If we look to the record of the Republican party with a view to making a forecast of its future conduct, we find that at the end of the war the party had before it the choice between military rule and negro rule for the South--between a government carried on through generals and provost-marshals, unknown to the Constitution and to the courts, and destined to prolong for ages the disruption of the Union and disquiet of the nation, and, on the other hand, a rule founded upon the principles of equity and self-government, dear to our race, and supported by local majorities, not by foreign bayonets. Although possessed of the whole military power of the nation, the Republicans refuse to endanger their country, and established a system intended to lead by gradual steps to equal suffrage in the South. The immediate interest of the party, as distinguished from that of the country at large, was the other way. The Republican majority of the presidential elections of 1860 and 1864 had been increased by the success of the Federal arms, borne mainly by the Republicans of New England and the West, in a war conducted to a triumphant issue under the leadership of Republican Congressmen and generals. The apparent magnanimity of the admission of a portion of the rebels, warm-handed, to the poll, would still further have strengthened the Republicans in the Western and Border States; and while the extreme wing would not have dared to desert the party, the moderate men would have been conciliated by the refusal of the franchise to the blacks. A foresight of the future of the nation happily prevailed over a more taking policy, and, to the honor of the Republican leaders, equal franchise was the result.