The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1868-09-08

whip and spur of the slave power" turned the
tables against their party and brought about
the terrible smash-up of 1860 In the Charles
ton Convention, and the stupendous sectional
war and political revolution and the work of
political reconstruction which have filed up
the interval to 1868.
Here, then, we stand under new order of
things so novel, 80 unique and 80 momentous
In the issues at stake for good or evil to the
country that we have no Presidential prece-
dent to compare with this contest for the sue
cession. We may say that in it's party bitter
ness on State rights and State wrongs it re-
sembles somewhat the Jefferson campaign of
1905 that the personal abuse levelled at
General Grant in 1868 by the democratic cop
perhead press is very much the same as that
of the wings against General Jackson in 1928;
that we have parallel for the detection Of
Andy Johnson in the detection Of Captain
Tyler, impeachment and ALL that the demo-
cratic war against the financial system of Con-
gress is only an enlargement of the fight
between Old Hickory and Nick Biddle; that
the same corruptions and wastages which
characterized Van Buren's administration have
been practised in tenfold degree by the party
now in power, and that the same war cry of
'anything for a change" may be as aptly raised
now as it was in 1910. But still we may say
that from the shape which it has assumed this
Presidential conflict more nearly resembles
that of 1864 than any other.
The Democratic National Convention, the
democratic copperhead press and the demo-
cratic rebel fre-eaters of the South have made
it so. Under Chief Justice Chase and his
platform they might have secured another
victory as decisive as that of 1852; under
Seymour and the Pendleton-H Hampton PLATFORM
from all the signs Of the times, they are
threatened with another defeat like that of
Mcclellan. They might have thrown the radi-
calls completely upon the defensive on
their financial and taxation blunders
and burdens by accepting the constitutional
amendment, article fourteen. as final settle
ment of the questions of State rights, African
rights and negro suffrage. Instead of this,
however, by denouncing or suppressing that
amendment and by declaring all the recon
struction doings Of Congress ''unconstitu-
tional, revolutionary, null and void, " the demo-
cratic managers of this campaign take us back
to the contests of 1866 upon said amendment
and to the old issue of 1864-whether the war
for the Union was or was not failure. This Is
the very shaping ofthe contest which the repub-
lcans desired, including especially the scandal
Gus attempts of certain democratic organs to
blaeken the personal and public character and
to belittle the military services of General
Grant.
Some of these personal assaults are among
the most remarkable of the stupidities and curl
Osities of this canvass. For instance, o GER
tain scribbler for party purposes undertakes to
show that General Grants grand and crushing
campaign against the rebellion deserved q
Of any kind; and another scribbler of the
same school, while portraying Grant as the
greatest Of butchers and blunderers, presents
Lee as the finest living model Of great
soldier. This is the height of democratic
folly. In various other ways, including the
~s"S~|A"uo VAAVo ouiPuuA AicoiOA, suOy uio
doing mischief to their cause in bringing into
the foreground the active leaders and politi-
clans of the rebellion as the supporters Of the
cause of Seymour and Blair. Then, again,
while in Mississippi the white democracy at
their campaign barbecues are feasting their
fellow citizens of African descent on footing
of equal rights, the democrats of the Georgia
Legislature are spelling this work of concili-
ating and gaining the black vote by expelling
the negro members Of the House as ineligible
on account of their race and color
All these things, we say, have wiped out the
political popular reaction which was inaugu-
ated In the elections of 1867, just as the cop
perhead leaders spoiled their successes of 1862
by their follies of 1868. This contest is thus
thrown back substantially to the great issue of
1864, on the war, and the result is promised