Holmes County Republican. [volume] (Millersburg, Holmes Co., O. [Ohio]) 1870-1895, 1872-08-15
GENERAL DIX ON GREELEY.
A SCATHING DENUNCIATION.
The instability Of the Democratic Can
didate.

| A SCATHlNG DENUNC1ATlON.
The instability of the Democratic Can
didate.
We are permitted to print the fol-
lowing letter, which has not before
been made public:
WEsTHAMPToN, Jnly p, 70.
Dear sir: Your letter of the 18th
inst, asking my aid to procure
speaker for a Greeley meeting at
Hancock, was sent to me while was
in New England, and l have been
unable until now to acknowledge its
reception.
l do not understand on what
ground you consider yourself au-
thorlzed to address such a request
to me. If you had been familiar
with the course of my public life,
and equally so with Mr.. Greeley's,
you could not have supposed me ca
pable of advocating his election to
the office of the President of the
United States without imputing to
me the utter abandonment of all po-
litical principle.
am opposed to Mr.. Greeley:
l. Because / believe him to be as
unstable as water" perpetually
foundering Ito carry OF the Scrip
tural figure amid the surges of
opinion, and deficient in all the req
uisites essential to a firm, steady,
and consistent administration of the
government. .....
2. Because he has usually been
found among the most extreme ult-
raists on the great question of po-
litical and social duty, which have
been brought under public discus
sion during the last quarter of a
century.
3. Because he has been the advo-
cate land in this instance persist
ently) of that most unjust and une-.
quail commercial system which is
destroying our mercantile and ship
ping Interests and heaping up enor
nous accumulations of wealth in
the hands of the protected classes
to the oppression and impoverish
ment of all others.
4. Because he is associated, in re-
lations more or less intimate, with
some of the chief plunderers of the
city Of New York, justly warrant
ing the apprehension that through
his implicitly or facile disposition,
the same system of fraud and cor
ruption which has disgraced the
municipal government of this city
may be carried to more infamous
extremes in the administration of
the federal government; and,
5. Because in the darkest hour of
the country's peril, when a traitor
Gus combination had been formed
to overthrow the government, he
openly counselled the cowardly pol
icy of non-resistance, and an acqui-
escence in the dissolution of the
Union, whenever the cotton states
should make up their minds to go.
The coalition which has been
formed to promote his election is
one of the most extraordinary in
the history Of parties, in respect
both to the discordant elements it
embraces and the surrender of prin-
ciples it involves.
The Cincinnati Convention, called
to bring before the people impor-
tant measures of reform, nominated
him, greatly to the surprise of the
whole country, knowing him, in re-
gard to one of those measures, to
be an implacable opponent-nomin
ated him, too, against the wishes
and judgment of the chief promo
tersof the movement, who accepted
him, either with an avowed or an
ill-concealed disgust, which would
be far more creditable to their feel
ings if the act of acceptance were
not utterly irreconcilable with their
principles.
The Democratic Convention at
Baltimore endorsed and commended
him to the support of their party
not as the exponent of any princi-
plies they have professed, or any
measures they have advocated, but
as known and bitter opponent of
both-the man who, perhaps, of all
others, has been the most malignant
assailant of the democracy, ,impeach-
ing its integrity, traducing its mo-
tives and villifying its character.
The adoption of such a man as
their candidate for the Chief Magis-
tracy of the Union is the most con
spicuous abandonment of political
principles known to party contests.
1t remains to be seen whether the |
great body of thed emocratic voters,
and the true friends of the reform,
can be made parties to this unscru-
pulous coalition between political
leaders.
That General Grant has commit
ted mistakes, his most sincere friends
admit: But if his errors had been
four-fold more numerous he would.
in my opinion, be a much better
Chief Magistrate than Mr.. Greeley.
lie has, in that capacity, done much
for which he deserves the thanks of
the country. Above all, he has
kept 1T at peace, notwithstanding the
efforts of sensation journals and
popularity seeking politicians to
provoke hostilities with Spain on
the question of Cuba, and with
Great Britain on the Alabama claims
and the fisheries.
II, regardless of these titles to the
approval of his fellow citizens, and
of his invaluable services during the
late civil war, they should set him
aside for Mr.. Greeley; if the latter,
a mere erratic politician, untried in
any important public trust, should
be elevated to the Chief Magistracy
of the Union-a Union which would
not now exist if his counsels had
been followed if the man who,
of all others, has done the most to
preserve it shonld be discarded for
a successor so ill qualified and so
unscrupulously nominated and sus. .
tanned, the example would be most /
in its influence ON all i
high motives to political action, and $
Justify the most painful forebodings
as to the fnture.