The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1866-04-05
The Connecticut ElectiOn-A Hint TO
the Pennsylvania Democracy.

From the Herald.
In the late Connecticut election the Repub
licans have had a narrow escape from disas-
trous defeat. They have been saved by their
candidate for Governor, one of the most merito-
rious Union volunteer soldiers, and by the popu-
lar odium which still attaches to the Demo-
cratic party from its Rebel and Copperhead
peace affiliations during the war. The Rebel
lion has been suppressed, peace is restored, the
new issues Of a reconstruction of the Union on
the basis Of the abolition of slavery and the su-
premacy of the national Government are upon
us, bat still the aI-absorbng issue of the war
marks the dividing line between the two po-
htlcal parties Of the North.
That great body of the people devoted to the
war for the Union, after all their sacrifices of
blood and treasure to save the life of the ma
tion, cannot at once accept in confidence the
new professions of party identified with all
the obnoxious Northern peace movements and
combinations and conspiracies OF our sanguin-
@ AIRY sectional struggle, though now among the
things OF the past. 1t takes time for the public
mind throughout the country to accommodate
,itseH to the new conditiono OF things. The en-
blttered party feelings of bloody civil war
do not always disappear with the generation
living at the time OF treaty of peace. The old
5tedeTal peace party OF 1872 never recovered from
its opposition to that war, but gradually went
the way OF dissolution, and for generation
after it was buried it was a stigma upon any
man to be proclaimed as a relic OF the Hartford
Convention. The same popular odium attaches
to the party of the Chicago Democratic ConVen-
tion, which, with Grant investing Richmond,
and with Sherman at Atlanta, pronounced the
war for the Union failure. Against this OBJ
noXiOus record the Northern Democratic party
has still to contend, because the new issues of
peace and reunion have not yet oblterated the
deeply marked dividing party lines OF the war.
But the Connecticut election shows that
reaction in the public mind from those old issues
of the past to the living questions of the day
has commenced. Last year the Democratic
candidate for Governor, a peace Copperhead,
was defeated in Connecticut by a majority
against him of eleven thousand. This year the
Democratic candidate in that State, with the
antecedents of a conservative Union war man,
stitutonal amendment abolishlng slavery, and
standing without reservation in support OF
President Johnsons Union measures, comes
within Jew hundred votes of an election,
Notwithstanding the odious Copperhead afhlia-
uons OF the DEMOCRATIC party. We see in this re
and the wisdom OF the Democracy in utterly
repudiating their Oopperhead leaders anC
heIesies which, since 1862 had resulted in no
thing but disasters to their party from Maine tt
California.
Here is hint which ought not to be lost upoI
the Democracy of Pennsylvania. They have Sc
up as their candidate for Governor In their n ex
October RSoSon Mr.. Hester Clymer against ,
leading Union general, last from Shermani
army And who is this Mr.. Clymer2 politi
elan of Berks county, only distinguished in tn
late struggle OF life or death with the Rebellion
Vullandigham. This is just as Forney, the idea
duck" of Washington would have the battl
shaped in PennsYlVanla, 1t could not be bette
adapted to his game of an election of Forney
the United States Senate. Heister Clymer, |
I fact, though he may suit such old party fOss