The trouble was that the Republican party in the late campaign forgot for the moment its high mission as the party of great moral ideas, and sought victory on grounds far below its ordinary level. It made national pelf more important and prominent than national purity. It made the body more important than the soul; national prosperity more important than national justice. There was no square issue made up between the parties. One talked in favor of the tariff and the other did not talk against it. Both together beat the air and raised a dust, confused counsel, blinded the voters, and rendered victory a thing of chance rather than a thing of choice. The Republican party was not more surprised by defeat than the Democratic party was astonished by victory. Twelve hundred votes would have changed the result; so that nothing for the future can be safely predicted upon the election either way. It does not imply that the Democratic party is in power to stay, or that the Republican party is out of power to stay, or that new parties are to arise and take the place of the old. While it was painfully evident that the Republican party, during the late canvass, had little or nothing to say against the outrages committed upon the newly enfranchised people of the South, it was equally plain that the Democratic party had nothing to say in defense of these outrages. Yet it is not strange, in view of the history of the two parties, that much alarm was felt by colored people all over the South when they first learned that the great Republican party was defeated and that the Democratic party was soon to administer the National Government. Ignorant as the colored people of the South have been, and may still be, about other matters of national importance, they have always been intelligent enough as to the character and relations of political parties. They have never been mistaken as to the historical difference between the party which gave them liberty and the party which sought to continue their enslavement. They had known the Democratic party long and well and only as the party of the old master class. They naturally held the triumph of that party as a victory of the old master class. In the panic of the moment they saw in it a possible attempt to rehabilitate the old order of government in the South, in which they would be greatly oppressed if not enslaved. In the joy and exultation of the old master class over the defeat of the Republican party, and over the return of the old Democratic party to power, they read what they thought their doom. Jealous of their newly gained liberty, as well they might be, feeling themselves in peril and left naked to their enemies, their fears amounted to agony. But, thanks to the kind assurances promptly given by the President-elect and by other Democrats in high places, this alarm was transient, and has now given way in some measure to a feeling of confidence and security.