The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-06-24
SIGNIFICANT NEWSPAPER QUARREL
JOHNSON, CHASE AND GRANT.

take any interest in 1t, they do so with that
sort of serene wonder at ludicrous frenzy
which one experiences in observing the fierce
rivalry between the grocery at the northwest
corner kept by Podgers, and the grocery at
southwest corner kept by Dodgers, or the des-
perate jealousy between the blonde belle at
the east end of the village and the brunette
belle at the west end of the village. But
sharp passage of words which has recently
occurred between the National Intelligencer
at Washington, the recognized organ of Presi-
dent Johnson, and the New York World, the
leading Democratic journal in the North, is
so illustrative of the deviousness, the muta-
bility and uncertainty of parties and politi-
clans in this transitional period that an exami-
nation of its salient features will serve to in
struct, if not to divert. The Intelligencer
opened the war by charging the World with
being halfhearted in its support of Demo-
cratic men and policy, and with having a de-
sign to radicalize the party by inducing it to
treat negro suffrage as a dead issue in federal
politics. The World demurs to the assump-
ton of "this personal organ of President
johnson" to define Democratic orthodoxy
and to unchurch Democratic journals for
heresy. "This," says the World, sis much
as though Mahomedan mutt. should issue
bull of accommodation against a cardinal
on the ground that he was not good Catho-
lie. Curiosity inquiries, how came the multi
in possession of the keys, seeing that he is
himself outside the pale of the church
President johnson has been for seven years
outside the Democratic organization, and his
satellites are taking more upon themselves
than reasonable modesty can very well carry
in undertaking to decide, er cattedrd, who are
not faithful Democrats"
If the position of the World, as an expo
nent of views widely entertained among
Northern Democrats, is profoundly signif-
cant of change in one direction, the position of
the Intelligencer, as the organ of President
johnson, is still more profoundly significant
of change in another direction. Who would
have been so rash as to have predicted, three
years ago, that Andrew johnson would stand
where he now stands with reference to parties
and sections? None but lunatic would
have been supposed at that time capable of
such prediction. What were the utterances
and the surroundings, the official acts and
the later political antecedents of the new Pres
ident He had been nominated for the Vice
Presidency by the Baltimore convention to
crafty a class of Republicans who regarded
Mr.. Lincoln as not quite radical enough in
his views and by no means vindictive enough
L. II L
made speech, as military governor of Ten
nessee, to the negroes of Nashville, in which
he proffered to be the Moses of their enslaved
race in the South, and this speech, resound-
ing through the Northern press, tickled to
ecstacy the ears of the abolitionists of all per-
suasions and denominations Called suddenly
to the presidency by the assassination of his
predecessor, when that Office seemed, to
Southern eyes at least, the throne of tremu-
lous and cruel despot surrounded with mist
of blood and with visions of horror and when
the whole sky lowered with portent of fanati-
cal vengeance upon q conquered and helpless
people, his language and his action were
at first in dramatic correspondence with the
dismal and awful scene. He rejected abruptly
the magnanimous and statesmanlike terms of
capitulation granted by General Sherman to
General Johnston; terms which if accepted
would have taken away all occasion for either
a Presidential or Congressional plan of re-
construction, and presented at once practi-
cal basis for restoration of the seeded States
to the Union. His speeches breathed of the
,,,A,a a
"rebels." "Treason," he said, "must be
made odious by exemplary punishments,
and every woman in the South blanched with
dismay at the thought that those whom the
havoc of war had spared them, were still in
peril of life or personal liberty. Stanton,
Holt, Bingham and Baker we're then the most
active and potent representatives of his execu-
tive authority. They organized terror
military commission was appointed 1t was
created to convict, and it convicted. wo-
man-innocent, if the rules of evidence are
not trash, and if the legal theory of guilt is
not he-was the first victim.
The appetites of Stanton, Holt and the
rest, though sanguinary, were just then deli
cate, and nothing short of SO dainty a NOR
sci would satisfy them. Nobody not in the
dark counsels Of the conclave which held
power of life and death at Washington, could
feel safe within sweep of its stealthy arm.
For, whatever accusation malgnity chose to
bring, perjury was ready to prove. Even
some of the most thorough radicals at the
North began to deprecate the extent to which
the new administration seemed bent on push
ing a vindictiye policy. Beecher implored
mercy for his downfllen white countrymen at
the South; Phillips wanted the government
to understand that the worst use which it
could make of TRAITORS" was to hang them.
At length came the first amnesty proclama-
ton, pardoning the rank and file and subal-
tern officers of the Confederate army, and re-
serving, as it was thought, all the wealthy and
eminent adherents of the Confederacy for
confederation of tbair asfateG or minis maDt of