# The Knickerbocker/Volume 63/Number 6/The Coming Presidential Election

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THE COMING PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.
We are willing to concede to President Lincoln as much honesty as belongs to human nature in general, as little ambition as usually torments men on the verge of power; and yet to believe him to be above the ordinary aspirations of man, stripped of the passions and propensities which characterize humanity, were, at once, to deify or angelify a fallen creature, or, at least, to bow down in a humiliating hero-worship.
There is something, indeed, which inspires a sort of worship of the person in power, who embodies our ideas and sentiments, and marches right on, in the realization of them. And if, in consummating his plans and aims, he surmount all obstacles, even at the expense of right, hosannas fill the air, and the loudest laudations reach his ear. The one idea overshadows all, and that realized and made potent, it matters little how the thing has been done, or what ill consequences may ultimately flow from it.
Certain very prominent notions in some men's minds, notions for the supremacy of which over all else they have long toiled and labored, have, under the present administration of our government, been partially realized, and others, it is hoped, will be. It is not, therefore, to be wondered at, that, from certain quarters and in certain magazines, the idea of the election to the Presidency, for the next term, of any other man than Mr. Lincoln should seem preposterous, and not to be thought of for a moment.
But the argument to this end, of the article on the 'Presidential Election,' in the 'Atlantic' for May, seems to us to rest on wrong principles, and to be carried out rather sophistically.
In the first place, in order to set off the present case as distinguished from every other, it is attempted to show that no election has, ever before, been held in the midst of war. It is contended that such was the case, in the war of 1812, with Great Britain, in the Texan and in the Mexican wars. Granting this to be literally true, set it is evident that in all these cases did the war question seriously affect and deeply enter into the elections of the day, just as the ruddy hues still illume the horizon, after the fiery sun has set. The speeches of Mr. Webster, in the latter cases, would prove very satisfactorily to all candid writers and readers that war was taken into the account in those elections, and was no obstacle to a free exercise of the elective franchise, and indeed never should be. If the passions of men are so uncontrollable, roused by stretches of power, on the one hand, and, on the other, by a strong sense of wrong which cuts into the very ​vitals, there might be found, in that state of things, some reason for avoiding occasions of bitter social agitation, such as calling hard names, putting the ban on social intercourse, etc.; but that one portion of the community entertaining very decided opinions as to the incapacity of the officials agents of Government, and the baleful tendency of both their principles and their practice, should sit quietly down and let the car of Juggernaut roll over and grind its thousands, is like expecting the paterfamilias to be easy and content, whilst the robber and murderer are in the house, ready for their deeds of blood. No matter though he should be mistaken, and those in the semblance of robbers should prove to be angels in dis guise, yet, believing as he did, would he be guilty of the blood of his children, if he hesitated to call the watch, and himself to resist, meanwhile, as he could.
The text of the article is, that there must be no change of the Republican for a Democratic administration, nor oven of the present members of the Cabinet. This text is not, indeed, formally announced at the beginning, as in a sermon, but immediately follows the prefatory remarks on the state of war. Arguments both precede and follow the text. The 'spirit of patriotism' is the initiative and the potent spell which solves the riddle of the hour. This is not an expository discourse, and therefore terms are left undefined, and the reader may easily imagine patriotism to be, not love of country, but sustentation of a policy adopted by the President and his Cabinet. This spirit of patriotism, a substitute for love of country, very readily settles the whole difficulty, and makes the Presidential election the most facile thing possible. But if A and B differ in their views of what constitutes love of country, how is the difficulty met? If, although A think the theories and practice of the administration the very essence of patriotism, B entertains a totally variant opinion, what then? Suppose B to hold it among his deep convictions, that consolidation, centralization, annihilation of State Rights and Federal union, do not represent the ideas of his country, derived from the action of the Fathers, and that the tendency of measures of administration is strongly in that direction, whilst A's patriotism consists in adopting into his axioms those very ideas and giving his whole soul to those measures, must not the 'spirit of patriotism' in the one dictate a course opposite to that of the other? How, then, is it to solve all the difficulty of a 'Presidential election?'
The position, therefore, is not accepted by us, that patriotism demands the support of the administration, nor, consequently, that he cannot be a very good patriot who does not. The term government is uniformly employed by such writers as the author of this article, as the synonym of administration; and hence, not to approve the latter is not to 'uphold the arm of the Government.'
Mr. Webster, as well as Mr. Seward, both recognize and make a clear distinction. In measures of policy, even in a civil war, it is entirely competent for us to dissent decidedly from those of the President, and yet uphold the Government proper. In so far as it is clear that the policy is simply that which is essential to the maintenance of the Constitution and the Federal Union, so far are we bound to sustain it, for to both these are we pledged by compact, and they are our life. This, too, is loyalty, in the only proper sense of the word, fealty to law or Constitution.
