The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1869-08-19
The General Middle Among the Politl'
ciaps-Tho New Chase Movement.

The General MIDDLE Among the Polisi.
cians-The New Chase Movement.
1t will not be surprising if from the present
general muddle among the politicians, parties
and factions Of the day we shall have scrub
race, and a very amusing scrub race, too, for
the Presidential succession. The democracy
of the North are all adrift, the Northern repub-
licans are wrangling over the split in the party
down South, while the Southern democracy
on naasse, leaders and followers, from Virginia
to Texas, have joined the liberal Southern
republicans in new party organization on
universal suffrage (negroes and ally and
general political amnesty. At the same time
in the North, from Massachusetts, to Kansas,
the temperance people are organizing for inde-
pendent action in behalf of the suppression of
whiskey, while the women's rights women are
moving heaven and earth in the cause of
woman suffrage, and the labor leagues,
numbering their members by hundreds of
thousands, are inevitably tending to new
political movement as a balance of power
between the two great parties of the day, In
national and local affairs.
It appears, furthermore, that while General
Grant may be considered as a candidate for
another term, there is at least one member of
his Cabinet-the Secretary of the Treasury
who aspires to the regular republican nomina
ton in 1872. Judge Lewis Dent, candidate
for the new Southern liberal party for Cover
nor Of Mississippi, in pungent letter on the
subject, fatty says to Mr.. Boutwell,, "You aim
to be the next President; in the pursuit OF
your ambition you are ungrateful and unscru-
pulous; you have denounced the Southern
conservative republicans who are for Grant,
that you may obtain the proscriptive republ-
cans who are for Boutwell,. and by some strange,
dexterous management and occult political
strategy you have so worked upon the conf
dence of the President as to cause him to
| flourish the club with which you intend to
break his head, by inducing him to join you in
denunciation Of the conservative republicans,
created by his magnanimity and triumphant
through his encouragement" In other words,
in cutting this new Southern party, Grant, &C
cording to Dent, has been taken in and done
for by Boutwell,.
1t will be remembered, however, that Chase,
as Lincoln's Secretary Of the Treasury, played
a much holder game for the succession than
anything that has yet appeared from Boutwell,,
but that in the nominating convention Lincoln
walked over the course and Chase was no.
where. Just as easily may President Grant, Il
now candidate, supplant his Secretary of the
| Tran uUifh off n
the part of Lincoln, and can be done without
an effort on the part of Grant, even after giving
his Secretary all the rope he may desire. This
intermeddling of Mr.. Boutwell,, however, in
| Southern politics. has been bad in every way,
| and in any event is no longer wanted; and he
will have quite enough to do hereafter in at
tending to the business of his department.
According to Judge Dent the Southern con-
servatives of Virginia and Tennessee are much
indebted to Boutwell, for their decisive vic
! tories. If so, the Chief Justice is no doubt
thankful; for, as it appears, he is looking TO
this new party to lift him step higher. 1t is
| given out that Mr.. Chase, soon after the Vir-
| ginia election, wrote a letter 0hey always
begin by writing letters) to prominent poll
tcian of Tennessee, an old friend of his
wherein he expressed much qualification at the
defeat Of the bltter-enders in Virginia and re-
joiced over the success of the conservatives;
that he was hopeful Of similar results in Ten
nessee, Mississippi and Texas, and strongly
limited that in his opinion the republican party
had served its day, and that the time was at
hand when a new conservative party should
be formed, embracing the moderate men of all
existing parties. This was a very good idea
year or two ago, but now the question of the
reshaping of our political parties for the sue
| cession is in the hands Of General Grant. His
first six months in Office signify nothing
towards the settlement of this question. On
all the great issues of the day he has the
whole field still before him, and upon the
measures and results of his administration
during the next three years the question of the
succession will be determined.
Mr.. Chase, therefore, is too early in the
field with his new party. In the progress Of
events it may WELD the balance Of power
between the two older parties Of the country,