The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-10-22

Lincoln was a kind of innocent lamb who was
elected and reelected without any agency o.
his own. But no man can escape the law VI
his position except by abandoning his position.
We say again, that so long as the Presl-
dent of the United States possessed
an unlimited power of removal from
office the interior politics of party necessarily
consisted of these two things:-First to re-
deem the pledges made during the last Presi-
dental campaign; secondly, to form combina-
tions for the next. We have had one Presi-
dent to whom this remark does not apply
George WashiDgton-and it was because he
alone, OF all our Presidents never incurred a
political obligation to an individual 1t is not
in human nature, and it is folly to expect it,
that President, in the distribution of honor5
and Offices shall not recognize the claims of
men who have aided his elevation, and whose
aid he needs for continuance of the public
favor, Abraham Lincoln was not only poll
tician, but he was a keen, able, and closely
calculating politician. Were not the leading
members of his cabinet - Seward, Chase,
Cameron, Bates (and Dayton, his Minister
to FTance), the chief competitors in the Con-
vention of 1860? And was it not the
timely withdrawal of some of them, and the
partial withdrawal of others, which secured
his own nomination. Does the reader sup
pose that there was no connection between
those appointments and the change of votes in
the Convention If the reader does sup
pose this, it is himself who is the innocent
lamb
Nor was Mr.. Lincoln passive in the events
which led to his denomination in 1854. Every
individual who was likely to be formidable
candidate was either shelvnd or provided for.
No one can have forgotten that, when the
nomination Convention of 1864 assembled at
Baltimore, Abraham Lincoln was not the
choice of the Republican party. Far from
it. 1t was a period of the deepest gloom:-
disaster upon disaster in the field had
shaken the public confidence in the ability of
the administration to save the country. The
desire for change of leaders was general and
decided Banks had failed in Louisiana.
Grant had not succeeded in Virginia. The
Mississippi was still threatened, and to many
minds the issue of the war still appeared
doubtful. In war time the strength of an
administration increases with victory and
diminishes with defeat. But, as we have
before remarked, a President who can crafty
or dsappoint the personal ambition of thou
sands of his fellow citizens who can appoint
and promote military and naval officers at his
pleasure, who can award contracts that enrich
the holders of them in a single season,
and who is himself nah of force
and ambition, can control absolutely
the proceedings of a convention composed
almost entirely Of men who have received or
expect benefits from him. Mr.. Lincoln used
his power without hesitation or reserve, and,
as long as man is man, every able man in q
similar situation will do the same.
He desired, both for public and personal
reasons, to be renominated for the first office.
The Convention complied with his known
desire. He wished Andrew Johnson, for
public and personal reasons, to be selected for
the second office, and this desire also was graft
fed. When the convention came to VOTE
the delegates from every State and Territory
Union cd q 1a6
for Abraham Lincoln, excepting those from
Missouri, who preferred General Grant. The
nomination of Andrew Johnson was accom-
plshed with almost equal ease. Upon the
first ballot, Mr.. Johnson received two hundred
votes; Hannibal Hamlin, one hundred and fifty;
Daniel S. Dickinson, one hundred and eight;
and all others, ffty-nine. Upon the second
ballot the delegates took the hint, and Mr..
Johnson was nominated almost unanimously.
Conventions, however, can only nominate.
If the campaign of 1864 had presented as
gloomy a view in October as it had in June
not even the insanity of the Democratic plat
form could have saved the Republican party
from defeat. 1t was General Sherman's timely
capture of Atlanta which turned the tide of
public feeling, and caused the people to recoil
with horror and disdain from platform which
proposed, in effect, to give up the contest and
the country.
Thus we have briefly reviewed the Presi-
ucuIldl uOlllldJlOuS VI Ill6 pdSI 6lBuIy years,
during which five Presidents have been
nominated by caucuses of members of Con-
gressi two by legislative caucuses, public
meetings, and the press; seven by national
conventions. By each of these methods the
people have succeeded in electing men of re-
spectacle private character, of patriotic inten-
tons, and of sufficient ability. Except in one
instance, which need not be specified, the
domestic life of the White House has been
creditable to the civilization of the country,
and the routine duties of the Presidency have
almost always been performed with dignity
and promptness. No President has ever been
so much as suspected of personal corruption.
From 1877 to the spring of 1865, the people
could regard their Chief Magistrate as
gentleman, and boast of his natural
equality with the best rulers of the most
advanced nations. 1t is true that some of
our later Presidents were too subservient to
dominating and exacting interest. But we do
not believe that any of them were basely so;
and we must confess, with shame and contri-
tion, that they erred in common with ma
iority of their fellow W-citizens. Some of them,
we know, were led astray far more by their
love of the Union and their anxiety for its
continuance than by personal ambition. The
existence of slavery in this republic was an
anomaly which perpleXed and corrupted
nearly every individual. Instead of bitterly
censurirg the politicians of the last twenty
years, we should consider that, up to the
moment when we were prepared to fight the
Southern Oligarchy, nothing was possible to
us but compromise. How many Of us were
prepared to submit the controversy to the
arbitrament of the sword before it was forced