The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1859-02-11

about 500 boxes rates given in another place. Coffee
steady que, Freight engagements continued to
be light and rates unchanged.
Our Presidential Candidates-The Ascentlency
OF Politicians and Demagogues.
With the final overthrow and dispersion of the
old wing party two new parties arose from its
ruins, and from the disintegratioDs of the old
democratic party, to wit the late great Ameri-
can or anti-Popery party, aud the still formidable
republican, or Northern anti-slavery party. And
we have thus at the present day three very uncer-
tain parties in the feld--the dismantled pro-
slavery democracy, the antislavery republicans,
and the flag ends Of the Know Nothing camp. These
general organizations are subdivided into factions
and clques, which, taken in the lump, will mus.
ter between twenty and thirty candidates for
the next Presidency.
This would all be well enough if, in this mat
ter, the doctrine would apply that in multitude
of candidates there is safety But, unfortu-
nately, with saving exception or two, this
whole schedule of Presidential aspirants is made
up of professional demagogues, bricfess lawyers,
scheming politicians, party hucksters, and men
of Buncombe. Take, for example, the outstand-
ing list of our republican party aspirants-
Seward, Banks, Chase, Hale, Lincoln, Cameron,
and SUCH And which among them has ever been
distinguished for anything in public capacity,
excepting his Buncombe speeches, and his shrewd
electioneering devices for comprising the honors
and emoluments of Office? Next take the
democratic catalogue of Wise, Hunter,
Douglas, Davis Seymour, Dickinson, Fer
nando Wood, and such and who among them
upon submission to the crucible of an impartial
judgment, will turn out anything better than the
scheming, selfish and INSCRIPTIONS politician?
With regard to the rump of the American party,
it appears that its central caucus managers at
Washington have substantially decided upon
dropping such respectable and able party men as
Crittenden and Bell. and are disposed to try the
speed and bottom of "the immortal Botts.'
whose most conspicuous political achievement
was his effort on the bank question, during John
Tylers administration, to head him or dier
The public services of the whole catalogue of
Presidential politicans-republcan democratic
and Know Nothing-will vanish into thin air
when reduced to the test of comparison with
the substantial and glorious patriotic achieve
ments Of such man as Gen. Scott The Cana
gerent State of South Carolina, aud the plains,
mountains and valleys of Mexico, from Vera
Cruz to the capital, will bear witness to his SER
vices, in the important duties of defending our
frontiers against the invader, of reducing hostile
Indians to submission, of quieting the nullifiers
empire Of incalculable resources of wealth and
commercial and political power. For these great
services, extending through term of half CEN
fury, what has Gen. Scott received? His COM
pensations and returns as an army officer, which
have left him as poor at the end of these fifty
years as he was at the beginning. To be sure,
he has been once nominated and run as regular
wing candidate for the Presidency; but he was
cheated in the election by the faithless politicians
of that very party as he had been once or twice
before cheated by them out of the nomination.
The debt due from the country to Gen. Scott
thus remains unpaid: and the worst of it is that
it appears to be overshadowed among the people
by the clamorous pretensions of our modern
spoils politicians And while many of this
Astounding class of modern patriots are rolling
in wealth and luxuriating upon the fat of the
land through their various devices as guardians
Of the public treasury and the public lands, and
the Congressional lobby, we find General Scott a
living example f the fact that though "honesty
is the best policy" it is too apt to limit its re-
wards to an honorable name and perpetual po-
verify. The motto of the modern spoils politi-
cian-"get all you can, and keep all you get"-
is the ruling maxim of patriotism in these degene
rate days. Thus the prevailing aspirations for
public station, from the Presidency down to the
Office Of policeman, are now reduced to der4b-
RAILING scramble Of trading politicians, cliques
and factions, for the spoils and plumber.
And what next? Why, as the upward or
downward tendencies Of great nation are
marked by the purity or the corruptions of its
public agents and aspirants for public honors,
we may conclude, from the Generalization of all
parties in Congress, and from the corrupting in
Huences which control the movements of all our
parties and politicians for the Presidency, that
we, as nation, are on the downward path to
ruin. And when Dur political'parties have thus
fallen under the contfol Of cliques of Presidcn-
tal gamblers and spoilsmen, and lobby .harpies,
and loafers, nothing can save the country from
dogtruci lion hut n ponuIar rnvoIuficn Tn v;a,v