The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-07-30
THE ENGLISH PRESS ON THE PREsIDEN-
TIAL CAMPAIGN.

hadlcal papers pretend 10 derive mucn
comfort from the fact that some of the Eng
lish papers speak disparagingly of the Sey-
mour and Blair ticket, and express doubts of
its success. The New York Times, for ex-
ample, quotes, with that air of assumed
triumph with which the legal advocate of a bad
cause introduces a bad witness, the subjoined
passage from the Pail Mall Gazette
Does any Democratic politician really expect to
win with that ticket? 1t is probably Indicative
rather OF sense of hopeessness on the part OF
the leaders than any expectation Of defeating
the Republican candidates. II they are to lose
the day, they may as well lose It with captain
Of their own opinions at their head, and not sub.
ject themselves TO the additional humiliation OF
borrowing a chief from the enemy. Had the
managing Democrats seen prospect Of gaining
the day with Mr. Chase, they would doubtless
have accepted him but since failure is all but
inevitable, il is worth while to pay some regard
to their consistency.
The foregone purpose of this English paper
to construe in the most unfavorable sense the
Democratic nomination, whether Chase, Sey-
mour, or anybody else were the nominee,
is perfectly transparent 1t was ready to
say, had Chase been nominated, that, ut
terly despairing of success "with captain
of their own opinions at their head" the
Democrats resolved to WOO an opprobrious
victory by the humiliating expedient of 'bor-
rowing chief from the enemy" And even
had they taken such a resolution, they would
have done no more than to initiate the ex-
ample of the enemy in a similar exigency.
For if Chase, up to the impeachment trial,
was confidently claimed by the radicals,
Grant, up to the beginning of the impeach-
ment conspiracy, was confidently claimed by
the conservatives. The radical leaders needed
the uniform of the general in chief on their
side. They cared nothing for the man or for
the political opinions, if any, underneath the
military apparel. And, hereupon they struck
a bsrgain, under which they nominated him,
or it, for the presidency, in consideration of
his, or its, services in behalf of their revc-
lutionaIy schemes.
But the Democrats in making a nomination
did not feel that the exigency was such as to
demand that they should borrow a dishonor-
Gazette, if it had been candid, would have
admitted that the Democratic delegates in the
New York convention declined to nominate a
candidate tainted with radical antecedents
because they felt confident of gaining the day
without humiliating sacrifice of consistency
to expediency.
How poorly off the New York Times and
other radical sheets are for comforting reas-
surance when they seek it in the utterances of
such English papers as the Pail Mall Gazette,
may be judged by adverting to the way in
which the latter were denounced by the former
during the late war. The English press in
general then spoke disparagingly of the plans
of the federal government for suppressing the
Southern Confederacy, and predicted that the
struggle would end in the permanent dissolu-
ton of the Union. The same class of Ame-
rican journals which at that time charged that
the majority of English journalists were ignor
ant, mandacious and malignant with regard
to the United States, and that their evil
prophecies about the sectional conflict were
inspired by the hope to see the Union forever
broken, free institutions destroyed, and the
whole country ruined, now assert in an ex-
nuJUrIty u 1-oi;~L ;---
nalsts speak disparagingly of the plans of
the Democrats to defeat the radical ticket and
predict that the pending campaign will result
in completing the ascendency of the radical
faction. Now nothing is more natural than
that the same English sentiment which hoped
to see the Union forever dissolved, free
government lost, and the whole country ruined
in consequence of the late war, should now
equally hope to see the radicals carry the
presidential election an event that would sip-
nifty chronic distraction, gloomy despotism,
social misery and general impoverishment