The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-09-09

things 80 novel, 80 unique ana so momentous
in the issues at stake for good or evil to the
country That We have no Presidential preoe-
! dent to compare with this contest for the sue
cesslon. We may say that in its party bitter
ness ON State rights and State wrongs 1t resem-
bles somewhat the Jefferson campaign of 1900;
that the personal abuse levelled at General
drant in 1868 by the Democratic Copperhsad
press Is very much the same as that of the
Wings against General Jackson in 1928; that
we have parallel for the detection of ANDY
johnson in the detection of Captain TYLER i'm
peachment and all; that the Democratic war
against the financial system of Congress is only
an enlargement Of the fight between Old Hick-
ory and Nick Biddle; that the same corrup-
tions and wastages which characterized Van
Buren's administration have been practsed in
tentold degree by the party now in power,
and that the same war-cry of "anything for a
change" may be as aptly raised now as il was
in lS4O. But still we may say that from the
shape which it has assumed, this Presidential
conflict more nearly resembles that of 1864
than any other.
The Democratic National Convention, the
Democratic Copperhead press and the Demo.
cratic Rebel fre-eaters of the South have made
it SO. Under Chief Justice Chase and his
platform they might have secured another
victory as decisive as that of 1862: under
Seymour and the Pendleton- Hampton platform,
from all the signs of the times, they are threat
ened with another defeat like that of McClel-
Ian. They might have thrown the radicals
completely upon the defensive on their finan-
cial and taxation blunders and burdens by
accepting the constitutional amendment arti-
Gle fourteen, as final settlement of the aues-
tions of State rights, African rights, and negro
suffrage. Instead of this, however, by de-
nouncing or suppressing that amendment and
by declaring all the reconstruction doings of
GuT ncfi ift1fin al oI,kso
null and void, " the Democratic managers of
this campaign take US back to the contests of
1866 upon said amendment and to the old
issue of 1S64-whether the war for the Union
was or was not failure. This is the very
shaping of the contest which the Republicans
desired, including especially the scandalous
attempts of certain Democratic organs to
blacken the personal and public character
and to belittle the military services of Gene
raj Grant.
Some of these personal assaults are among
the most remarkable of the stupidities and
curiosities Of this canvass. For instance, a
certain scribbler for party purposes under
takes to show that General Grants grand and
crushing campaign against the Rebellion de-
served drumhead co1rt-martial instead of
promotion Of any kind and another scribbler
of the same school, while portraying Grant as
the greatest of butchers and blunderers, pre-
sents Lee as the finest living model of great
soldier. This is the height of Democratic
folly. In various other ways, including the
Rosecrans White sulphur mission, they are
doing mischief to their cause in bringing into
the foreground the active leaders and politi-
clans of the Rebellion as the supporters of the
cause of seymour and Blair. Then, again,
while in Mississippi the white Democracy at
their campaign barbecues are feasting their
fellow citizens of Afr can scent on footing
of equal rights, the Democrats of the Georgia
Legislature are spelling this work of conciliat-
ing and gaining the black vote by expelling
the negro members of the House as ineligible on
account of their race and color.
All these things, we say, have wiped out the
political popular reaction, which was inaugu-
rated in the election of 1867, just as the cop
perhead leaders spoiled the successes of 1862
by their follies of 1868. This contest is thus
thrown back substantially to the great issue
of 1864, on the war, and the result is pro-
missed from all the lights before us to be the
same.