The Portland daily press., 1872-07-15
At New York i'm 1858 and Baltimore in
1872,

-
1872.
The sincere, disinterested Greeley Repub-
lican-a parsonage whose potential existence
may be admitted-will find it instructive to
read carefully the proceedings of the Balti
more Convention and see if he ca discover
gress since the New York Convention of
1868 nominated the ill-starred ticket of
Seymour and Blair. Let him see if, on the
contrary, there was not at Baltimore such a
resurrection of old Irreconcilables-of unre-
pentant, incorrigible Rebels-as it was sup
posed would never again be seen in America
Vallandigham was the bette nOir of the New
York gathering. 1t was the prominence
given to that able but politically infamous
man in all its deliberations that caused the
people to manifest prompt and invincible
repugnance to its candidates. But the genu-
inc Rebel element kept itself in reserve for
Baltimore. What old-time monsters were
those that crept out once more into the light
on that memorable ninth of July after ten
or twelve years of seclusion !-crept like sau-
rians emerging unexpectedly from oolitic
mud, TO astonish and appali the more perfect
and symmet ical beings to which nature in
its evolutions has given birth. 1t gives one
strange little shock, the very name of Beriah
Magoffin. 1t seems like an unpleasant rem
iniscence of bad old dream, or frightful
story heard in youth of vicious giant,
wicked ogre or loathsome ghoul Beriah
Magofiin the man who as Governor of
Kentucky did his little best to place that State
in the Rebel line. And ex-senator Chest
NUTS he still alive too? Mr. Summers
gorge will rise when he finds himself invited
to sit down to meat with the man whose in
conceivably brutal reply to his speech ON the
Barbarism of Slavery was published as an
appendix to that celebrated grafton. And
''Duke Gwinp' Why not Blue Beard, Mahu,
Abaddon, Tamerlane, Capt. Kidd, Jack Cade,
Guy Fawkes and Benedict Arnold? Who
would have dreamed four years ago that Con-
federate Postmaster Regan, Cingman of
North Carolina, Fitzhugh Lee, Bocock of
Virginia and Geo. N. Sanders would have
been allowed to become conspicuous in
Democratic Convention, and that Horace
litical creed to theirs as to command their
enthusiastic support?
-Four years ago at New York, the Rebel
yell did not drown the honest Yankee cheer,
as it did at Baltimore Four years ago "Dix-
ie," "My Maryland" and "The Bonnie Blue
Flag did not rise exultantly above "Ameri-
ca" and the "Star Spangled Banner as they
did in Horace Greeley's Convention at Bal
timore. -Four years ago it was not in every
Rebel eye and on every Rebel lip as it was at
Baltimore-''The light breaks-our time has
comer'
1t may he answered that the merely acei- |
dental circumstances we have mentioned are |
not to be regarded, when in the substantial
matters of candidates and platform there was
complete abandonment of the old traditions |
OF the party, and an explicit recognition of |
the worlds progress during the last ten
years. 1t will be said that all patriots should |
rejoice when they see men whose names were
once terror to the lovers of their country |
and kind-the authors of the Rebel yell and |
the singers of "My Maryland''-'ta accepting |
the constitution as it is and trying to make |
their most furious reviler Chief Magistrate of |
the United States. But so far as their accep- |
tance of Mr. Greeley as candidate is con-
cerned it signifies nothing. They have not
come to him, but he has gone to them. He |
has gone down to them and they have recev-
ed him because he is thought to be more |
available than JEFF. Davis and because he |
has formally promised to consider all men |
who support him, whether Democrats or Re- |
publicans, as his friends, and to regard their
claims to official preferment as equal. And
so far asboth candidates and platform are con-
cerned it is worth while to note the language !
uniformly used at the Convention by those
who entreated the malcontents to abstain from
further opposition They did not say ''these
principles are good-they are just what we
want and all we want" but "LET US sTIFLE
OUR PREJUDIcEs" ''Let US, for the sake of |
success, forbear TO denounce the constitutional |
amendments and negro suffrage" There is
nowhere promise that if the Democracy,
through the agency of the facile Mr.. Greeley.
obtain possession of the government. they
will continue ''to stife their prejudices."
Flames do not continue to be stifled when
the enyeloping substance is removed from the
infammable matter, but burst forth with re-
doubled fury. And when this pressure of a
legal government is removed, these stifed
flames of Rebel passion may be expected to
sweep away as much as possible the benefi.
cent and patriotic legislation which has con-
tributed to render illustrations the history of
the party now in power. The personnel and
and the proceedings of the Baltimore Con-
vention leave no sane man in doubt as to
what triumph for Greeley and his Blairs,
Magoffins, Gwins and Lees would mean.