Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1870-06-13

1hEhE Will bC q RCCAACA oh0ACNg
manifested by politicians and states
men to win the Presidency next year
than ever before in the country's his
tory. 1t is honor enough, since it is
Immortality, to have been President
of the United States; but to hold this
exalted position when a new century
daWns upon American States is the
day dream of multitudes. Even a
woman of Wall street goes mad
about it., Colfax grins in ecstatic fe-
Lefty when possibilities of advance
ment rise before his enraptured
vision; Grants little brain drifts
away into fields of Elysian delight
when the blue clouds that curl above
his smoky head lift his weightiest
fancfes above the bright empyrean of
the Presidency of 1876. One hundred
years have drifted by. The century
a US Washington as its foremost
of heroes and statesmen. There were
a multitude of the children of the
age worthy and unworthy; but that
the f~rst-born President of the century
should have been Washington and the
last Grant, are facts that will never
be forgotten in records of wonderful
~obstetrical events. The only relation
ship, however, between the two men
consists in the fact that they were
Presidents within less than a hundred
years of one another. Intact Wash
ington quit the world just before
Grants nineteenth century began, and
whether Grants coming, with the
hideous events that spewed him into
prominence, fastened the exit of the
Father of his Country, we have no
means of ascertaining. As a geo.
graphical fact, we are accustomed to
speak of the United States as the
country Of Washington. Rivers,
mountains, seas and lakes are the
same as when Washington saved the
wreck of Braddock's army, received
CORVALLIS sword, or as when, in his
farewell address, he inveighed against
excuses of partisanship. In nothing
else is this the country or govern
ment of Washington. Then Virginia
had its identity. 1t was a sovereign
State of the United States, as now a
province of the consolidated States.
A President we have no more; but,
instead, a little dOdger about watering
and trickster in speculatiOns
in San Domingo, a good hack driver,
a willing recipient of quasi brides,
paid for in offices. 1t is well that
death yelled WashingtOn's godlike
face before the shadows of this nine
teenth century fell upon and blackened
it.
Fearful are the changes which dis
tinguish the beginning and close Of
the first American century. Free
States there were. We have States
no more, and corporations are apprO-
priating the riches and domains of
States. There was honor in being a
Congressman, and yet men now sit in
the Capitol at Washington who are
ieemed perjured thieves and corrupt
Is Whittemore, or Covode, or Butler
as wilfully perjured as those carpet
bag Senators who ran away from the
Chamber and were cursed for
,owardice by Ben. Wade, when they
Jared not vote against the high tar
# ~exactions of New England. But
Why advert to differences i'll morals
md politics that distinguish the ear
Ter and later years of this first centu-
y of American independence. The
contrast is so striking that all simili-
ude is lost and we have nothing left
,ut empty names, only preserved to
Ieiude the people whose freedom and
are slowly, steadily andsurely
Iisappearing with the last years of
he century. When the sun goes
own on the 4th of July, 1876, unless
thorough political revolution be
ffected, there will be left not a wreck
f those free institutions inauguratedf
our fathers. one hundred years be-
IRE on the fourth dav OF July, I776. 3.