The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1866-10-18
The Grant Test.

The Grant Test.
A great many of the negro suffrage
organs, here and elsewhere, have con-
ceived profound admiration for an ex-
preston of General GRANTS to the eff
feet that no men should be supported
for public position save those who were
loyal in '61. This, with them, is the
perfect test, and for the wisdom of the
man who proposes it, they evince a re-
gard scarcely inferior to that which they
profess to feel for his military genius.
We think their elation over this utter
ance of GRANTS is rather premature;
certainly they have not reflected upon
the results of its indiscriminate applica-
ton. What, for example, would become
of that illustrious rowdy, that distin-
guished b'hoy, NAT HARRISON, if none
but the primitive and faithful loyalists
were permitted to hold place or exercise
authority! The disloyal practices of
this eminent bully are too well known
to need description. His history is the
record of a duplicate treason. He first
turned traitor to the government, and
compassed the destruction of the Union.
He next betrayed his own dislOyalty,
abandoned his own fellow conspirators,
rebelled against rebellion of his own
making, and by reckless and unprin-
cipled course of treachery, duplicity
and fraud covered himself all over with
the shame and dishonor of double
treason whose stains ''there is not rain
enough in the sweet heavens to wash
out"
Apply General GRANTS test of merit to
this purchasable patriot, and what
would be his fate! His seat would be
vacated quicker, than Ben. BUTLER
would pocket spoon. But our Gov
ernor's satrap is not the only man who
would lose his official head, were the
GRANT rule rigidly applied. Our
learned and loyal ATTORNEY General,
JIM FERGUsoN's experiment at judge
making, would also be shorn of his
prestige and power. 1t has never been
claimed for Mr.. MAXWELL by those who
have known him for the last five years,
that he was "loyal from the beginning"
On the contrary, the general under
standing in 1861 was that his sympa-
thies were all thoroughly and heartily
enlisted in the Southern cause. An I'M
doubted secessionist, hearty abettor,
if not bold advocate of the heretical
doctrines that periled our institutions,
Mr.. maxwell escaped nOtoricty as a
rebel, simply because he is not OF that
temperament which incurs any risks by
the advocacy of unpopular opinions
Can he now take advantage of his own
timidity, and assume to have been loyal
at time when want of courage and
nerve alone deferred him from promul-
eating the reasonable sentiments he
cherished Not so. 1t matters not that
he has since renounced his errcrs and
abandoned his heresics. 1t is of no con-
sequence that he has prosecuted hls for
mer allies, and hunted and bounded the
men who went where he would have
gone had he dared. 1t matters not that
he has initiated the apostates and rem
egades of all ages, and striven with
fanatical zeal in the new cause to ettace
the memory of his espousal of the old.
His past acts and opinions are fixed and
irrevocable. They are part of that per-
sonal history by which every man Is
known and judged, and they prove him
to have been false to every duty of 10y
atty and public virtue at time when
patriot was known by his action and a
traitor by his indecisiOn. Such being
the case, let his endOrsers, from FERGU-
son down to the Mteltgencer, apply ii
they dare, the test which GRANT has
given for the trial of the merits OF
aspirants. Will they do it! Never
Such a course would not lose them a
candidate merely, but it would create a
vacancy not readily supplied. Apliant,
manageable judge, willing to pledge the
violation of his conscience to secure a
nomination, and willing TO prostitute
his office to party purposes as a recon-
pense for his election, is not TO be found
at all times, even in the Radical ranks