The Portland daily press., 1864-11-01
Chicago and Mcclellan viewed by Friend.
1v Forairnar

The London Spectator is one of the few
English metropolitan journals that has ex-
hibited any show Of justice towards the free
North in its conflict with the Rebellion of the
South. In that paper of Sept. 18th is quite a
long article entitled 1.-THE Politicians of Chi
cago," from which we make the following lib
eral extracts. After copying laudatory no.
tice of Gen. Mcclellan from the Times,-the
Unions worst enemy on the other side of the
Atlantic; the worst because the most widely
circulated and most misunderstanding that
the Democrats had learned wisdom from the
war, and in their nomination indicated a COM
mendable change Of party policy, sort o.
revolution in their party policy. the Spectator
says: es ss ~
Between the election of General jackson
In 1929 and Mr.. Lincoln, we do not remem
Der single President who had not been OF
the Galore Of Gen. McClellan,-Polk, Fill
more, Rerce, Buchanan, they have one and
all been more or less men OF some culture and
no principle, tools OF the South, playing int
the hands OF the pro-slavery party with pol
ished Lreachery, and often with lar more abili-
ty than Gen. Mcclellan has shown any indi
cations OF possessing. Mr.. Lincoln has beef
the first rude President, 80 to speak, since the
days OF the rough but able jackson; and he
has been, SO far as we can Judge the history
of the States, the first honest President since
the time when the Democratic party first be-
came the instrument in the hands of the ma
lign Southern ambition. There Is not a sin
gle Intellectual quality in which the accom-
plished diplomatist, ex-President Buchanan
was not in all probability Gen. McClellan'i
superior; nay, there is no moral quality be
longing to a politician in which we have any
fnr Mr. inf i'm
to the new Democratic favorite; and yet Of
Nall the long line of bad rulers under which
the earth has groaned, we do not remember
one who in smooth and diplomatic way was
worse, weaker, more mischievous and more
contemplate, more shuffling in his treason tc
the Union and more facilitating In his assist
ance to the South, than President Buchanan
All we know of Gen. Mcclellan is that he il
following as far as he can at the present cri
sis, in Mr.. Buchanan's track, and why, there
fore, his election, il 1t were to take place
should be 'fn the nature Of revolution" it
would have been kind in our contemporary to
explain. WmE
The truth is that the Chicago Democrats
and their nominee, Gen. Mcclellan, represent
but one deep-seated tendency in American
polilics,--the great political vice which the cir
cumstances OF their constitution have general
ed from the tirst,-an idolatry OF Compromise.
The Federation was irselr a compromise, and a
compromise not merely in practice, which is
true of all political compacts, but in principle
---sta tesmen in all the States having agreed
not only to tolerate for a time, but protect,
guarantee, and help to perpeGuate what many
of them, nay, most of them, both South and
North, believed to be intrinsically poisonous
to the life Of the nation they were forming,
and what thew hoped with all their hearts might
die out even while they soemnly pledged them
selves to foster and feed it. This origin of the
American constitution has borne its natural
fruit in moulding generation after generation
OF statesmen who have lived to devise, and
died with the patriotic boast on their lips that
they haze desised, new articles for procrasti-
mating the crisis of an inevitable and desperate
struggle Run over the greater names of the
Union statesmen of the half century previous
to sscession.-take, for instance Clav and
Webster, -and we may truly say that each of
these able and eminent men earned and re earn.
ed his reputation wholly by mutilating his own
most intimate convictions so as to make out OF
them and the convictions of his adversaries
some platform on which, as he believed, the
Cnlon might be artidcially propped up for a
lew years longer. Henry Clay of Kentucky,
oiCen ca.ieu Inc father of COMPROMISED first
oistin gulsneo himself by inventing and carry
us, ~ LII .Sp with Calhoun, the Missouri
Compromise as the condition of the admission
of Missouri as slave state; he nayt carr;ed
the compromise tariff, Calhoun raIrctar.i.,
consenting, when South Carolina haa tbroe,
decentralization; he modified and then 49,.
ed Calhoun's memorable resolution. den.yPp !.
the right of Congress to legislate on slayarg
even in the District of Columbia, in which
Washington is situated, in 1878, and Sc
averted Tor time the growing eud; on the an
nexation of Texas he tried to avoid and die
avoid declaring either for or against it; and b,
ended his life with his "OmnibaS" Bill, a grea
e enort TO avoid deciding the question whethe
selleorlal legislatures should admit slavery o.
~ h;s Mr. Clay has been the great model whom
can,1, sulaler way Mr.. Crittenden has more re
a Rordas ven 70 emulate. Clay, however, wa
see how P"se unionist, and it is very easy Il
the very sn;ls. state statesmen are born into
e., ,,,aS Ss Nol compromise. Daniel Web
ster was New Englander 80 ~ ~.
lnoeloie character Of the constit,,io "a =,
mark upon him and made hir, - @ = Aou ~
of Clay. The whole spirit of ;s i;a Ilnitatoi
promise for the sake of the Unio,, o mas cotn
first steps being a COMPROMISE WI, Ne IN M
houn at the time South Carolina ,h.aa.N Oal
notification, and one of his last to sunnoue y,
Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. Even his foro;, ~
policy was often mere man9uvre to viii
draw the attention of the States from interna
differences, and no other consideration woul,
probably have draggeds so cautious and shrew
statesman into the impertinent correspon
t. onIe With Austria about Hungary In 1S49 Tn
i1os Sh simply Is that craftsmanship in the Mort
:. aonS meant nothing but vicious ingenuity
~, ~ onens compromises and staving off tn
e,a.oa..,ar I I;i. hence the genuine Southern
PC M Tsihoun in the latter part O
MS career, ana Jefferson Davis throughout II
have had, and still have the advsnts 90 Of :, |,
clear aim, homogeneous views, and a SiceIik,