The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-09-14
Politics, Not Men.

Massachusetts, as usual, opens at last the
genuine radical battle in the pending Presi-
dental campaign. The elaborate manifesto
composed to the order of the Massachusetts,
radicals by their financial man, Mr.. David A.
Wells, and spoken at the Worcester COnven-
ton with much fuency and a certain poetic
iervor by Mr.. David A. Wells orstorical man,
Mr.. edward Atkinson, brings the conflict be-
tween the radicals aud the Democracy to the
precise ground on which it is the interest of
the American people, aud therefore of the
Democratic party, that 1t should be fought out.
No sooner had the nominations of Horatio
Seymour and Francis p. Blair been made than
the radicals, under the leadership and inspira-
ton of the New York Tribune, commenced
series OF the most virulent and vulgar personal
assaults upon the character and the career of
the Democratic candidates. .HoratiO Seymour,
who had been raised by the votes of the EN-
pre- State to the highest position within her
gut, at the most trying crisis of the civil war
whose personal reputation no breath of slander
had ever tarnished; and who had Justly
earned, by his fidelity and his vigor in the dis
charge OF his executive duties the cordial and
earnest thanks of President Lincoln, was de-
nounced as 'traitor" an q "Rebel" accused
of completely with the enemies of his country,
and held mp, not to the disapproval merely,
but to the contempt aud hatred of his fellow
citizens. Nay, more; these coarse aud pas
sionate assailants did not shrink from invading
the sanctity OF long-past domestic sorrows, to
steal from them the excuse of the falsest
and most malignant imputatiJns upon the
sanity of the man whom a great and powerful
party of American citizens had invited to bear
their banner in grave political conflict
Francis Z. Blair-a lifelong and efficient
opponent OF that very institution of slavery
to destroy which had been the real or pre-
tended motive-power of the Republican
party itself, before the possession of patron
age and influence made its leaders Indifferent
even to the pretense of consistency; soldier
of the Union, conspicuous not only for that
facile and easily couDterfeited virtue of ''loy-
atty" which was not less practicable, and
which was much more profitable in the safety
of Vermont and Iowa than it was under the
fire of Confederate cannon in Missouri and
Kentucky, but for conduct, also, and for mill
tary skill, was charged with the vilest per-
sonal habits, and with a deliberate attempt to
imperil by new and revolutionary practices
that very Union for which he had fought and
spoken and suffered aud labored during all the
weary and wasting years OF the war.
Such was the temper in which the radicals
opened the campaign upon rs. We protested
against it as unworthy of freemen. We
warned those who obeyed its evil ins pirations
that in such fight as they sought to make,
there would be blows to give as we'll as blows
to take. We called their own past to witness
We arrayed before them the bitter and con-
temptuous imputations heaped by themselves
upon their own chosen standard bearer, in
the days when Ulysses S. Grant was simply
leader of the Union armies, and not the repre-
sentative OF desperate political faction bent
on saving themselves if possible from the
just retiibution of their long triiing with the
public veal by using the name aud fame
which for years they bad done so much to
belittle and 10 bring into disrepute.
The work was not a pleas ant work, but it
was not of our choosing. That it was neces-
sary, the radical change of front in Massachu-
setts at last triumphantly shows. The radicals
have been driven from the cheap sham fight of
personal vituperation into the battle field of
principles and of facts.
Hither We have desired to bring them To
meet them here is victory for us; for them,
humiliation and defeat.
They must henceforth assume the impossi-
bic task of vindioating themselves against the
terrible indictment with which the history of
the last three years confronts them. They
must render up an account to the American
people of golden opportunities thrown away;
OF peace slaughtered in the halls of Congress-
OF the national resources misapplied and
wasted; OF the national burdens made heavier
with every passing month. They smust meet
s the poor man demanding the just remunera-
tion of his toll curtailed by their fiscal inca
pacity and extravaganza. They must meet
the rich man demanding liberty and security
OF employment for his capital. Our strangled
commerce, our hampered industries, the prin-
ciples of our constitutional Government tram
pied under foot, the rights of citizens and the
rights of States treated with an equal con
Tempt civilization itself put in peril by mad
and revolutionary attempts to override the
instincts of cur race and the traditions of our
history in one-half OF the national domain
Here is their work. To this We hold them.
These are their titles to "a protraoted lease of
power. n prt...T stI .ltlHi..H lsti .r.
Let us hear no more OF men. They pro
pose, at last, to show that what the country
condemns as incapaoty aud recklessness in
the administration OF public affairs has really
been diyinely ordained aud providantial
craftsmanship. Let them proceed 20 the
demonstration. IL Is no longer their oandi-
date whom they ask the American people 20
elect. 1t is themselves and their past that
they now ask the American people 10 endorse
by leetipg their candidate.
this. 10 doubt the issue of q fair fight fought
out on this field would be TO doubt the oapa-
city Of the American people, We will not say
or seltgovernment, but for the management
OF their merest material interests; we will
not say for just appreciation OF the phlo-
sophical conditions OF liberty, but for COM
nonsense in the discrimination of honesty
from corruption, and of the just from the
unjust steward.