The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-07-26


The proposal for National Convention other
| Legislatures sanctioned IL; and due care was
taken, by the friends of the administration,
that the right delegates should attend it. The
Convention met at baltimore, in May, 1892
and it consisted of three hundred and twenty
six delegates. Leading MEMBERS who were
disinclned to vote for Mr.. Van Buren,, were
given distinctly to understand that they must
vote for the Presidents candidate or be pre-
pared to quarrel with the President. Such
was the power of the Administration, and
such the discipline of the party, that, out
of the three hundred and twenty-six
delegates, only thirty-six presumed to
give a vote against Martin Van Buren,
just enough to impart TO the delibera-
tiors Of the Convention slight show of indie
pendence. The people, however, were not
quite so obedient to the mandates of a party
chief General Jackson received two hundred
and nineteen electoral votes in 1892 while
MIR. Van Buren, received but one hundred and
eighty-nine; which, however, was forty-four
more than he needed.
Thus was inaugurated the system of nomi-
mating candidates by National Convention;
which has continued To- the present time
State nominating Conventions had been fire.
quently held; and, when railroads were about
to make all parts of the country easily acces-
slble, the system properly and naturally be-
came national.
The plan is open to objections, as every plan
would be- but it is probably the fairest and
best which the cast admits. The great obiec-
ton to the system does not exist in the system
ITSELF but in the overshadOwing influence of
an administration through its control of the
Office holders. So long as the President pos
sessed an unlimited power of removal, nomi-
mating Convention consisted, necessarily, either
of men in Office who desired to keep their Offices
or of men out of Office who desired to have
Office. No Convention for the nomination of
Presidential candidates has ever yet been held,
which did not chiefly consist either of office
holders or offce-seekers. The Convention,
for example, which nominated Mr.. Van Buren,
for the Presidency in 1886, was almost entirely
composed of men pledged to his support, and
whose detection would have been instantly
visited by their dismissal from valuable posts
or the dismissal of their friends.
1t was in no sense deiberative body. No
choice was given it. No regiment of the army
could feel itself more bound to obey the orders
of its colonel than this Convention felt itself
bound to comply with the known desires of
the President. 1t is well for the people to
understand this. A President who remains
united with the party that elected him, and
who has an unlimited power of removal from
Office, is in a position to dictate to the Conven-
ton of his party the man it shall nominate.
Andrew Jackson was gone from the scene.
Men whose will is stronger than their in
telligence are disturbing influences in pub
lie affairs, like hurricanes and earthquakes
in the natural world; and it is surprising
to notice how speedily the ordinary ten
denotes resume their sway when the dis
turbing influence is withdrawn. The nations
of Europe, for example, took their ancient
boundaries and institutions the moment Napo-
leon was suppressed, and things went their
usual course almost as though that conqueror
had tod A1n1r fI,
force of his tyrannical will, had put Van
Buren up, but he could not keep him up; and
he had put the nullifers down, but he could
not keep them down. The old feuds re-
manned, and the natural antagonisms revived.
Mr.. Van Buren,, however, besides being an eX-
cellent political manager, was naturally in
clined to Cancellation, and the personal ambi-
ton of Mr.. Calhoun was at that time more
powerful than his attachment to the compact
band of Southern men of whom he was the
chief. Mr.. Van Buren, opened the door of
reconciliation very wide and the country was
soon surprised to see the South Carolinian a
favored guest of the White House. and de-
fender of Mr.. Van Burens Administration
The Democratic party, therefore, was still
united, and Mr. Van Buren, experienced not
the slightest difficulty in securing a party
nomination for a second term.
! 1t was formerly part of the unwritten law o.
! politics, that President in full communion
! with his party was entitled to nomination
! for second term. The example of General
! Washington, in declining to serve a third
term, no President has been willing to disre-
gard and it appears to be as binding as though
it were a part of the Constitution. But a
failure to be once reelected used to be con-
sidered in the light Of stigma. So the first
! Adams regarded it, and so the second Adams.
1t was as though they had been tried in the
administration of the Government and had
been found wanting; and it was therefore
regarded, not as a dignifed retirement from
an exalted station, but as an ignOminious
dismissal from it. John Adams, indeed, was
so indignant at his rejection by the peO'
pie in 1900, that he could not bring
himself to remain in Washington TO witness
the inauguration of his rival, but hurried away
at daybTeak on the last morning of his term
And il was many years before the people gene
rally regarded him in any other light than that
of man rejected and disgraeed. His wiser but
less gifted son submitted with a better grace.
Not the less, however, was his defeat in lS2S
considered ignominious by the party which
had elected him.
Mr.. Van Buren,, faithful to the principles o
his illustrious predecessor, and having at hi
absolute command the whole army of Office
holders. was renominated in l640 without tn
slightest formidable opposition. He fully ex
pected to be reelected, From his remark
upon the campaign of 1910, in his work re
Gently published we may conclude that he dieC
without understanding the causes of his defeat
which he attributed to a momentary popula
delirium, excited he says, "by a ruthless wa
of eight years. waged against him by tn,
friends of Henry Clay. He even expected, hk