The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-11-14
Reverdy Johnson's Popularity.

In the course of long and laborious eulogy
upon Mr.. Reverdy Johnson, tho London
Saturday RevieV declares that che has not
only made himself popular in England,
although he has only been a few weeks here
but he has done much to make his country
men popular here" The truth of this asser-
tion, in measure, we are not disposed to
question. Mr.. Laird, the builder Of the Ala
bama, doubtless regards Mr.. Johnson as the
cleverest and most congenial American that
he has laid eyes on since he closed
his last negotiations with the agents Of the
late Confederacy for piratical craft. Every
other Epglishman of high or low degree whose
sympathies were enlisted or whose interests
were involved in the Shareholders Rebellion
doubtless holds him in the same veneration.
To this statement, however, one important
exception must be taken the case OF Mr.. Roe
buck, who unhsppily mis.ook the temper NJ.
Johnson, soon after the arrival Of the latter
gentleman in Eugland, and contrived to get at
swords points with him, to the great scandal
of all the anti American English public. Mr..
Disraeli and Lord Stanley also, both of whom
have been so completely lathersd with dipio
matte soft soap by our willy repr sentative
and who are the sworn foes Of every thing, in
England or America, which has liberal aud
progressive tendency, are doubtless deeply
impressed with high sense of the excellent
qualities Of head, heart, and stomach which
Mr. Johnson has so freely displayed; and with
them are ranged the main body of the rauk
and file of the English Tories, who admire
everything that hangs on to the past with q
tenacity rivalled only by that which keeps the
breath of life in the worthless body of an out
cast cat.
The popularity OF Mr.. Johnson's country
men is natural and unavoidable sequence Of
the high repute which he has gained for him
self. This state ment, however, needs slight
qualification. 1t is not to be taken for granted
on the authority of the Saturday Review, that
the whole American people has made a long
stride in the affections ard esteem of the Eng
lish nation; but simply, we imagine, that the
portion of the American people whom Reverdy
Johnson faithfully represents has risen in the
eyes of that portion of the English public with
whom he has found favor to position but
little below that which he himself occupies.
The loyal press of the United States, almost
without exception, has repudiated the after
dinner vagaries of Mr. Johnson, and denounced
him for his trucking to the English Tories,
and his unseemly and unpatriotic consorting
with the avowed enemies of his country. That
the Saturday RevieD, and that portion of the
English people for whom it speaks, could re-
gard with kind feelings such of Mr.. Johnson's
oountrymen as have washed their hands Of
him is not for a amoment to be entertained.
But while Mr.. Johnson has been making
such rapid headway in the affections OF Eng
lish Tories and sympathizers with the Slave
holders Rebellion, he has lost the confidence
and esteem of his constituents in correspond
ing degree. The interests of the loyal people
of the United States were as faithfully repre-
sented by Mason and Slidell as they are by the
gentleman who could not restrain himself
from confessing that he was still, as he had
always been, southerner, and, therefore, by
plain inference, true friend to Southern in
terests from the extreme pro-slavery Southern
standpoint. In short, Reverdy Johnson is not
the Minister of the United States, but the
Minister of the Confederate States, the advo-
cate abroad of that spirit of hostility to free
institutions and equal justice to all men which
plunged our country into the horrors of civil
war, and which still attempts to fan the dying
embers Of rebellion, that they may not be en-
tirely extipguished. The election of General
Grant, however, has accomplished what the
loyal army left undone, and one of its inevi-
table consequences will be the prompt recall Of
our unworthy Minister to England.