The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-09-30
SPIRIT or TEE PRESS.
Editorial Opinions Of the Leading Journals
upon Current Topics Compiled Every
Day for the Evening Telegraph.
THE STANTON CONTROVERSY.


From the n. Y. World.
The quarrel over Mr. Stantons character.
which his friends have provoked, is very
pretty quarrel as it stands. To us, who
having our own matured opinions about Mr.
Stanton's character, are profoundly indiffer-
ent on the subject, its simple alternatives are
equally satisfactory. Either, pending the
Buchanan administration, Mr.. Stanton was
meanly and basely false to his patron and his
trusting friends, or else he was technically
''disloyal, and actively engaged in cheating
the Republicans. He may have been both,
for Mr. Sumner tells us he had "an instine-
tive insight into men and things" Certain it
is that Mr.. Stantons friends claim for him
immunity because heis dead. Had they chosen
to pile up positive panegyric on his tomb until,
with the festive Mr. Seward, they made him
''almost divine" no one would have said q
word. Yet this did not suffice. His raven
Gus shade had to be propitiated by richer
sacrifices. Take the case of Senator Wilson
and his man Friday-Hoar. The latter for
Stanton's sake made dssecting-roem of the
Supreme Court, and mangled a dead Presi-
dent in his honor, to the disgust of all about
him. But as Hoar has had his reward, we
say naught more about him. Senator Wilson
steals away to Boston, and collecting all the
crisp faggots of its periodical rhetoric, the
very rubbish of the atlantic, he rears huge
pile, like old Caxon's at Glenwithershins, aud
sets it on fire. Great and CHASTITY was the
glare thereof. He laid upon it the dead Mr..
Buchanan, and the dead Mr.. Toucey,
and the dead Mr.. Floyd, and the hideeas
smoke and loathly smell of this frightful in
cremation dispersed itself throughout the
land. Then was it that Judge Black, friend
of at least two of these maltreated dead, in
dignantly came forward with his honest
words of vindication. He spoke strongly, as
he felt strongly. He knew that the accusa-
tions were untrue, aud he was 10th to believe
Qhough by this time his loyal faith must be
a little staggered) that his pet Stanton (for
it was Judge Black who gave him his posi-
earnest in tone, and as he is apt to be, vigor-
GUS in phrase, and his resentful defense of
the dead carried dismay into the nest of the
slanderers. This was in June last.
1t now seems (for this new Atlantic article
tells us SOY that the whole fraternity was
promptly called into council. Seward and
Sumner, and Hoar, and Howard, and Holt,
and Dawes (and Mrs. Dawes), d3 nlajoreS et
miaoTeS of Massachusetts, and Michigan, were
summoned to Wilson's rescue, and all gave
their testimony. The October magazine
serves up to us the dish of which there were
so many cooks It's article blazes away at
our poor Pennsylvania like the gun charged
with trumpery which Major Gahagan fired at
the elephant. We have not had time to hear
of its effect in York.
With more than one popularity in this
manifesto the critical reader cannot fail to be
struck. Though the memories of Stanton,
proving him to have been an original acrid
abolitionist of the Lundy school, go back
over many years, no dates are given Of recent
occurrences, SO that they can be tested, and
everything rests upon the present hearsay. 1t
is what Mr.. Summer, or Mr.. Dawes, or Mr..
Howard says Stanton told him, so that the
slightest flaw of truth in either link separates
and destroys the whole. Take the great overt
act of Stanton's bullying the Buchanan
Cabinet, on certain occasion. The Bostonese
conspirators seek to prove it by telling us
that Dawes told Wilson that Holt told
him all about it; and this roundabout evil
dence is reinforced by an assertion that Mrs.
Dawes saint and martyr"O distinctly re
members hearing Mr.. Stanton tell the story"
Besides which, Holt says that ''several years
ago in the War Department that is two
years after 1SG0-Stanton read him letter
to Mr. Schell descriptive of the scene, which,
however, he dared not send, thinking ''such
disclosures could not be justified unless made
with the consent of the parties to the Cabi-
net meeting" In other words, as it is not
pretended such consent ever was given, he
went about retailing the story privately to
MIR. Buchanan's bitter enemies, and to the
gossipping women of Washington, but was
ashamed to put it ia writing and send it under
his own signature to hgh-spirited and hon
orable man like MIR. Schell. Really, this
makes the matter much worse.
TO this is opposed the positive testimony
of Judge Black, who says he was present on
the occasion referred to, and that nothing of
the kind occurred, AS to the credibility and
personal integrity of this Witness we can
safely say there is not respectable Repub-
lican in the State of Pennsylvania, where he
is best known and most honored, who will
question the veracity of Chief Justice Black
Massachusetts, probably believes in Wilson
and company, just as it does in the realities
of spirit -rapping and the honesty of Butler.
The evidence Senator Wilson adduces as
to Stanton's midnight, or rather after mid.
night, visit to Sumner-for, like the ghost OF
Alonzo the brave, he came
"When the bell had tolled one
and the intrigue, carried on through the
agency of apet patent lawyer, MIR. Peter HI
Watson, with Seward, with that striking cpl
sode when they met hurriedly in the street
and separated quickly" for fear of being
caught-as to all these the evidence of the
cabal is more direct, and really tends very
strongly to Stantons conviction. We have
not room for details, simply reproducing one
paragraph taken from Dawes communication
to the Boston C0ngregdtiOndIiSt, for these
people always have a religious twang and Low,
to mix piety and SANDER. We beg the reade
to observe that, although Mr. Toucey, nov
dead, is clearly meant, the writer shrank from
mentioning his name:-
In an article written Immediately after the dealt
OF Mr.. Stanton and published In the Congregation
alist of Boston, he stated that some OF the most i'm
p0rtant ana secret plans OF the consprators becam
known and were thwaTted by means OF cOmmunica
tions from Mr. Stanton to the committee. "Onc
q n 1