The Sun.
London, England, 1868-10-07 00:00:00

PERSONALITIES.

A leading American Baptist paper asserts the
greater decorum of parties in the heat of Presidential
elections now than formerly. It speaks of the present
political campaign as a dull affair, tame and languid
in a marked degree when contrasted with that of 1840
or of 1844. Those who judge by the attack lately
made by judge Black on Mr.Se ward may be surprised
at the statement of the Watchman and Reflector, but
it is nevertheless true that gross personalities are not
only less frequent, but are now more generally con-
demned by the public. Many instances of extrava-
gant abuse might be brought forward in answer,
coupled with the remark that if things were worse
before, they must have been very bad indeed. This
we grant; they were worse, they are bad, but it is
hopeful, as they are growing better, and there is an
evident and most satisfactory change among the
people. There never were greater issues at stake nor
a more earnest desire of the one party to keep in,
and of the opposition to turn it out, than at present.
It is not, therefore, because the people are indifferent
to the result that the campaign is tame in its fierce
invectives, but that the malicious personal assaults
do not produce the results formerly attained, and
often recoil on those who use the weapons. If Mr.
Pendleton, when stumping .7%la.ine, rather injured
than benefited his party, he pronounced an opinion
which well became his high position as the favourite
candidate of a large section for the Presidency.
Separating the opposing candidates from the party
issues, he spoke in high terms of Grant's military
fame and personal character, which lie said he
would not injure if he could, and nothing more re-
dounded to his own credit and his party's through-
out the country than these few words. Putting
aside the attempt of the New York World to prove
Grant a drunkard, which has so completely failed,
we doubt whether there have been many really
vicious personal attacks on the candidates, and no
one ever hears of the ladies of their families, who
in former days were sometimes dragged on the
stage. The truth is that greater wealth and leisure
are refining the public taste, and society would not
now tolerate the campaign tactics of olden times.
Our cotemporary says :—" Men who were young in
1840 were shocked by the savage language of the
Whigs in that ever-memorable year, a year that
was the seed-time of all that has since been reaped
of evil in the United States. But old men laughed
at their alarm, and told them that the language
then used sounded flat and dull to those who could
remember 1800; and that even no further back than
1828 there was language used that would have
shocked the coarsest partizans of 1840. They were
right. At the close of the last century and at the
beginning of the present century thousands of re-
spectable persons looked upon Mr. Jefferson as
the very embodiment of the evil principle, and they
did not hesitate to speak of him and his friends as
freely almost as they spoke of Satan and his fami-
liars ; while Mr. Jefferson and his supporters re-
torted in terms quite as fierce and vindictive as
those that were employed against them. More than
a quarter of a century later Gen. Jackson was treated
as if he were a cruel and ridiculous madman, and
his great military exploits in Louisiana, then the
most brilliant operations known to our history,
were spoken of as if they had been a source of
injury and disgrace to his country. His private
life was torn to pieces ; and his wife, a most amiable
and exemplary woman—pious, benevolent, and ac-
tively charitable—was held up to public scorn as
if she had been a world's wonder for wickedness.
There can be no doubt that her life was shortened
by these infamous assaults on her reputation. The
JacksOnians, though they did not retaliate by making
war on women, were hardly more fair in their treat-
ment of their masculine foes. They did much in-
justice to President J. Q. Adams, and they ruined
Mr. Clay by their unfounded charges of corrup-
tion—for the impression then created against him
clung to him for life, and was the reason
why he was not nominated for the Presidency.
in 1840, when a Whig nomination was tanta-
mount to an election ; and it was the real cause of
his defeat in the closely-balanced contest of 1844."
While it is gratifying to note the steady improve-
ment, it cannot be denied that there is plenty of
room for the onward progress of the nation in this
direction, and of this we could have no better proof
than in Judge Black's attack on Mr. Seward. Our
readers are aware that Mr. Black was selected by
the President to take a leading part in his defence,
that the advocate declined acceptance without the
condition that the President should take measures to
put other and more favoured clients of his into
possession of Alta Vela, a guano island belonging
to St. Domingo. On the President's refusal he not
only refused to act, but furiously assailed the Sec-
retary of State, whom he endeavoured to implicate
as being connected with some nefarious job in
favour of opposition claimants. As usual the
manifest animus recoiled on the assailant, and
Mr. Black lost not only the prestige which
would have accrued from a prominent place in the
notable trial of the age, but lost also his guano
heap. As might have been expected, he has again
failed to do the only wise thing left to him, and
has done the only foolish thing that remained, for
he has written to the President a letter which was
grossly insolent, more especially in him who had
been a Cabinet Minister, to address to such a func-
tionary. Mr. Black can never recover the position
from which he has so heedlessly descended, for the
document is not only au outrage ou the Chief Ma-
gistrate, but it is an outrage to the Executive, and
degrading to the leaders of the United States. A
paper dictated by such spite is like the hasty rifle
shot of an eager, trembling, excited rifleman— it
not only fails to score, but it misses the butt, and
may be productive of injury in some wholly unex-
pected quarter, while the overcharged and loosely
held rifle kicks the shooter's shoulder out of joint.
The idea of abusing Mr. Seward to the President,
whose chief adviser and most responsible Minister
he is, is in itself sufficiently bad taste, but the idea
of abusing Mr. Johnson because he kept such a
Secretary of State and acted on his advice, when he
was bound so to act, is an outrage which society ought
to punish if it be not punishable by law. The lead-
ing articles of some American papers are not re-
markable for reservation or dignified rebuke in
what they condemn politically and morally,
but we never saw the rem irks of any editor
which equalled the violent language of this lead-
ing lawyer. Mr Johnson is told that all the
misfortunes of his unfortunate Administration are
due to Mr. Seward. The furious assaults on the
recreant Senators, as the Judges were called who
formed independent opinions on the evidence before
them in the Impeachment Trial, tended, in no small
degree, in the disgust created, to hasten the refor-
mstion to which we have alluded. The Washburn
and Donnelly affair shocked the country, and left a
stigma which Mr. Donnelly will find it easier to
create than to obliterate, an i the present letter of
Mr. Black, affecting, as it does, men in the highest
position, will do something to hasten the reform,
while it shuffles its author (.1 u.lge Black) off the
public stage.