The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-11-28

ana the commerclal world OF Britain excited.
Such is the situation. For war or peace?
GENERAL GRANTS PROSPECTS FOR
THE SUCCESSION.
Fom the n. Y. World.
Six months ago, it was regarded as settled
thing by politicians on both sides that Gen
eral Grant would be the Republican candi-
date for 1872. At present, it is doubtful
whether he even gets the nomination. Three
important States-Massachuse New York,
and Illinois-are already likely to vote
against him in the national convention; and
to these we may perhaps add Ohio. Massa-
chusetts has three Republicans each of whom
would be glad of the nomination himself
namely, Boutwell,, Butler, and Sumner.
Neither of them likes Grant, although
Boutwell, is in his Cabinet. Sumner owes
the President grudge for recalling Motley;
Butler holds him in scarcely dis
guised contempt; and Boutwell, claims
as his own the only praise which anybody
has bestowed on the administration-its
management of the finances. In New York
the party is split by feud, in which the
Grant-Conkling side would be speedily over
borne if the scale were not turned by the
Federal patronage The patronage has con-
siderable influence now because General
Grant has yet two OF three years to serve; but
when his term is about to expire, even the
office-holders will worship the rising instead
of the setting sun. Fenton is the most active
and dexterous party tactician the Republi-
cans have in the State; their leading
journal, the Tribune, which opposed
Grants nomination originally, has stronger
motives for opposition now; and the EOen-
ing Post, the organ of the Republican free
traders, is openly and bitterly hostile to
him. Illinois is General Grants own State;
but Senator Trumbull, who is suspected of
Presidential aspirations himself, is estranged
from Grant. lie will have another rival in
General Logan, who is likely to be elected
Senator, and also aspires to the Presidency.
The Chicago Tribune, the leading Republi-
can journal of the State holds Grant and his
administration in contempt. Anti-Grant
delegations will be sent to the national con-
vention from all these States. The Presi-
dents quarrel with Secretary Cox has in
creased his unpopularity in Ohio, and will set
active influences at work to defeat his re-
nomination.
General Grant, whose sluggish mind is alert
enough in attending to his personal interests,
is aware that he cannot be renominated with
out a struggle Contrary to his first impulses,
he consorts with men ''inside politics, and
busies himself with State elections to pro-
mote the ascendancy of his particular friends.
In Missouri he will secure the delegates to the
Republican National Convention, and lose the
Presidential electors. His intermeddling in
New York will cost him both delegates and
electors. In Pennsylvania he has made Came
ron his particular crony and chief counsellor,
and has taken Forney into his confidence;
these battered intriguers may succeed in giving
him the Pennsylvania delegation, but not the
vote of the State. 1t is one thing to pack
caucuses, and another to carry an election.
Cameron and Forney understand this we'll
enough; but their ends are answered if they
can control the Pennsylvania patronage
during Grants time by fattering his hopes.
He bends everything to his denomination,
perceiving that all is lost if he fails of that.
Missouri, Pennsylvania, and other States
where he can control the Republican organi-
zation will count for just as much in the
convention whether the party is a minority or
majority. The probability is that Grant
will distract and ruin the Republican party by
| his desperate efforts to get the nomination. If
he loses it, he will take no further interest in
| politics, as his apathetic mind took none be-
fore he hoped to be President. Until he be-
came anxious about his denomination, he
stunned the companionship of politicians,
apd treated them with offensive contempt.
| His recent intimacies with men 'inside poll
tics" are sacrifice of natural repugnance to
| personal ambition. If he fails to get the no.
mination, he will not care three whiffs of a
cigar which party succeeds, and relapse into
his old indifference to politics and contempt
for politicians. If he is beaten in the con-
vention, he will leave the election to take
care of itself, unless his dogged aud resent
full soul should impel him to punish the Re-
publican party for thwarting his aspirations.
Aside from the control of the Federal pa
tronage, Grant is one of the weakest men in
the Republican organization. He owed his
nomination in 1868 solely to fears that the
Democrats would run him. Military prestige
counted for agood deal then, and the Repub-
licans feared that if they did not take Grant
the Democratic party would, and that his war
record would secure his election. He had
never belonged to the Republican party, and
during the first year or more of Andrew
Johnson's administration, had supported
Johnson's Southern policy. He made tour
in the South and report to the President
which Sumner denounced in the Senate as
'wbitewashing" the Rebels. He stood at
Johnson's right hand when he received the
committee of the Philadelphia convention.
He accompanied Johnson in his famous
Western tour, or "swing around the circle y
He had declared mis- contemptuous hostility
TO negro suffrage. He was strange candi-
date for the Republican fanatics, but the
dread Of his military popularity on the other
side reconciled them to a nomination which