The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1867-02-27

Political Reconstrucsiea = The Impending
Crisis In Connecticut.
We live in wonderful times. The march Of
ideas is carrying everything before it. 1t is
the momentum Of heavy railway train de-
scending one Of those long sweeps of the Al
| .eghanies, and the cry Is "Clear the track ~
The patriarch Noah, the builder of the original
Great Eastern, the chosen vessel Of the Lord
old Noah, who lived six hundred years before
the food, who sailed his big ship over the
food, and who survived three hundred and
fifty years after the food-passed, we dare say,
through small experience in the progress OF
ideas compared with that. for instance, OF
William Lloyd Garrison or Wendell Phillips.
The ancient patriarch, 1t Is true, passed
through great deluge Of water, but Garri-
son and Phillips have passed through deluge
Of fire, the most terrible in the worlds his
tory, and they still live.
Only look at 1t. In October, 1885, female
anti-slavery society was riotously broken up
in Boston by collection of conservatives de-
scribed a. gentlemen of property and stand
ing;" and Mr.. Garrison, who went to the meet
ing to deliver an address, after attempting TO
conceal himself in carpenters shop from
the fury of the mob, was captured, had his
clothes torn OF and was dragged through the
streets with . rope around his neck.
And for whats For preaching in Bos-
ton negro emancipation. Cotton, then,
was king, even among the Puri-
tans. Still later In the day, In New
York, the famous democratic Empire Club an
nually set apart contingent fund for the
reception of the abolitionist Phillips with q
welcome Of rotten eggs. Now, mark the
change. Garrison is hailed as public bene-
factor everywhere. He has had jubilee in
Charleston He is the object of a fifty thou
sand dollar subscription fund and as for Phil
lips, if be now becomes comparatively tame in
his philippics it is because he misses the in
SEPARATION Of Captain Rynders and his shower
Of eggs. Are not these among the wonders
wrought in Israel in these latter days!
Who can tell what next is coming! With
the country turned upside down and inside
out there is no telling what may come to the
surface. In the work Of political reconstruc-
ton the materials at hand must be used. Thus
our hard set democracy in our last November
election were compelled to take new depar-
ture. At Chicago they were headed by the
banker Belmont and his coach and six ; two
years later, in New York, the ex-pounder of
Yankee Sullivan, the banker Morrissey (faro
and keno) is called to the rescue. He
pays his way and goes into Congress, but
his friend Hoffman, of the old democratic pat
tern, is left in the lurch. He was not sufi-
GENTLY reconstructed, like Morrissey, to win.
He was, in fact, behind the drift oil events and
the spirit Of the age. He was still running the
old go-cart Of the Dred Scott decision against
the steam engine of emancipation, and so
Hoffman was capsized, while Morrissey is
hailed as the new democratic champion for
the belt in Congress against the mighty Ben
Butler.
ProHting from this example of new expert
ment to meet the new order Of things, the radi-
calls Of Connecticut have struck upon still
holder adventure. They have made the ire
pressible P. T. Bsrnum, the living embodiment
Of Yankee notions, their champion and their
new platform, against VIM. II. 9Barnum, an old
fogy, famous only for those old-fashioned vir-
tues Of times gone by and for his well earned
success In the iron business. But he and all
the other Barnums must give way to The Bar
mum, as all the O'Donoghues stand back
in the presence Of The ODonoghue. And
what are Garrison and Phillips COM
pared with this Barnumi Men Of one
idea against q man Of ten thousand
ideas. Take, for example, twenty-five years
Of the career ofPhillips and twenty-five Of The
Barnum, and mark the contrast. Phillips
begins, with some silver and gold in his pos
session, to preach emancipation; Barnum begins
his negotiations for the old American Museum
with nothing but brass; Phillips continues,
year after year. out Of pocket, harping, like
Paganini, on one string; Barnum plays on
harp of q thousand strings, and thousand
different tunes, all in the same key. Yet he,
too, has had all along one grand idea. Old
style people might call it the idea Of obtaining
money on false pretences; but it is more
than that 1t was the poets idea Of mermaid
painted on canvass outside the museum and
the dried up head and arms Of monkey
deity joined to the tail of q Goldfish inside the
museum 1t was . dray load Of old bones
transformed into Greenland whale; It was
woolly horse from an ash cart changed into
ferocious nondescript captured by Colonel
Fremont on the ella river after three days.
chase with squad Of dragons; 1t was In the
day when Santa Anna was mighty hero, the
transformation Of IN article bought, perhaps,
next door into Santa Anna,a vooden lar. a
was In the person Of leprous African, the
living embodiment Of the negro turning white,
q point of philanthropy in behalf Of sambo
which Phillips and Garrison have never tried
to reach. sr.ses.,,<
Nor does the record Of The Barnum stop
here. Sir Philip Jones says that men consti-
tute q State. They are certainly the strength