Bedford inquirer. [volume] (Bedford, Pa.) 1857-1884, 1868-06-12
rHE DEMocRArIc DILEMMA.

The Democratic party is now in Mr..
Micawber's expectant condition, waiting
for something to turn up 70 the Fourth
of July Convention it looks forward with
mingled hope and fear-hope that some
thing lucky viii happen, fear that the
elements Of discord win result in a grand
row
The Democracy came ont of the war
pretty badly whipped, and with the CON
seriousness of having deserved more punish
ment than it got In 1864, while Grant
and Stanton we're organizing the final
victory, the Democracy solemnly declared
the war failure, and consistently nominated
the man who bad done most to make it so.
But Mcclellan did not help the ruined
cause Since then the party has been like
Japhet in search of his father, looking for
| a good candidate for the Presidency, with
the moral certainty of finding bad one.
II will not be easy for them to unite upon
any one, however distinguished he may be.
There is Brick Pomeroy, who wants the
whole debt repudiated, and there is Mr..
Belmont, who wants it paid. There is
Pendleton, who would pay it in greenbaeks,
or not at all, and Seymour, who is opposed
to anything which Pendleton advocates.
There is Hancock, who helped to hang Mrs.
Surratt. and the Abbe McMasters, who
declares that execution a brutal murder of
an innocent woman. Hancock won all the
distinction he has by fighting against the
rebels, and to him comes Mr.. Valandig
ham, the champion of the peace party, who
protests against the nomination of Lincoln
| hireling. 4 dozen factions are in battle
array, each with their favorite leader, and
there is likely to be pretty fight when
they meet in the New York Convention of
July
Then there are the Democrats, whose
eagle vision perceives the weakness and
unpopuarity of the leaders of the party,
and who are sure that neither Pendleton,
nor Vallindigham, nor Hancock, can be
successfully opposed to Grant, and who
consider it policy to steal the Republican
thunder. These are the gentlemen who
would turn the party inside out, revamp
it, abolish all its more odious features,
and then present it, washed and brushed,
as free-will offering to Chief Justice
Chase But these astute politicians simply
add to the trouble In the first place, it is
highly improbable that the Democrats
could be induced to make the party
sufficiently anti Democratic to induce Mr.
Chase to touch it. Mr.. Chase is an old
abolitionist, firmly convinced that the colored
man should have the civil and political
rights of the white man, aud the principle
Of universal suffrage is one which he could
never give up. Would the negro haters of
the Democracy sustain such man for the
Presidency? What support could he expect
from the rioters of New York, who burned
the asylum for colored orphan children, and
who hung colored men TO lamp posts ?
What aid from the furious Democrats of
Washington, whose rage at the election Of a
Republican Mayor by colored votes carried
them into riot2 The Democratic party can
hardly afford to give up the negro hating
bird in hand in the hope of getting the
conservative bird in the bush. If the party
should be purified, and Mr. Chase should
be nominated, Brick Pomeroy and his host
of followers will bolt. If it should not
cleanse itself-but we must pause in these
speculations the Democratic dilemma is
distressing.
Must it come back to Andrew johnson at
last? Things have that appearance.
Morning Post