The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-07-08

within their grasp. With Congress again in
session to rectify the mistakes of President
Johnson, we cannot doubt that the vantage
ground in the South which the Republicans
have gained through his laundering Southern
policy, will be made secure against all pro-
bable contingencies, and that accordingly
these outside Southern States, in being restored
to the general Government, will each and all
come back radically revolulionized and in full
communion with the Republican party.
In view Of this decisive solution of the great
problem of reconstruction, il makes but little
difference whether the outside States are re-
stored to a voice in our national affairs before
or after the coming Presidential election. IL
is enough that all calculations of regaining
their old Southern political balance of power
must be thrown out in any programme for the
Presidential succession which the Northern
Democracy as a separate party may adopt. In
this view, no doubt Democratic journal
"away down East" the Portland argus, in
casting about for the chances against the radi-
Gals, hits upon the Presidential ticket of Grant
and Farragut as the only Democratic hope of
salvation. 1t is thus suggested that ''if Gene
raj Grant is a candidate for the Presidency, as
we believe he will be, the party that nomi-
mates him must take him without pledges,
other than these-that the best good of his
whole country will be his chief aim, and the
guide;'' that, in short, he must occupy a
position similar to that of General Taylor" 1t
is assumed, however, by this distressed Demo-
cratic philosopher of Maine that if the radical
wing of the Republican camp can defeat the
nomination of Grant they will do so, and that
then, if nominated by the Democrats, he will
be elected.
Now, in response to this proposition we have
to put this question:-Is it quite certain that
GanaraI Grant uuouIA ha alaota6 fha
nominee of the present Northern Democratic
party, casting off his own record of the war
and taking up that of the party represented
by the Chicago "Peace- -at-any-p Conven-
tionY In 1865 General Slocum, distinguished
Union soldier of the war, and on the same
platform as his Republican antagonist for
Secretary of State of this Commonwealth, was
beaten by some thirty thousand votes. And
why Simply because he was the candidate
of the Democratic party, which had become so
obnoxious to the people of the North from its
opposition to the Government and the Union
cause and from its Rebel sympathies and afi-
liations during the war, that no political can
didate, however meritorious a Union civilian
or soldier, could save it from popular con-
demnation. Even General Mcclellan, in 1854
for the Presidency, a very popular Union
soldier, was, after he had fatty repudiated the
Chicago platform, rejected by the people be-
cause he was the Chicago Democratic can
didate.
We are inclined to the opinion, therefore,
that the popular odium which has fallen upon
the Northern rump of the old Democratic
party, in consequence of its obnoxious and
dangerous line of conduct during the war, is
too much for any candidate to bear against the
war record of the Republican party. Nor do
we think that General Grant would accept a
nomination for the Presidency as the candi-
date of the Northern peace party of the war.
What then2 1t strikes us that the best
course for the Northern Democracy to pursue
is to wait and watch the shaping of events.
There will be tremendous strug ggle in the
Republican camp for the Convention of 1868,
between the radical Chase faction, supported
by the national banks, and the Republican
conservatives supporting General Grant. The
result, in all probability, will be split of
the Republican party into two distinct par
ties for the succession. In this event the
Northern Democracy will hold the balance of
power, and by casting their weight into the
scale of the Grant, or anti-radical party, they
win carry the election. The idea we are
driving at is this-that in order to remove the
label of the Chicago Vallandigham Conven-
ton, the Democrats must take off their ''old
clo', F" and appear in some new uniform, or as
the allies OF some new party, before they can
expect to work out political revolution. Old
things being done away with, including the
whole Democratic fabric resting upon State
rights, as expounded by Calhoun, and upon
negro slavery and the Dred Scott decision, and
the unreconstructed States being absolutely in
the hands Of the Republican Congress now in
session, there is no other way to success than
that of reconstruction to the Northern Demo-
craoy, including new organization, new
name, new outfit, and a new departure. 1t
is folly to suppose that Grant or Farragut viii,
if so nominated, consent to stand before the
country as the whitewasher of that State rights
Democracy represented during the war for the
Union by JEFF. Davis in Richmond, by Jake
Thompson in Canada, by Mason and Slidell in
England and France, and by Vallandigham at
Chicago.