The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1871-05-13
Tho Presidential Qacstion-Generai Grant
and the observation-disclosures Sncr"an
and she Democracy.


third which can hardly be doubted. The first
is that General Grant will be the republican
candidate; the second is that the republican
party will be united in his support, and the
third is that unless the democracy take new
departure, they will, as in 1860, 1864 and
1865, be again defeated The necessities Of
their position demand a new departure, both
in their platform and in their candidate for,
though we look all the way back to General
Jackson, we can find no democratic Presiden-
tal platform available for 1872, and in. all the
list Of regular hold-ovendemocratic politicians
mentioned as among the probabilities In the
coming contest, there is not one Of them pos
sessed of sufficient wind and bottom for
four-mile heat over the national course with
General Grant.
While he was pushing his st. Domingo an
nexaton scheme, and with the apparent reso-
luton of pushing it at all hazards, there was
hope, from the republican defeat in New
Hamshire, that the party might become so
demoralzad and divided as to render the re-
nomination Of General Grant somewhat doubt
any event, very encouraging. But the Presi-
dent having put out of the way his st. Domingo
apple Of discord, the Connecticut election
upset the pleasing democratic delusion that
New Hampshire was the beginning Of great
political revolution, and convinced the party
that that election must be set down to the
chapter of accidents. Indeed, the alarming
clamor and enthusiasm Of the democrats over
New Hampshire, including the unfortunate
speech of JEFF Davis in Alabama, expressing
his hope of the ultimate triumph of the '.lost
cause, had much to do with their defeat in
Connecticut, In the one State the republicans
were caught mapping over Sumner and st.
Domingo; in the other they were thoroughly
reused by what they supposed to be the old
war drums and the rappel of the rebellion.
But if the dropping of st. Domingo by
General Grant slenced the mutineers OF his
party aud disarmed even Senator Sumner,
what shall we say of the grand idea Of the
Joint High Commission and of the great treaty
from that enlightened body of peacemakers
now before the Senate, in connection with
General Grant and the Presidential success
sion2 In The very announcement, from those
significant dispatches between Queen Victoria
and General Grant, of the grand idea of this
High Commission for the adjustment of all the
questions in controversy between the two
countries, we believed that this thing would
be o great feather in the cap of the admins
tration, and so expressed our belief at the
time The grand result in the admirable
treaty before the Senate confirms our antici-
pations, and lifts up General Grant to an en-
viahie position among the great practical
Statesmen of the enlightened age we live in.
Peace hath her victories no less renowned than War.
And this victory Of peace at Washington, we
think, Will be mo less renowned" than any of
those bloody triumphs of Fort Donelson,
Shiloh, vicksburg, Chattanooga, the Wilder
ness, Petersburg and thence up to Appomat-
tox Court House. Surely General Grant, not
less in this thing than in his policy of economy
and retrenchment, has indicated his admins
tration before the country, and his sagacity
and capacity in the great cause of international
peace. Aud here we may remark that his ex-
perience in the horrors of war, as in the case
of the Duke of Wellington, has given the
world one of the most devoted champions Of
peace.
The question, then, as to the republican
candidate for the Presidential succession, and
as to his commanding claims and popularity
over all other candidates of his party, Is settled
in favor of General Grant. As he now stands
before the country, the great peacemaker,
how small appear the wrath Of Sumner, the
folly of Fenton, the complaints Of Carl Schurz,
the detection of Gratz Brown, the hedging
of Tlumbull, and the doublings and twistings
of Greeley concerning the distribution of the
spoils! With the record which General Grant
has made for his administration, and especially
from the Joint High Commission, he can stand
before the people upon his merits as states
man, and will be hard to beat as a candidate
for another term The democratic party will
have to meet him again in the field and here
these important questions recur, who Is their
man, and what is their proper plan of opera
tons?
General Sherman is their man, and the plat
form proposed in Memphis-''U niversal am
nesty and universal anity"-is their proper
platform. The great difficulty of the. demo-
cratic party, with its copperhead and Southern
rebel affiliations, has been and Is the
cloud of popular distrust which hangs over
il in reference to the fourteenth and
fifteenth amendments; and tho secret
Of its weakness In 1864 and in 1858
was that opposition to the war for the
Union and its fixed results which cut off from it
the great mass Of the supporters of Lincoln in
the war. Let the democracy make General
Sherman their candidate, and all these barriers
between them and the Union party of the war
viii be removed. They will at once divide the
honors of the war with the republicans and