The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1858-07-08

mand, while prices were without change OF Importance
Rye sold at 6o3<o. roc Pork was active Add
nrmer, with sales Of at SIG so SIG %, and Of
prime at SIS 60 $l3 S. Beef and lard also rmer
and In good request Sugars continue arm, with sales
Of SEQ 800 hhds and rs boxes q. rates given In another
place Coffee was quiet, dealers arc waiting for the
public sale Of Santos to of today Freights were
quite steady, while engagements were moderate.
The Presldential Questasn.-Party Cenvsn-
lions Election By the People.
The political parties Of the country, in refer
ence to 1860, are, at this juncture, in q most
glorious state of Generalization, disintegration,
doubt, uncertainty and confusion. Hence the
party managers and pipelayers of high and
low degree, have all lost their reckonings,
and know not whittier they are drifting and
hence there is prospect that, in regard to Mr..
Buchanan's successor, the masses of the peo-
pie, who are not the slaves of any party party
junta, will hold the election in their hands.
We are, in this view, decidedly in favor of
free election; or, if you please, scrub race.
And why? Because our nominating party con-
ventions have degenerated into the most corrupt
and spoils gamblers in the civilized world;
because these conventions are in the power of
faithless and treacherous demagogues; because
their nominations are the mere bargains of
spoilsmen for the spoils; because they usurp
the rights Of the people, and reduce the great
principle of popular suffrage to mere mock
cry; and because, where they nominate one
man of the capacity Of Mr.. Buchanan, they set
up two or three of the cslibre of poor Pierce
Take, for example, the three party conyen-
tons of 1856. Excepting the Tyler Baltimore
Convention Of 1874, was there ever q more ridi-
culous assemblage of broken down political
hucksters and camp followers than that at Phi
ladelphia. which split to pieces upon the slavery
question, leaving the Southern seceders the duty
Of nominating Mr.. Fillmore as their national
candidate. The spoils jugglers at Cincinnati
were more HARMONIOUS; put thrir narm0ny, and
their candidate and their platform were forced
upon them and they had no other alternative
Of escape. The same may be said of the Seward
and Mclean managers at the Philadelphia Re-
publican Convention. Fremont was not their
man; they were compelled to take him by the
pressure of public opinion. But the Seward
scene sbifters, though they could not arrest
Fremont's nomination, still had the power to
defeat his election, and they did it.
Again, the Fillmore and Webster managers
Of 1852 were active participants In the Wing
Convention which nominated General Scott;
but where were they in the election? The Van
Buren, delegates and drummers were at hand at
Baltimore in 1913; but how Jared the nomina-
ton Of General Cass at their hands? The old
wing stagers al Philadelphia in lsis found
it hard TO relinquish their favorite, but, after
dropping their first choice, what would
have been the fate Of General Taylor but
for the unexampled msgnanimity of Henry
Clay? A single word from him would have
demolished old Rough and Ready much
more efectually than General Cass was de-
molshed by the detection of Van Buren,. It
was thus only the magnanimity Of Clay that
prevented the election Of isis from being
scrub race all round. In fact since the full
Development of these spoils gambling concerns,
called national conventions, with Martin Van
Buren's frat nomination, the evils which have
grown with their growth andstrengthened with
their strength have been party Generalization,
the rascality Of cliques and individuals, official
looscness and official corruption in every shape
and form. Such are the evils which, original
ing with these national conventions, have come
down to the bruiscrs Of Tammany Hall and the
gallows birds Of our primary elections
We should like to see this whole system of
party rufisnism, jugglery and roguery broken
up, under which the free suffrsges Of the peo-
pie have been usurped and are controlled by
this or that set Of political pawnbrokers,
usurers, lazy loafers, old hacks and confidence
men; and we should like of all things, to have
once more a free Presidential election by the
people. We have said that the dismantled and
demoralized condition Of our existing political
parties opens up fine prospect for such an
election in 1860; but still we see that while all
sections, factions and cliques and leaders OF the
democracy have their eyes fixed upon their next
National Convention at Charleston, the republi-
cans and the rump Of the Know Nothings are
as firmly impressed with the notion that they
can only secure their candidate and their prin-
ciples through the paltry devices and pipe
layers Of National Convention.
In this connection the present movements of
the Crittenden Know Nothing managers on the
one hand, and of the Seward republican wire
workers on the other, though only partially dis
closed upon the surface, are very amusing
Crittenden thus far appears to have the inside
track by all odds; bat let his friends look sharp
or when least expected they may ffud him laid
out by the Seward sappers and miners az cold
as they have laid out Mr.. Douglas With regard
othe democracy, as their three last candidates
Case Pierce and Buchanan were all from the
North, their national convention nomination
will, in oil probability, in 1850, be a Southern
man
Prom this view we may, perhaps, explain the
Northern exposure upon Kansas Of Gov. Wise