The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1869-01-16
GRANTS DENIAL OF REPORTED CON
vERsATIONS.


public characters, imputed to him in the gos-
sip of Washington correspondence, would
speak much more for the frankness, gene
rosity and greatness of his mind if he had
been equally prompt to deny the atrocious
aspersion of whole Southern community
which the Northern press, on no better au-
thority, has generally attributed to him. 1t
may well be, supposing him to have deiIoer-
ately taken up the trade of politician, that
he cannot afford to say disparaging things,
even in all sincerity, about Seward, Greeley,
Sumner, Phillips, Washburne and others. 1t
would not be strange if he should feel him.
self debarred by the circumstances OF his
position from speaking in merited praise OF
Fessenden, or from testifying to the honesty
and craftsmanship of any contemporary
American connected with public affairs. For
should Gen. Grant remark, for example, as he is
reported to have remarked, that Fessenden
is an eminently able, disinterested and incor-
ruptible senator, there is not Radical in
either house of Congress who would not infer
from this exceptional mention that he was
tacitly branded by the President elect as emil
nently political quack and a selfish and COR
rupt partisan. 1t is reasonable and proper
enough, we freely allow, as politics go, for the
general to disavow the authorship OF several
conversational epigrams, that would do credit
to a Partisan persifeur, touching the strong
points and weak points of certain public men.
There was really no occasion for him to say
that Greeley, by reason of his exagger-
ated notion of the negro's capacity, is
a political fool and marplot; that WASH
burne, though honestly devoted to
financial reform, is narrow-minded By the
fatality which dwarfs the intellect OF all
who ride hobbies; that Phillips is anena-
BILE to the charge of a knavish difference
between bis denunciation and his support of
the Republican candidate for the Presidency.
There is nothing new in all this to anybody
who takes an interest in current politics and
is capable of forming rational opinion on
any subject. He is scarcely to be blamed,
even if be passed epigrammatic judgments
such as these in the unguarded confidence OF
private conversation, for now publicly and
pointedly repudiating them. Your true poll
tician is never going to sacrifice friend to an
epigram, or to persist in a good saying at the
cost of making an enemy. In fact, about the
first among the privileges of manhood which
he is called upon to renounce, is to have
nriyate opinion Of his own which he dares
publicly to express.
But we do not think that while Gen. Grant
was manifesting so studious tenderness for
the sensibilities of public men, upon whom
he was represented to have cast disparaging
reflections, it would have been supremely be-
coming to his station and prestige if he had
shown a similar regard for the feelings and the
fame of the Southern population occupying
the lower Mississippi valley, a population
about which, if published and as yet I'M
contradicted statements of the Northern
press are to be credited, he has repeated, with
the senseless fippancy of parrot, the stale
and Infamous ISLANDERS invented by the Con-
ways, end Shellys, and Warmoths of the
Radical party, and propagated by an I'M
scrupulous press for purely party pur-
poses Why has he not fastened
to disavow the utterance of the opinion, at
once cruelty and stupidity wrong, that the
Southern inhabitants of the Mississippi bot
tom are enemies to the Union and inveterate-
" hostile to the immigration of Northern
men, capital and industry, and that the proper
way to remedy this condition of things is to
drown them out and to devastate their coun-
try with the floods of the unleveed river? A
more wanton calumny and more heartless
sentiment are not to be found in the political
| record of any country. Gen. Grant charac'
terizes the depreciatory remarks attributed to
him in relation to distinguished public per-
sonages as '.indelicate and impertinent in an
extraordinary degree" Hence he will not, by
his silence give the circulation of these remarks
his constructive assent. Then, is it decent
to give his quasi Endorsement to infinitely
harsher imputations upon an entire commu'
nity, by failing to contradict them 1t is
true that he can asperse and Willy these PEG
pie with present impunity. They are nov
unable, as he well knows, either to punisl
their enemies or reward their friends in the
dominant section to which he belongs. Blu
is it the part of statesman, of soldier, of
| gentleman, of a man to assist in heaping con
tumely and indignity upon an unfortunate
and helpless portion of his countrymen? L
it possible that the incoming President, Will
deprecating the animosity of a few Northern
men because they have political in
auence, is cordially willing to unit
with base and cowardly and slanderou
creatures in making oppression bitter to
million or more of his Southern countrymel
simply because he has, apparently, NOTHING
to fear from their hostility or to hope iron
their friendship? We trust not. We know
that this is utterly impossible to any one in hi
position who is not wholly destitute of boil
craftsmanship and magnanimity. His admin
istration is not yet established. Its success
is a problem. He cannot predict what enc
mics may rise up against him, or in wha
quarter perilous emergency may compt
him to look for friends. He has great OF
portunity before him for opening in the Sout
the resources of latent friendship that woul