Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1872-06-28
FOR GOVERNOR.
SIDNEY PERHAM.
WHERE THE DIFFICULTY LIES.

1t is strange fact in the history of the
republican party that several of those who
have been its most radical leaders, the
authors and supporters of the measures
for which it has been and is most violently
denounced by the democratic party, have
found their way into the ranks of the OPP
position. lit is surprise to have Greeley
seek the embrace of the democracy, SO it
was hardly credible that Seward, Chase
and johnson could turn against the re-
publican party. All these men were the
most radical of radicals. They were
usually in advance of the party lines. If
the republican party has erred in demand
ing protection from the general govern
nent for the people of the South against
the Ku-klux, who has gone farther in that
direction than Horace Greeley? He urged
the passage of the Ku-Klux bill with all
his power. His lash was applied to every
conservative that presumed to hesitate
It was the same with the election laws
now denounced by his supporters. He
advocated them, not moderately but furi-
ously Thus it has been with other meas
ures. One of our exchanges speaks of
others, and then shows where the root Of
the difficulty lies--in the desire for office.
1t says:
Mr.. Sumner, also, has uniformly been far
in advance of the regular Republican lines,
making the most extreme demands, long be-
fore there was any possibility Of acting upon
them; and no sooner could he see the party
working out one line Of action than he would
hasten on to another, apparently TO enjoy the
credit of leading the way. Yet Mr. Sumner
has been during the past six months the Bit
terest enemy Of an administration that could
not possibly do anything else than enforce
these extreme laws. His objection to the Ad-
to be because it has gone too far, but because
it has not gone far enough.
Mr.. Trumbull is another case in point.
This gentleman was the author of the two
bills that excited the fiercest and most savage
denunciations at the south-the Freedmen's
Bureau and Civil Rights bills. Both were
right 10 policy, but the party has been rem
dered odous by them to the very political
elements with whom he now associates for
the destruction of the party itself, clamorng
at the same time for peace and the sinking OF
war policy Take the case of Chief Justice
Chase and we see the same thing illustrated.
Here was an original Abolitionist, one of the
three Senators who stood all along against
slavery, and were refused place on any of
the Senate committees on the ground that
they belonged to no healthy political organi-
cation. He was the father of the national
banking system and of the greenbacks, yet,
with the temptation of the Presidency before
his eyes, he reversed his record, declared
against the legal-tender act, in favor of the
o-slavery, pro-rebel Democratic party, and
in fact, against everything he had fought for.
So, too, we find Andrew johnson, the
fiercest radical in the South, bitter and unre-
lenting in his denuncations of rebels and in
his demands for their punishment, turning
his coat in the same extraordinary manner,
and coming out disguised as patent peace
maker. The most charitable construction
that can be put upon the conduct of these
men is that the policy they advocated, and
that set the whole country in blaze, was
one that they had not properly weighed, and
that the consequences so lar exceeded all
their views as to brighten them and unman
their judgment. The civil war clearly upset
Mr.. Greeley so entirely that he did not know
half the time what to be at Now lie was
savagely denouncing delay, demanding i'm
mediate conflict and general levy en- @asse
Now he was getting up volunteer negotiations
tor peace. Now he was for paying four
hundred millions of dollars to the Shareholders
to set their slaves free, and now for settling
the trouble in any way that offered.
Is this the higher class of craftsmanship
that the soreheaded and dissatisfied have been
demanding? Are these the men to lead us to
md hupr
they swing around the circle in this style be-
fore they have any responsibilities resting up
on them what will they do when the whole
weight of the Republic is upon them? We
do not like to charge men of such distinction
with utter and unmitigated hypocrisy, but 1t
10 difficult to avoid doing so in view OF what
we have stated. Here are a set OF men who,
down to the very brink of their apostacy,
were the most insatiate radicals on the CONT
nent; who assisted in moulding all the meas
ures that are most denounced by the Demo
Gratis, and that are most offensive TO the con-
quered element at the South, and yet they are
holding General Grant responsible for them
when his only part in them was in accepting
the measures of the dominant party and per-
forming his Constitutional duty of enforcing
the laws as he found them.
what Is the cause of this backsliding?
Nothing can be palmer. Every man of these |!
leading boilers fancies himself exactly the
pattern for President. Even Carl Schurz. !
who is ineligible under the Constitution. has
adherents seeking to amend the Constitution
that he may be eligible. And this political
epidemic has carried of Seward, johnson,
Chase, Sumner, Greeley, Trumbull, Brown
&c. 1t is not, therefore, anything that Gen.
eral Grant has done that constitutes his prjn-
cipal offence; it is that he stands in the way
Eipv ard ii.
dency. There are two on the Supreme Bench,
three in the Senate, several are Governors Of
States, several are diplomats, and if each
could be gratified with one term it would re-
qsire about forty years to satisfy them all.