The Richmond palladium. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1855-1875, 1864-05-04
NoMINATING Bl POPLAR VOTE.

The Indianapolis Journal. in reply to
a communicating from Cambridge City.
over the signature of ..Union. shows mp
some of the evils of nomination candi-
dates by popular vote. We make few
extracts:
Union objects to our remark ''that it
is not fair for two counties to make
nomination over four that the same may
as Justly be said of an election, and that
if division lines are regarded at all there
is no logical stopping place short Of re
cognizing townships and school districts
But he forgets that selecting candidates
is a matter of cosnprom' se in whichf rs
.iar as possible, all portions of the sup
horang party su,e to be satisfied, and rAat
to force the will of strong county over
the protests of several counties is a bad
way to make party cordial and unani-
nous for the nominee. In elections the
law makes the will of the majority good,
but in nominations is only the consent of
the minority that gives the majority pow
err Here the parallelism, which makes
the strength of Union objection,
fails.
1t is true that we cannot carry our re-
gard for local lines very far without car
rying it into iInpracticable nonsense, but
we cannot disregard them, either, with
out running into 4 mischievous consoh-
dation Where the limit should be, we can
not say. but somewhere we must stop and
look at local divisions and recognize their
existence, in qualifying the absolute
domination of q majority in making NOM
nations or we stand n capital chance OF
breaking our party neck some time, IN
running blindly over them.
Union admits the rancor and i'll feel
ing of the contest in his district, and does
not deny that it is an inseparable accom-
paniment of such mode of nomination.
This admission is enough There is no
/ advantage of the primary election that
can compensate for the enmities excited
by it. There is no advantage, indeed,
that is not possessed as fully by the dele
/ gate convention system. a fair primary
1 election is certainly very fair and di-
+ rect way of expressing the will of party,
( but a meeting of farely selected dele
gates of ordinary sense is just as fair a
wav-It is true that delegates may be
/ influenced to make bad nominations, but
the people are often influenced to make
bad elections. 1t only needs little Ion
ger machinery and little more labor te
manage a primary election than con
/ yentioftt In a convention there can bt
a comparison of qualifications, claims
and elements of strength, of various
! ! iaad il aLes. aud ifnone are thought strong
s1ask 1askanaa.nssszu1nl
impossible.
When contest like that in the Fifth
District has cut party in two furious
/ factions, it is not bad policy sometimes to
drop both the prominent competitors and
! qiafIeIilsss,-ahndv that nobody has been
a convention. 1t can't be uo.iv., r.. ~,
mary election In fact all the advan-
j tages Demonstration, comprised OF views,
+ Of deliberation, which convention pos
/ sesscs. 4 primary election cannot have
+ Now is it worth while to give up these
real advantages for a fancied superiority
of farness that carries with it such bit
terness of hostility as more than neutral
ICES all the benefit of confidence in 1t.
i With all respect for Mr. Julian and Gen.
Meredith. we must say that just as good
nominations rs theirs are made II other
districts of Indiana without particle OF
the shameful wrangling of theirs, and
this fact proves at least that their election
system is useless. In no other district
do such conflicts occur, and yetvery sen
sible and efficient Congressman have
been known to represent several other
districts.