But if a policy is adopted, in carrying on the war, totally adverse to the Federative bond, and subversive of all real union, then no more is it either loyalty or patriotism to abet it, but rather to endeavor to avert it.
It is not, then, so palpable, that the only policy of voters at the coming Presidential election, which will sustain the arm of Government, and be patri​otic, is to either stay at home in quiet submission, or else to swell the number of ballots for Mr. Lincoln. To vote for another, even for a Democrat, is not at all necessarily to abandon either the war or the country.
If the main policy, that of securing the unity of the country, and establishing law and order among the people, be maintained, it is not so very apparent as to need only the statement, that Government cannot be 'strengthened' without reëlecting Mr. Lincoln.
It is conceded by the writer just here that the feeling of dissatisfaction with the Administration was very deep in 1862, and had the election then occurred, would have resulted in its defeat, and inadvertently it is also implied that the recovery of lost ground in 1863, was owing to the prominence given to Mr. Vallandingham. Very well. What does this prove? Not that the people put their stamp on the acts and deeds of Mr. Lincoln as constitutional, or necessary, or right, but only expressed their dissatisfaction with representatives of extreme measures in the other direction. Even in Ohio, where Brough's majority over Vallandingham was so overwhelming, the Democracy can now show a solid phalanx of nearly 200,000 voters.
Yet, in order to 'preserve peace at home,' that is, in the North, it is boldly asserted that that which was done in Ohio, not seven months since, must be done in the nation (the North) not seven months hence. An overwhelming majority must, in other words, be given for Mr. Lincoln in the nation, as for Mr. Brough in his State. The declaration is here plainly made that peace at home, and respect abroad, too, can only thus be preserved. Should this not, then, be the result, and Mr. Lincoln not be retained in power, who is to disturb the peace? We should be sorry to be obliged to think it a part of the Administration or Republican programme, to hold power at all hazards, to disturb the quiet of the North by war, in case of defeat at the polls. And yet it seems here to loom up; for surely the Democrats in power could not but desire the preservation of peace.
And though an overwhelming vote for the war policy should be a sine qua non for securing respect abroad, and damping all hopes in the Confederacy South, yet does it not follow, it is a non sequitur, that only a vote for Lincoln can be a vote 'for the support of the war.'
Indeed, it might be well argued, that the election of a war Democrat must be the most powerful support of the war, for the Republican vote would be necessarily so, and that added to the Democratic majority would be most effectually and effectively doing 'in the nation seven months hence, what was done in Ohio seven months since.'
The next great dogma announced is, in fact, the text of the discourse: 'The Democratic party should not be restored to power, happen what may. That is, ex cathedra, a Papal Bull. As already remarked, part of the argument preceded the theme; the rest follows.
Whilst conceding the 'loyalty and patriotism' of the Democratic party, it is contended that there should be no change, either in the position of parties or in the personnel of the Government, that is, the Administration. The doctors here, in consultation over the 'sick man,' are evidently not homœopathic, but disposed to prescribe and administer quite heavy doses of disagreeable drugs. The prescription, however, like many others, when the doctor's back is turned, will probably lie on the shelf. The patients, for whom the prescription is given, after grave and deliberate consultation, are not likely to take it; chiefly because they have lost all confidence in the physicians who have undertaken the case. Should it be swallowed by some, it would probably soon show its poisonous ingredients, in making the patients sick unto death.
But, seriously how simple is it to presume that the leaders and masses of the ​Democratic party can be wheedled into submission to power, by such manifestations of subserviency, and of determination to hold the reins of government at all hazards, or be so blinded by sophistical reasoning as to go quietly hood-winked into nonentity. It is asking a great deal of that great party to ask it to regard itself as naught, to surrender its prestige and its moral power, to confess that its silence is essential to the welfare of the Union, its triumph equivalent to its knell.
But, says the wizard author, to 'replace the Democratic party in power would be a restoration, of all things the worst in times of civil commotion.' One might suppose that the Democratic party was an essential tyrant, notwithstanding the mild, genial success with which it has so long administered the government of this country. We are led to think of a Charles, or of a Robespierre or worse, when it is intimated that the replacement of the Democratic party in power would be of all things the worst; worse even than slavery, which Mr. Lincoln has lately pronounced the sum of all villainies; for, 'if slavery is not a sin, then nothing is a sin,' a monstrous, untheological, anti-Biblical dogma.
