The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-12-30
Choosing United States Senators.

Indiana Will assemble next week, ana Will
proceed, two weeks later, to choose each
United States Senator for six years ensuing in
place of the Hon. Charles K. Buckalew and
Thomas A. Hendricks respectively. A more
important duty can hardly devOlve on either
body, and we trust it may be discharged with
a full consciousness OF its grave response
bility.
Messrs Buckalew and Hendricks are among
the ablest men of their party-probaby the
two strongest Democrats in the Senate. They
came in on the tide of national disaster that
naturally resulted from the abortive, pur-
poseless campaigns of Mcclellan and Buell.;
they go out because the Union cause is COM
plstely triumphant, on platform whereof
mans iualienable rights form the base and
emancipation the superintendent structure.
They we're beaten when, in defiance OF the
impressive lesson of 1864, Seymour and Blair
were preferred to Chase and Hancock as ex-
ponents and standard bearers of partisan De-
mocracy in 1868. The defeat was that of their
party, for which they we're not personally
responsible. They were generals of division,
sacrificed on the field Of battle because ''some
one had lundered."
The new Legislatures of these States will,
we trust, choose in their stead men at least
as capable and influential as they are, while
belonging politically to a better school. If
men should be taken who compare unfavora-
bly, with them in every respect but their poll
done to the Republican cause.
We are constrained to say this because we
hear that pretenders are trying to make them
selves candidates, whose principal qualifca
tions are impudence and money, mainly the
former. We have no favorites, and have not
even formed an opinion as to the man whom
either State ought to send to the Senate; but
we know right we'll that any man who can
think of gaining seat in the Senate by the
help of money, cannot possibly be fit for
trust 30 exalted and influential. There can be
no dispute on this point.
Pennsylvania has vast interests staked on
the legislation of the next few years. She
cannot be ignorant that powerful interests and
influences are silently combining to establish,
on the ruins Of our present tariff, financial
policy which must inevitably extinguish half
her furnace fires and silence the clink of the
pick in half her already opened mines. She is
in peril of baleful legislation even from the
XLIst Congress, already mainly chosen; either
in that or its successor-perhaps in b0th-her
mineral industry must battle for existence.
She will need therein the very abest and
most influential representatives: she could
well afford this hour to give ten millions of
dollars for Henry Clay or Walter Forward to
put into Mr.. Buckalew's place. We do not
say she has him not we only insist that she
shall now put her best foot forward
When we first looked down, in 1885, upon
Daniel Webster, John G. Calhoun, silas
Wright, John M. Clayton, Thomas H. Benton,
Benjamin Watkins Leigh, William G. Preston,
John J. Crittendep, Willie p. Mangum, John
Davis, Thomas Ewing James Buchanan Hugh
l.. White, Felix Grundy, and Samuel L.
Southland were members-and the body was
considerably less numerous than it is to-day.
The present Senate has many able and justly
eminent members and yet we cannot realize
that human progress is forcibly eXemplifed
in comparison of its roll of membership with
that of 1886. Let us trust that, wherever i'm
provement is found practicable, the oppor-
tunity will be fully profted by.
The Proposed Division of Certain States.
From the N. Y. Times.
The deadly distemper of State secession
seems, curiously enough, to have left, in dying
out, much milder, but yet quite marked
''mania" for State division. The proposed
dividing up of Texas into two or three States
was the first symptom of this supervening
condition-for malady we hardly need call it.
This was one of the late Mr.. Stevens pet pro-
jects; and it is only Just to say that it was
probably entertained by him more as pOliti-
cal scheme, or as one involving fundamental
governmental doctrine, than from any special
regard to geographical necessities, to climatic
and agricultural differences, or, in a word, to
the alleged commercial and civic needs for the
proposed separation. However, though the
division OF Texas may be accomplished, it will
probably be robbed Of that very doctrinal ele-
ment which Mr.. Stevens desired to contribute
to it. His plan, it will be remembered, was
to effect the severance of Texas into parts by
a declaratCTy act of Congress-indeed, he in
troduced one into the House, and gave notice
OF his purpose to push it, as he probably
would have done had he lived. Doubtless
one object with him was in this way to fix
monumental statute, as it were, upon the re-
cords OF the Government, showing that Con
gress had regarded the seeded States as Ter.
ritories, not only for military, but for lega
purposes, and indeed for all purposes, ever
the most practical. For surely nothing could
be more practical than putting land and insti
tutions to such use nor of course, could
Congressional division of Texas be effeotual
except on the theory that what was once
State had become a Territory.
But with Mr.. Stevens death died this TeXaI
project, apparently-so far as concerns tn
special form in which he entertained it. l
survived, however, in another proposition
dvested of his animus and moral pdrpose, bu
yet driving at exactly the same end-perhaps
we might add, Just as General Buffers Dutcl
Gap Canal accomplished nothing for the mill
tary use whereto he desired to put it, and ye
as piece of possible engineering for CONNER
cial purposes attracted attention at once
when the war was over. The Texas Recon
struction Convention, which will meet at Aus
tin is certain to take up this important sui
iect. If the Convention be controlled by tn
political desires of Congress, or il it be i
harmony with the desires of Congress-, tn
legal and constitutional issue raised by MI
Btavens will, OF course, be avoided, whethe