East Saginaw courier. (East Saginaw, Mich.) 1859-18??, 1865-10-04
q he g onrier
"Wednesday. October 4. 1895.
FLAT FOOTED.

customary care, and designed as a
formal declaration Of the principles
and policy Of that journal upon the
reconstruction issue. How stand the
Movement" Clique upon this issue9
Do they, dare they, endorse the sent
ments Of "the organ ?" Are =" W.,
Us& Co."--who have, with their para
sites and their dependents to the third
and fourth generation, so long and so
eomplacently gorged themselves at the
public crib--JohnsOn, or are they Enter
prise? The issue is made up, the con-
flict irrepressible."
We copy the article in question in
full, reminding our readers that state
ments therein designed to give intelli-
gence as TO existing circumstances,
must be taken with the usual grain of
allowance:
Our VlCo ITSSluouIS'
From The Saginaw Daily Enterprise, Oct O. 1865
Some good and able men have held
the Office of Vice President of the
United States. But it must be ac-
knowledged that the influences which
usually govern the selection of candi-
dates for that Office, in our national
nominating conventions, are not such
as are likely TO result in the choice of
the best men. In the first place, the
possibility that the man nominated for
the Vice Presidency may become the
President, should his ticket be elected,
seems to be almost entirely lost sight
of, and the nomination is usually made
with very little if any regard to that
contingency. The great and absorbing
contest for the nomination of candi-
date for the first Office being decided,
the next thing is to ballast the ticket
by selecting the man for the second,
not only from another portion of the
Union, but often of opposite antece-
dents, and differing, to some extent, in
political views. The majority of the
convention having had their way in
the man and principles of their choice,
can we'll afford, for the sake Of har-
mony and the greater chances of sue
cess, TO concede TO the minority the
candidacy for what is probably to re-
main an unimportant and uninhuential
office. For so long as the President
lives, the Vice President is little more
than an honorary cypher in the gov
eminent. He presides in the Senate,
but without a vote except in cases of
tie; and has no part whatever in the
duties and responsibilities of the exec
utive branch. And yet, when it is
remembered that of the last seven
presidential terms, Including the pres
emit three Of them-nearly half--have
fallen upon the mon elected as Vice
Presidents, it would seem that more
earnest and careful attention should
he paid to their selection. If the Vice
President is not one Of the ablest, first
class men Of the party, he should at
least be reliable--on that can be safely
trusted to carry out the principles and
platform upon which no is elected if
elected at all. We should not then be
called upon to witness the sorry spec
tacle of n President betraying the peo-
pie and principles that placed him in
power, and attempting, by the govern
ulent patronage and influence, TO build
up party Of his own in his ambition
20 secure a new lease of power. The
history of John Tyler's elevation and
administration should be a warning to
earnest men Of all parties, to avoid a
repetition Of such national disgrace.
Aud Willard Fillmore was little better.
/ not direct descrtion, his was at
least pcrversion of tho policy and
principles upon which he was elected
--sorely disappointed the best men OF
his party, and left the public services
with the full consent of all parties OK
cept a few scattering admirers. 1t is
worthy of remark that, so far, these
Vice Presidential tablo-turners have
not been taken up and made the
standard bearers of the party whose
hands they have played into; they have
been used so long as their accidental
term of power was available, and then
very quietly dropped. And so it will
be, we have no doubt, in the future
When Vice President JOHNSON assumed
the Presidential chair, we, in common
with the patriotic and loyal men who
elected him, had high hopes that hi
administration would prove an excep.
ton to tho hitherto unfortunate rule
of tho Vice Presidents. We had rea.
son to believe, from his repeated pre-
vious declarations that treason should
be punished and be recognized as Q
crime odious in the sight of men, and
from his speech to the Massachusetts
delegation, TO the same effect, after
ward, that his influence would be used
to crush out the spirit of treason anC
keep the loyal element of the nation
in the ascendancy But we must &C
knowledge, with the bitterness of grie
and disappointment that thus far thes'
high hopes have not been realised
We have tried to think that the Pres
ident, temporarily misled by a feeling
of sympathy for some unfortunate
followers of the rebellion, and de
coived by their professions of loyalt'
aud fair promises for the future, wa
merely experimenting q little to see i
they were worthy of his clemcncy anc
confidence, and that his dangerous re
construction policy would be abandone,
as soon as the real temper and spiri
of the reorganized rebels should man
ifest Itself. And yet, in the very fac
of the continued reasonable attitud
of nine-tenths of the Southern people
he seems to persevere in his policy O
recognizing the rebel forces, recon
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