The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-11-12
THE HEGIRA OF yALLANDIGHAM.

lttE HEGIHA OI NALIANDlCTHAM
From the N Y. Tribuac.
We have never been an incorporate adj
mirer of Mr.. Vallandigham. Indeed, if we
had wanted for purposes of exhibition poll
tlclan IN whom every Objectionable quality
appeared III its highest state of development
we should have ''gone for" that gentleman
without the slightest reference to expense
and should defiantly have challenged the uni
verse TO match him. The patient and un-
wearied faulty with which he has bumped
his head against stone walls for the last seven
or eight years, and the chearfulness which he
has maintained throughout that depressing
exercise, have something heroic in them; and
they lift him so much above the level OF ordi-
nary traitors as to entitle him to curious and
scientific attention. Until recently there
seemed every reason to apprehend that he
would occupy the remainder Of the century in
| this fruitless conclusive proceeding--that he
would continue to bump his not very wise
| head against very solid obstacles, spectacle
| of pity to the gods and of wonder to man
kind. But he seems inclined to Withdraw
that globose and sorely-contused organ from
! further employment of the sort.
At least, he has written letter which per-
mits us to indulge that anticipation. In it he
| says that he has been almost entirely with
drawn from politics for the past year; that III
| his opinion the questions of to-day will not
be the questions of 1872; that the position
of leading men will be by that time greatly
changed; that if the Democratic party is
beaten (he refers to the election which has
| taken place. it doesn't signify: inasmuch as
seven successive years of that penitential ex-
perience have made them used to it: but if
it should win However, as it didn't win.
| we may omit mention of the consequences
| which Mr.. Vallandigham thought would re-
suit from that event. The letter altogether
signifies that the writer is tired of letting
empty buckets into empty wells and drawing
nothing up, and that, as he has not found
treason a paying business, he is going into
liquidation. 1t is well; back seat and
little pause Of silence will do him world of
good. Weare not in the councils of his party,
but we think it can spare him. He has
been the bee in its bonnet, the fly in its
honeypot, the bull in its china shop, the
donkey amid its cabbages. We would cele-
brate him through other geological and ento-
mological symbols, if we could think of any
which were appropriate. Those we have en-
ployed only feebly shadow forth the nuisance
Inc has been to his people. Ii we were ofthem
we should try to get up generaljubilee to ce-
lebrate hisretirementfroma active political life.
He is reputed to possess brains, though it is
apparent that his purposes of evil were but
feebly supplemented by his capacities. All
that he has done has been TO lead his party to
defeat time after time and to impose upon its
national creed few odious dogmas, which of
themselves are sufficient to account for its
repeated overthrow. Provincial constitu-
encies are apt to accord frst-closs honors to
second-class capacities, and it is possible that
they may have done SO in the case Of Mr.
Vallandigham.
If We could discern in his letter distinct evil
dences Of penitence, even single orotund
and articulate peccaci, We should shrive the
man at once, and send him some rudimentary
treatise setting forth the duty of a citizen to
the State. A diigent perusal Of some manual
him, in which case we should gladly welcome
him to the Republican ranks, and would, SO
far as we could cons gn to oblivion that page
of history upon which it is little likely that he
will ever look back with pride. But we have
no distinct evidence that Ephraim is not still
welded to his idols. If he is, it is mat
ter of general felicitation that he has gone into
the wilderness to worship them.