The Sun.
London, England, 1864-01-14 00:00:00

American Presidential Candidates.

(From the New York Iribune)
There is such a thing as running men for the Pre-
sidency, and there may be such a thing as running
them into the ground. We have an illustration of
these two facts in the course of a leading sensation
journal of this city. Whoever will take the trouble
to tarn over its files for the last three months will
find that it has enforced the claims of half a dozen
candidates for Presidential honours with equal zeal
and sincerity, while distributing the damaging
effects of its advocacy among its several favourites
with an impartial hand. When we remember that
during the last three or four Presidential campaigns
it has supported the candidates who were defeated,
and that the stunning blows they received at the
polls were in exact ratio with the warmth of its
advocacy, it must be conceded that its modesty in
suggesting a successful name for the coming contest
is as conspicuous as was its wisdom in selecting
those of the past. Its embrace having always been
sure destruction to the unfortunate candidate upon
whom it forced its favours, one would think any
soldier or civilian who might venture to aspire to
the Presidential chair would, the moment it prof-
fered him its aid, cry out, in the words of the
Spanish proverb, " Deliver me from my friends, and
I will take care of my enemies."

The journal in question has, with the last few
months, alternately, not to say simultaneously, be-
stowed its laudatory commendations upon General
Banks, General Rosecranz, Gen. Blair, Governor
Seward, and Governor Chase, as suitable and hope-
ful candidates for the White House. The favourites
upon wkom it has longest and oftenest poured
the fulsome beslummerings are General M'Clellan
and Mr. Lincoln. Now, the ex-commander of the
army of the Potomac wqs the hero designed by Pro-
vidence to conciliate the insurgents, explode the plots
of the Radicals, crush the aspirations of the irre-
pressible negro, and bring order out of chaos by re-
storing the Union and reviving the good old times
when Davis and Seward hobnobbed in the Senate,
and Grow and Keitt exchanged salutations in the'
House. Then, scanning the dark and troubled clouds
that lowered over the country, " Honest Old Abe,"
slow and sure, cautious and conservative, was the
only man to be dreamed of for steering the ship of
state through the breakers and reaching peace and
prosperity by the shortest cut—" the pilot for wea-
thering the storm." Whoever will run over the
columns of our versatile neighbours during the times
of which we write—and he need not go back many
weeks—will, perhaps, at the first perusal, be a little
confused at the " promiscuous and worrysome way,"
to quote the words of Sarah Gamp, in which the
names are mixed up—as, for instance, Banks and
Blair, Rosencranz and Banks, Chase and Seward,
Seward and Chase, M'Clellan arid Lincoln Lincoln
and M'Clellan, and so on. But to ring the changes
on candidates in this way is not as difficult as one
would suppose. As Hamlet says, "it is as easy as
lying."
Having boxed the compass with its old favourites
and run their names up and down the scale till
they grate upon the ears of its readers, this viva-
cious journal now seeks a new sensation in the per-
son of General Grant. The furore with which it lays
hold of its fresh victim indicates that its passion will
not last long; though perhaps it will be protracted
enough to kill off the man who could storm Fort
Danelson, vanquish Sidney Johnson at Shiloh, cir-
cumvent Pemberton at Vicksburg, and pass un-
scathed through the tempest of shot and shell at
Chattanooga. We have the highest appreciation of
the services of General Grant. \Yo believe there
can be scarcely any limit set to his powers of en-