The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1868-07-10
I'm Democratic Convention yesterdsy

Wnether IN I1e POnISAA oAA4S4S Va
country there is any one in all respects
equal 10 it. Mr.. Seymour and his friends
have shown themselves master Of what
the military books call grand strategy.
Mr. Seymour played the role of Cesar
very finely. Mr.. Pendleton was not
really at any time very formidable am
tagonist. He might have been in a
Western city; but he was shorn of half
his strength by the mere location of the
Convention. Seymour gained his first
victory when it was called to meet at
New York. With all Mr.. Chase's
'fbrains," (of which Mr.. LIE Blond stood
in such wholesome dread,) with all his
consummate skill, tact and penetration,
he was out-generalled, and he is to-day
the deadest cock in the pit We know any.
thing about. Somebody said of him when
he was an Ohio politician, that he would
do meaner things to get into Office than
any man in America. The history of this
contest for Presidential nomination
verifes the remark. From the impeach-
ment trial down to the last letter, wherein
} it is reported he protested his willingness
TO stand on the New York platform, he
got down lower and ate dirt more greedily
than any man of his intellectual stature
ever did before. Yet it ayailed him
nothing.
The nomination of Seymour is E grand
triumph for the ''bloated bondholders' OF
the East. Mr.. Seymour's hostility to
Peudleton's greenback humbug is of the
most pronounced kind. The speech which
he delivered at Albany two or three weeks
since was powerful exposure of the rot
tenness of that theory. 1t may seem a
little remarkable that after making a
greenback platform the Convention should
nominate SO strong an anti.greenbaek
man to stand upon it; but let us remem-
Der all things are possible with Democ-
racy. That party is not hedged in by
any necessity of being consistent, and it
does not try to be. 1t aims solely at ex-
pediency. Seymour is the real plat.
form. Had the Convention been sin
cere in the adoption of the greenbaek
plank, they would have nominated man
who could stand on it. This greenback
plank is a tub to the Western whale.
The party in the West are to make fight
on it IF they CAM. In our opinion they
cannot. The greenback theory of which
we have heard so much is as effectually
slaughtered as Mr.. Pendleton, its author
How can the party fight for greenbacks
when the theory is to be no more recog'
nized if the party wins than if they don't {
1t seems to US, therefore, that the nomi'
nation of Seymour removes this whole
question of the currency and the bonds
from the coming canvass. The Convan'
ton abandoned its own platform on this
question, when it refused to nominate q
man who represents it
Mr.. Seymour and the Republicans on
this question stand on the same ground
They believe alike that all this talk about
printing thousand or two millions o.
paper to redeem the bonds is the veries
clap.trap and demagoguery; that it is mo-
practical question, the bonds not be
coming demands against the Government
for fifteen to twenty years; and that thu
true policy is to go improve the credit o
tho Government meanwhile, that by the
time the bonds must be paid, o. as much
sooner as possible, "lawful money! will
be as good as gold. Mr.. Seymour him
self in his Albany speech efectually lei
the gas out of the Democratic balloon
about the ''oue currency for ALL" when
he said the real question was not whether
there should be one currency for all, but
whether the currency should be all good
or all bad. He holds that by keeping
faith with our creditors, the currency may
in few years be made all good. The
Republicans hold the same position. Mr..
Seymour is the real platform'of his party
on this question; and therefore we repeat
that the greenback question is no longer
an issue in the canvass.
The crowning issue of the contest is
that of neutrality-suspicious. civil
government in the South shall remain as
it is now being established, on basis OF
equal suffrage and civil rights for all, or
whether all that has been done in that
behalf shall be undone and civil govern
ment be re.established there on basis of
injustice and inhumanity that could not
fail to renew the agitations and distur-
Dances of the past, that are inevitable
under such system as the reactionists
of the country advocate.
Upon this question Grant aud Sey.
mour, like the parties they head, arc as
far apart as the poles. On this line we
propose to eight it out if it takes all sum
mer, with full confidence that the loyal
people of the United States will not now
agree, after the price of free govern
meut in the South has been paid,
and the vexatious question of what can
be done with the negro, has been yirtu.
ally solved, that this price shall have
been paid in vain, and that the cruel and
arrogant regime of slavery shall again
rule, not the South alone, but the Gov:
eminent, or else the elements of orderly
and good government now rapidly taking
form, be resolved into chaos. Between
these two parties on this vital question
there is great gulf that cannot be
bridged. One or the other must sue.
coed absolutely and the question be
closed entirely before there can he tran.