The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1866-01-17
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY II, 1866.


correspondent Of the Public Ledger of this
city, under date of the 10Th inst, says:-
" Mr.. STANTON intends to retire from the
Cabinet upon the LIST proximo" What
warrant there is for a statement made in
terms so absolute as to be justified only
by the most authentic information, we are
not prepared to say. Similar utterances,
delivered quite as oracularly, from time to
time within the last two years, have been
contradicted by the nOn-happening OF the
event predicted and we are not altogether
sure that the prophecy in this instance will
prove more veracious than its predecessors.
Speculations on changes in the Cabinet,
however, are not profitable, though they are
in great favor with those quidnuncS at the
Federal Capital who seem to be forever under
the delusion that they do not earn their pay
as retainers of the press unless they say some
thing that is sensational" whether it be
founded on fact or their own prurient fancy.
1t may be that Mr.. STANTON has resolved to
resign his position on the 1st of February. If
he has done so, and signifed his purpose to
the President, he no doubt has sufficient rea-
sons of his own for such step. The wonder
is, not that he now determines to throw off
the arduous cares and labors of his important
office, but that he ever accepted it in the
midst OF civil war, and held it
to its close. He undertook no easy and in
viting task. When he accepted the portfolio
which Mr.. CAMERON gave up, all before him
was dark and uncertain. The national arms
had made no decided and assuring progress
90 AIo DoL II.
and apprehension as to the future issue of the
strife oppressed the hearts of the true and
devoted friends of the Government. The
Rebels were winning victories, in spite of the
heavy odds against them, and there was a
growing fear, in all the loyal States, that the
cause OF the Union might possibly fail for
want of necessary vigor and wisdom in the
War Department. But in the face of all these
forbidding circumstances, and with full con-
sciousness ofthe enormous responsibility he was
required to assume, Mr.. STANTON bravely and
unselfshly took the post to which his country
called him. From that time his situation has
been no bed of roses, but bed of thorns. On
him, more than on any other member of 1.-THE
Administration during the war, rested the fate
OF the nation. Ii he had not been fully equal
to his duties, it is no exaggeration to say that
the Rebellion would not now be suppressed.
Nor is it possible to devine what the final
result Of the contest would have been, if a
man OF less ability and f1rmness had directed
the military operations Of the Government in
that trying crisis OF its fortunes.
1t is not our design just now to pronounce
eulogy on the Secretary of War. OF his
contemporaries he does not need it,
even il they were capable of dong
justice to his services. He has had
enemies enough among those who have been
in the last four years, the bitter though secret
foes of the nation. They have hated him
only because he was resolutely faithful to
his high trust as the War Minister of the
State in a fearful struggle against traitors
And their hate of him has always been pro-
portionate to his stern execution of his trust.
They have denounced him as a cold-hearted
and cruel tyrant, only because he would not
deal gently with those who were irving to
destroy the unity of the natio n, and to build !
up in dismembered section of it an aristo-
cratic government, in which Compare
lively few were seeking to establish
uoSpOuC RUE over WnlCeS ana blacks
alike, whom they considered beneath
them. Severe he may have been in the exer-
else OF his high and responsible functions. But
his severity was demanded by the extreme
exigency Of the occasion. He had to be cruel
i'll order to be kind. He was sometimes com
PEELED to affect in his manner the front of
grim-Visaged war;" and even to stretch
authority, for the sake OF the State, beyond
the limits to which time of peace would
have allowed his natural amiability and his
clear conscience to 60. -...
But why say even this much in his yindica-
tionp His record is his best defense against
slander. History, hereafter to be written by
impartial and dispassionate pens, when EDWIN
M. STANTON is in his grave, will put him
right with posterity. His chief glory is, that
ne was the Secretary of War under whose
administration the Southern Rebellion was
conquered; and that is the proudest epitaph
that any man could wish to have inscribed
upon his tomb. Whatever else NAV be sald
of him, in praise or in censure, that one fact
will crown his memory with everlasting
honor. Those who would detraet from his
just merits are less hostile to him than to the
Government His worst defamers have been.
and are, the worst enemies of the Union.
All public men in high position are, in all
countries, and especially in ours, targets for