No other restoration surely can here be meant than that of the assumption of the reins of Government by the Democratic party. This arguing is really like attempting to frighten children with a bugbear, and not reasoning with men of intelligence. To show some semblance of reason at least, it is however contend-ed that no reliance is to be placed on the Democratic party, because it would necessarily 'be governed by its most violent members.' It is by no means unnatural that such a presumption should lie as a fact in the mind of such writers as the author, since it is very evident that Mr. Lincoln, by his own recent confession, and the Republican party, have been brow-beaten and controlled by the extremist wing of that party, by its 'most violent members.' That wing, with them, has the vigor, the boldness, the persistence, the sagacity, which secure predominance; but there is no parallelism here with the Democratic party, because the intelligence, courage, and sagacity hero belong to the abettors of gentle manners, mild treatment, and, above all, constitutional rights and duties. A restoration in this case would simply be taking the reins out of the hands of drivers like Jehu, and putting them into the hands of those used to both the horses and the roads; would be only replacing the inexperieneed with men of experience and of tried statesmanship. Such a restoration is a consummation most devoutly to be wished, and may God grant it to our almost ruined country!
This European idea of restoration is followed by a most dramatic and tragic representation of the horrors to settle on the land, in consequence of this awful restoration! Why, there would be a 'proscription quite as bad as any thing known to the Romans!' 'deeds that would make our country a by-word, a hissing!' 'an end of all our fine hopes!' 'prosperity would never return!' 'our constitutional (?) polity would give way to a cannonarchy!' 'the Confederacy would become the greatest power in North-America!' and so many other tearfully tragic issues are to come out of this restoration, that they defy quotation, and even startle us in the very reading. If some Republican manager will only take the material and work it up into form and figure, bring it out on the stage with sympathizing actors, we promise a full house, and should the spectators also be sympathetic, a tearful, dolorous, tragic house.
For our part, we had thought that this very restoration is to be the only averter of all these ills, most of them already upon us; the only restorer of health and life and vigor to the bleeding, mangled body of the State.
The only remaining argument consists in replying to the oft-repeated saying, that the rebels would lay down their arms and return into the Union on the restoration to power of the Democratic ​party; and the reply is the mere assertion that it would not be so, and, further more, that it must be a craven people which could thus, by its vote, concede that only one party was fit to govern in this Republic.
Now, it is not very apparent how the aforesaid restoration would prove any craven spirit in the people, or at all demonstrate to the world that only one party is fit to rule, and that, defeated at the ballot, it would be entitled to resort to the bayonet. This is pure sophistry; for, however unjustifiable the secession of the South may have been, it certainly was not simply because the Republican party acceded to power, but because of its antecedents, its declarations, its platforms, its proceedings, doggedly adverse, as they thought, to their interest in the Republic, and subversive of the thither to recognized interpretation of the compacts and the Constitution, and violative of their rights and our duties.
Irritated, wounded, and then probed to the core with rusty, unpolished iron, by the leaders of this party, it were no great wonder if they should feel the sores to be painful, shrink from further contact with surgeons so rough and rude, and prefer a return to loyalty in the Union under the milder and more genial sway of the Democratic party. We certainly all know, for a wiser than we has taught us, that 'charity, love, covereth a multitude of sins.'
We do believe most heartily that there is immeasurably more hope of the healing of the breach under the sway of Democratic administrations, than under the adopted and enforced policy of the present incumbents, adding inflammation to irritation. But that this would grow out of any obsequiousness or any yielding of the right, on the part of the restoration, it is a mere whim, or a passion, or a hypocrisy, to assert.
The key-note of this whole piece of fine, impassioned music is found at the close of the last bar: The Baltimore Convention will meet next month, and will place Mr. Lincoln before the American people as their candidate; and that he 'will be reëlected, admits of no doubt.'
This may all be so, but it is yet prophecy; and there are, even now, the opening of seals which mutter thunders, and which may descend in lightning-bolts, and peal the bark from this prophetic tree, blast its trunk, wither its foliage, and leave its imaginative creator sitting, himself smitten, at its roots, to look on its utter prostration.
That there are loud and powerful demands for a postponement of the Baltimore Convention, and serious opposition to the renomination of Mr. Lincoln by that Convention, admits now of no doubt, for trumpet-blasts are heralding it every day.
In your patience, therefore, ye hideous Democratic demons! possess ye your souls, calmly awaiting the issues of the hour, remembering, the meanwhile, that God helps them who help themselves, as He honors those who honor Him.
The bald assertions about the noble State of Ohio, that 'it would have been arrayed against the Federal Government almost as decisively as South-Carolina,' in the event of Vallandigham's election, and that, 'had he been defeated by a small majority, his party would have taken arms against the State government, and Ohio would have done nothing for the national cause,' are both monstrous in conception, flagitious in utterance, revolutionary in tendency, and utterly unworthy of any reply.