The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1868-09-24
The MisMnna cement Of tho Campaign BY
the Democratic Leader and Organs.

~'~-"~---"-~eN'-S~s
the Democratic Leaders and Organs.
Beginning with the Tammany Hall Conven-
ton, the Presidential campaign on the part OF
the managers, leaders and organs of. the de-
mocracy has been budget of blunders. The
Convention was offered fair field for
glorious victory over the radicals in the nomi-
nation of Chief Justice Chase but, by
'coup de Mim6SerSg," as disguised Western
democrat has expressed it, the Chase move
ment was extinguished, Pendleton was slipped
away and Seymour turned up ''the little
JOKER" With the ink hardly dried of his
the Pendleton platform, with Wade Hampton's
revolutionary reconstruction amendment, and
thus, in overlapping himself, the laundering
Seymour found himself fighting the "lost
cause" of 1864 over again against the cham
pion of the Union war party and the conqueror
of the rebellion.
From this departure of the Tammany Con-
ventiOn the popular reactonary movement of
1867 against the radicals was instantly stopped
and new reaction commenced in favor of the
republican party and General Grant on the
great issues of the war. TO make the matter
worse for Seymour the managers, leaders and
organs of the democracy undertook to
strengthen their desperate cause by personal
abuse of General Grant and by the most silly
and preposterous attempts to prove Grant an ig-
noramus, destitute alike of any Of the qualities
of statesman and of any merit as a soldier.
T,In 4l,a& ha ny,lxy
a remorseless butcher and blunderer in the war
and only cunning trickster in the Cabinet.
Holding up the rebel General Lee as the model of
military leaders, they have still contended that
the conqueror Of Lee blundered along from the
Wilderness to Appomattox Court House. or
course this sort of party warfare rapidly rallied
''the Boys in Blue" and the loyal people Of
the war standing behind them around the
banner of Grant, as the same campaigning
against General Jackson rallied the honest
masses of the people around him forty years
ago.
In the next place, the constellation Of the
political and military leaders of the rebellion
who figured 80 largely in the Tammany Con-
proclaim that in the election of Seymour ''their
lost cause" would be regained; and accepting
this appeal from Appomattox Court House to
the Tammany Convention the Union party of
the war are all in line again and are resolved
to reaffirm, under Grant, the settlement of
Lees surrender. And yet, again, in the outset
of the canvass the Independent press was
favorably inclined towards the democratic
party in view of the excuses and wasteful
cxtravagances Of the dominant radicals. But
certain self-suficient and basely envious demo-
cratic organs undertook the absurd experiment
of a moral crusade against every Independent
journal which would not fling up its cap and
hurrah for Seymour according to instructions
from the Manhattan ring. This absurd expert
ment, like that of the scandalous abuse of Cen
eral Grant as citizen, civilian and soldier, has
only operated to plague the inventors. The
independent press still fourishes as the repre-
sentative of an independent public opinion,
while the self-suficient democratic organs
aforesaid are evidently falling into the sere and
yellow leaf before the first frost.
1t is passing strange" that in this campaign
our democratic managers, leaders and organs
appear to have forgotten, not only the lessons
of the war as given in the general run of the
elections since 1860, but the instructions of all
our great elections of the last forty years.
Their budget of blunders embraces the blum
ders of the Adams party of 1928, the plumbers
of the Van Buren, party of 1910, Of the Cass
party of lS4s, the blunders of poor Pierce and
Buchanan, the blunders of the Southern oil
garchy at Charleston in 1860 and of the North
erp wing Of the party at Chicago in 1864, all
rolled together. With such load upon his
back what hope is there for Seymour, nomi-
mated to fight over again the last and most dis
astrous campaign of Mcclellan? Echo answers,
none.