The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1871-06-10


Where il the Man for the Oemocracys
With the peremptory declination Of General
Sherman to be the Presidential candidate OF
either party, and his positive announcement
that he would refuse to serve if unanimously
elected, the question recurs, Where is the man
for the democracy in 1872? Mr.. Vallandig-
ham, Of Ohio, has advanced the party to the
acceptance of the situation-to the recognition
of the fixed facts" of the war, as embodied in
the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth amend
ments of the constitution, including the aboli-
ton of slavery, equal civil rights to citizens OF
all races and colors and negro suffrage. This
is, indeed, new departure on q new demo-
cratic platform, and 1t calls for new Presi-
dental candidate; or, to change the figure,
1t must be remembered that over eighteen
hundred years ago it was laid down as a rule,
in the Land of Israel, that new wine, which
has to undergo the process of fermentation,
must not be put into old worn out goatskin or
sheepskin bottles, which will burst from the
pressure of the gas, but that new wine must
be put into new bottles, which will stand the
strain of fermentation.
Those old democratic Presidential bottles of
1864 and 1868, then, will not do for the new
wine from the democratic winepress of Val
landigham for this new wine in any of those
old bottles will generate an amount of gas
that will surely result in an explosion.
Among the candidates for the demo-
cratic Presidential nomination of 1868, on
the resolution that all the reconstruction
measures of Congress ''are unconstitu-
tional, revolutionary, null and void" were
Chief Justice Chase, Pendleton, of Ohio;
Hendricks, of Indiana, and General Hancock,
of Pennsylvania. 1t is perhaps fair to pre-
sumo that if any one of these gentlemen had
been nominated he would have done as Gov
ernor Seymour did-that is, after declining
two or three times he would have accepted the
nomination with the platform. In 1864 Cen
eral Mcclellan tried to separate his nomina-
ton from the platform-''that the war for the
Union is q failure"-but he could not do it.
His platform stuck to his back like the ''Old
Man of the Sea-" and it laid him out, as the
platform of 1868 laid out Seymour.
If, then, it will not do to mix up the demo-
cratic principles or candidates Of 1864 or SO
with this new departure for 1872, Msssrs.
Chase, Pendleton and Hendricks, to a GER
tainty, must 60 on the retired list with Nc
Clellan, Seymour and Blair. General Han
cock may plead an abb in reference to the
Tammany convention resolutions of 1868; but
still his Identification with that convention is
close enough to damage him. Suppose, then,
the democrats were to take up some such re-
publican on this new departure as General
Logan or Senator Trumbull, Of Illinois or
Gratz Brown, of Missouri; or Ex-Governor
Cox, of Ohio; or Senator Fenton, of New
York-how would that do? We fear that the
regular old dyed-in-the-wool Bourbons would
regard such an expedient as an insult to them
selves and as an outrage upon democratic
principles, and that SO they would let the
election 60 by default No, this would not
do. The republican medicine ON the "ngger"
question is as much as your old line copper
bottomed democrat can take at one sitting.
He will say that if with the niger platform
we must take radical for our candidate we
might as well take General Grant as any Of
the rest of them, and proclaim the democratic
party dissolved and disband ed.
What democrat, then, will serve to run on
this new democratic departure? We think it
brings out Governor Hoffman into pretty bold
relief as the Tammany candidate. His skirts
are clear of the Tammany convention resolu-
tons of 1868, and he and Tammany Hall are
ahead of valandigham, and ahead even of
John Quincy Adams on this new departure.
He will be a new bottle for the new wine Of
these new amendments, and strong enough to
Withstand the pressure of the gas without
much danger of an explosion from the fermen-
tation. Certainly, if in this new departure of
Vallandigham it was his design, first, to head
off his friend Pendleton, and, next, to advance
the chances of Hoffman, the device was well
contrived We say well contrived, because
while the call to toe the mark of these three
new amendments somewhat demoralizes "the
red-hot democracy" of the West, it brings the
New York democrats and their candidate to
the front, for they are all right On this change
of base. Mr.. Vallandigham, then, who more
than any other man was instrumental in
securing for New York the democratic
standard bearer Of 1868, will, perhaps, prove
as effective in making New Yorker the
party candidate in 1872. Manifestly, with
this change of front in the West, Tammany
Hall is master of the democratic situation,
and Hoffman is her man.