary to what it had knocked down.

In Mississippi the census gives 10,000 more blacks than whites; consequently, say the Republicans, there must have been violence or fraud, or both, at the late election, for it gave the other side a majoiity. This is either to ignore public opinion altogether, or to insist that it grows in the skin. According to this theory you can no more wash a negro white than you can argue bis Republican convictions out of him. According to the other side Sambo has been thinking it over, and come to the conclusion that " old massa" is his natural friend and ally, and resolved to stick by " old massa, as 'fore de war." Sambo does not think it over. "II n'a pas de quoi." He feels that he hasn't got that " forty acres of land and a mule" he was promised out of old massa's residue. He knows that he hates " dem dare stuck-up niggers," who are clerks of court and sheriffs, and he stands in awe of young massa's shot gun. He only wsnts a chance to tear old massa and young massa to pieces. He has passions, vices, in some rare cases virtues, but no opinions.

It would be the salvation of this country if the people would undertake to think for themselves and act upon the result. Then there would bs a general break up of parties and " rings," and things would be called by their right names. But I see no sign of this good time coming. Besides, the Constitution of the United States does not encourage "this people" to form opinions and act upon them. It contrives a complicated machinery for deadening blows directed at the powers that be by the popular will; and when the popular will does not see the effect of its strokes, it not unnaturally grows tired of striking.