The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1872-10-24

Mr.. r. NJ. Z. HUNTER, in his speech
made here Tuesday night, took occasion to
urge several objections to the reelection of
General Grant, as he had perfect right to,
according to our notion of things. But
according to his own notion, his speech
was decided infraction of the right, as
he said a great many things for which he
ought to have been seized and hurried off
to some Northern bastile by the myrmi-
dons Of power at Washington, in order that
the government should harmonic with his
pet theory of what it is in fact. For
with General Grant as Dictator over the
South, $50 declared to be in the speech of
Mr.. HunterD it must have been
remarkable piece Of condescension
on his part to allow the speaker such lati-
tude of denunciation as that in which he
INDUCED. 1t is not the fashion Of despots
to be thus lenient, and we are surprised
that this amiabe and eminently discreet
Virginian should have had the hardihood to
berate the Dictator of the South in the
round terms he did. His first and lin the
order of presentmenO paramount objection
to the reelection of General Grant was,
that, under the circumstances and the
principles of his party" his election would
have can awful squirting towards mon
archy." As the battle of Phar-
salia made Caesar Dictator-an EN-
peror in fact though not in name-so
this Presidential contest threatens to bring
in imperialism, if the Galena Caesar and
not the Chappaqua Pompey is victorious
in the fight!!! This seems to have been
the grand idea, the all-absorbing thought,
running through the ex-Senator's speech
the Iliad, in fact, of all our woes. We are
sorry we cannot accord him patent for
this extraordinary discovery. But another,if
not more dashing and brilliant statesman,
filed caveat four years ago for the exclu-
sive right to it, in order to protect him.
self against such an infringement as ex-
Senator Hunter has been guilty of in this
instance. Frank Blair--the gallant,
dashng. Quixotic, inevitable Frank
declared everywhere, in 1868, that
the election of General Grant would
result in the establishment of imperialism
for dead certainty over the entire CONT
nent. The American eagle was "a played
out institution" if that calamitous event
should happen. Well, it did happen, and
Frank became wiser, if not better and
more sagacious man. He lived to correct
his errors, and this is one Of the grandest
achievements that any man can expect to
realize, with life however long. The
great wisdom of every man consists in a
knowledge of his follies. This wisdom, we
fear, does not at present appertain to the
ex-senator of Virginia. His errors con-
front him everywhere, even in some of his
most ornate classical illusions.
We can assure him of one thing that
may possibly relieve his mind of some of
the many imperial incubi that so unhap-
PLY rest upon it, which is this that should
General Grant, or any other President Of
| tiiS ohitSu tStatSo, uSSoiiC ~ uiiioi
as to imbibe the insane ideas of Mr.. Francis
P. Blair, or Mr.. r. M. Il. Hunter, on the SUBJ
ject of American imperialism, and imagine
himself Emperor of all the Americas, his
political friends would at once shave his head,
apply to him a straightforward, and hurry
him off to the nearest insane asylum with
the greatest possible dispatch. 1t would
be great calamity, we admit, but not an
irreparable one to the Republican party.
That party has withstood assassination
from the insane freaks of lunatic, and it
can probably Withstand lunacy itself. The
danger is too remote, however, to enter at
present into our Presidential calculations.
Lunacy is not at all hereditary in the Grant
family. None of his ancestors were ever
known to have been in their lines. Hard,
solid, enduring, steady-brained sense that
which gives and takes sturdy knocks without
flinching-is not apt to run in the insane
line. Brains that fight it out on the same line
all summer, don't generally run mad in the
dog days. 1t takes another and lighter
order of brains to be thus afflicted. Mr..
Hunter may, therefore, rest his fears on this
head. General Grant is the last man in
the country to dream of the imperialism
which so afflicts Messrs. Blair and Hunter.
He is safe from any such lunacy
and, if he were not, he has sense
enough to see that shaved head,
straight jacket, and quiet little cell in
some suburban retreat would be the fruit
of any such folly as runs in the brains of
the Virginia ex-senator. As Mr.. Hunter
closed his speech with a four-line English
classic, we will, for his benefit, close this
article with four-line paraphrase of a Latin
CLASSIC done into English, which will be quite
as pertinent as the ending of his peroration:
" Go, mailman, go hurl rant and fustian high,
| And pile your taunts and raillery to the sky,
| To please the rhetoricans, and become
A defamation for the boys of Rome -
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