The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1859-09-03

more Markets for the past week, neatly printed
on letter sheet, may be obtained at our counting
room
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Among the various cures that have been sug-
gested for the present state of Generalization and
degradation in which parties exist, and politics
have fallen, among us-s the idea that the decent
and respectable men of.every party should make it
their business to attend the primary meetings, in
stead of abandoning the control of them, as at pre-
sent, to the politicians and the rowdies. However
plausible the suggestion may SEEM we are satisfied
that the remedy is merely specious, and by no
means calculated 10 reach the real seat of disease
"nat Is the primary meeting but the very ma
chinery invented and patented by political huck-
sters and wire-pullers, for the purpose of accom-
pushing their own sefshends? The necessity par
ties under free government being taken for
granteo-aS perforce it must be-the importance of
party organization is next insisted upon, and in
geniously made the pretext under color of which.
and with show of consulting the will and con-
centrating the force of the party, INSCRIPTIONS
ana designing men are enabled to usurp
control over its destinies, and direct its ener-
gies into whatever channel they please. Nor
is this evil to be obviated so far as we can see by
the attendance of good men at the primary meet
ings-at least, not without substituting Others in
It's stead of equal or even greater magnitude
suppose that all the members of the party were to
attend the primary meetings-what would it
amount to- and what would be the consequence?
Simply-thatt the result of the public election which
is appointed by law, and intended to be the true
and only authentic means ofascertaining the popu-
VIII, would be anticipated weeks perhaps before
Its occurrence, by an election held without the au
thority of law, and at which fraud would be no
crm me- and violence only so far punishable as itmay
anect the general peace of society 1t would be only
perpeuatng and confirming a system which has
already grown to the proportions of a gigantic
abuse, and under which the formal verdict of the
people pronounced through the established medium
of the ballot box, is considered but as the last,
and, by no means, most important in q Sc
RES OF moves leading to the possession of
political power and place. Already it has
come TO pass that all the energies of
candidates directed, for the most part, towards
obtaining the nominations after which, in the case
OF the dominant party, the election is looked upon
as matter of course. Thus it has happened that
the fraud and violence which have been wont to
distinguish general elections in different portions
OF the country, have come to be transferred in
many places, to the primary meetags-with the
unerence, however, already noted that at the
primary meetings it is offence to vote Illegally.
and that fraud can only be prevented and nun
N npt IF O1a 81
OF the peace and subjects the perpetrator to legal
penalties. fit be said, that by the attendance of
good and respectable men at ward-meetinos is
meant the attendance of SUCH and such men only
to the exclusion of the vicious and the yileve as,
who is to draw the line of distinction or comnel ifs
observance when drawn? 1t is only by the at
tendance of the whole party at its primary meet
gs that the presence and corporation of the good
men IN 1t can ever be obtained; the corrupt
and depraved-they who have votes to
sell or axes to grind will be there
anyhoW-will require no urging to make them
come, and hearken to no inducement to keen them
away. The result would necessarily be. that all
the evils which characterize our present system Of
elections, and which it is proposed to remedy in
this way, would be increased and multiplied in
proportion TO the number of parties in the comm1-
nifty, and the number of primary meetings to no
heidi and that this is no mere speculation but actu
al fact, verified by experience-the history If tho
primary meetings of the American marty in tbis
city, within the past six weeks, has abundantly
proved. If it be proposed to meet this difficulty
by placing the primary meetings themselves under
the protection of law-we reply that that would
be only legazing, not diminishing the nuisance
and would tend to reduce the general elections
still lower in the scale of Importance, beneath the
level of the primary meetings.
Nor is this all. Decent and respectable men
will not attend the primary meetings no matter
by what forms they may be guarded, or under
what circumstances they may be held Some great
and exciting queston-some crisis in public affairs,
or in the history of the party may draw them out
once, perhaps or twice in a lifetime, but as for
making it their business to attend ward-lnectngs
to see that good men are nominated for the CITY
Council for magistrates. and for constables. and
that proper persons are selected to represent the
ward in District and City Conventions. thcy viii
not do it, and it is as impossible as It would be
undesirable, to make them do it. Such men will
not leave the quiet of their own homes and fire.
sides to mingle in the low intrigue Of ward poJ:-
tics, and it is unreasonable 10 expect that thev
should-particulary when to the distastefgIness
OF the business itself is added-as the experience
of the American party has lately demonstrated
the fur her risk Of being robbed and beaten. or
perhaps shot or stabbed. One Of the greatest evils
from which we already suffer is the multiplicity
and frequency of elections-an evil not likely to
be remedied by attaching to every ward meeting
the Importance and interest Of another election.
The real trouble is not that decent men do not attend
the primary meetings but that decent men permit
themselves to be bound by their action. 1t is not
that better class of men do not make and control
the nominations, but that nominations so made,
are regarded by anybody as obligatory upon the
party. Hot-beds of corruption and very nurseries
OF violence and crime-to the primary meetings
may be traced more than half of the disorders
which have political origin or sequence among
us. There was time when, to be the candidate of
caucus or cabal, was considered reproach to any
public man. 1t is now regarded as the greatest
claim which he can have upon the sufrages of the
party-one which no party man is at liberty to
disregard, without exposing his fidelity to its prn-
ciples to suspicion. The distinction is that which
marks the difference between the comparative
purity and honesty the earlier days of the Re-
public, and the corruption and dishonesty of the
politics of the present time
The inventive genius of the American people has