Spirit of Jefferson. [volume] (Charles Town, Va. [W. Va.]) 1844-1948, 1868-09-01
from the New York Herald.I
Greeley on the Presidential Election.

Greeley begins to see the Presidential can
vass in clear light, and sees every reason to
fear the failure of Grant. He says that the
labor that is to ensure the triumph of the
republican candidates sis yet to be done;"
that six times as many clubs as the Grant
men now have are necessary, and that before
it can expect to win the clubs must :'gather
and CLEAN half million votes from those who
are now Indifferent or hostile" to the repub-
lican party. Aud all this, he justly reasons,
'implies such canvass as has never yet been
made in our country" For those who fancy
the election of Grant and Colfax certain he
says: $50 far is this from the fact that they
are this hour in peril of defeat" and ''will
surely be beaten if their steadfast supporters
are not speedily aroused to general and intense
activity" Republicans "have to poll their
very last vote in half the States-many more
than they have ever yet polled in the belt of
States beginning with Connecticut and extend
ing through New York, New Jersey, Penn
sylvania and Ohio to Indiana-or Seymour
will be next President" He believes that
''there is danger-Grave danger"-that Grant
will not be the next Executive not that he
doubts of the real supremacy of the republi-
can party in point of numbers even, but he
fears that republicans will be apathetic and
democrats crafty, and of course dishonest
view not quite consistent with his other
view that his party needs to win half mill
lion votes gained either from its opponents or
from men Indifferent to party.
Greeley, then, begins to feel the coming
defeat of General Grant. lie has good reason
to be uneasy in view of the possibility. He
may regard this result as in a peculiar degree
the consequence of his own efforts. He has
directly contributed to bring it about. He
created in the first place and has kept alive
those elements of disatTection to the republi>
can party from which alone Grants defeat
can come. He is the man who has driven
the common sense, the respectable controlling
conservatism of the country into an attitude
of hostility to the republican party. He is
the real source in his party of all its extreme
tendencies-all those desperate efforts to
remodel the nation in accordance with ex-
travagaut and misty theory-those ridiculous
vagaries Of a dreaming enthusiast who fancics
he is 4 politician and statesman. Had re-
publicanism acted on the impulses of the peo-
pie at the close of the war; had its policy
reflected the true will Of the people, how
different would have been our recent history
But it gave way to that spirit Of which Gree
ley was the head and front, and the rest came
of course. Thence came all the niggcr leg
IoL"A'lOu anu al IhdI pCAN VI Odl lCCCuI
political strife that would not have peace if it
was not peace with the niggcr in the best
place. Thence came all the legislation out
side the constitution and the effort to cast the
Executive Office out of our system of govern
ment because the occupant of that Office did
not agree with Greeley in his view Of his
duty. This is the spirit that has rendered it
impossible for the people to act longer with
the republican party and though the nation
respects and reveres Grant for his character
and history, it cannot even for his sake accept
part of such tendencies and subject, as its
record shows, to such unsafe influence.
1t is not the first time that Greeley has
appeared in the same character. He had the
same relation to the disastrous defeat of Scott
He was the leader who inspired in the people
such natural alarm and fear of what might
follow the success of the whig party. His
extravagant agitation of the anti-slavery
excitement, his fury, his venomous invectives,
his intellectual antics generally, made such
sentiment against his party that Scots heroic
national record was an insufficient assurance.
In the same way his extravaganza and folly
have driven from the support of his party the
vast masses of the people, and thus he had
prepared the way for the defeat OF his candi-