The New York herald., 1872-10-29


Grant and the Weak Points OF the
Opposition Alliance.
We congratulate our readers, Of all parties,
creeds, races and colors, ON the consoling fact
that we have entered the closing week Of this
most exciting, embittered, tedious and OK
hausting Presidential campaign, and that with
the setting sun on Tuesday next the demoraliz-
ing contest will be ended. The State cleo
tions Of October have SO broadly foreshadowed
the reelection of General Grant that the issue
of the great national field day of November is
hardly questioned in any quarter. Indeed, not
only are tho fnanciers and stock jobbers OF
Wall street discounting on another term to the
present national administration, but the public
mind is adapting itself to this expected con-
tingency. That which seemed to be against
the party in power, the rising of an overwhelm-
ing 'stidal wave" in July, was reduced to ON
ordinary groundswell in the North Carolina
election of August, the force of which was ex-
hausted in the September elections of Vermont
and Maine, and the last ripples of which were
overwhelmed in the heavy reactionary break
ers from the October cyclone of Pennsylvania
and Ohio
And now, with the result of this Presi Dental
engagement as distinctly indicated by the test
elections Of October as was that of 1868 or
1864, we may, without prejudice to either of
the belligerents, briefly inquire into the mys-
teries of the undiminished popular strength Of
General Grant and the unexpected deficiencies
Of the new opposition coalition. The general
plan of operations adopted by the opposition
managers, democrats and ant-Grant republi-
cans, was singularly bold, ingenious, aggres-
sve and comprehensive. It comprehended an
active offensive system of warfare upon the
incompetency Of General Grant in the Presi-
Dental Office, and upon the despotic acts and
designs and the abuses and corruptions of his
administration, with the acceptance by the
opposition alliance of the new amendments to
the constitution, and demand for universal
amnesty and the moral restoration of the
South through general policy of fraternal
good will and reconciliation. BY this new
departure it was supposed that upon the issues
of the war the most effective guns Of the
administration would be spiked, and that in
powerful leaders from his own camp who had
revolted leading the columns of attack, Gen.
ernl Grant might be dislodged from his in
trenchments and dispossesssd of his citadel.
In pursuance Of this well-considered and
formidable opposition plan of the campaign,
Messrs. Summer, Schurz, Trumbull, Fenton
and Upton, as republicans in the Senate,
opened their fire, and developed their line Of
attack in their resolutions for the investiga-
ton Of the alleged violations of international
faith committed in those sales of arms and
ammunition to France; Of the alleged abuses
and corruptions, encouraged for party pur-
poses, in the New York and other Custom
Houses, and in the administration Of the
Treasury, the Navy and the other executive
departments. But as the tremendous Sena-
torial broadsides of Sumner, Schurz and
Trumbull, delivered against these declared
usurpations and abuses, in being brought to
bear upon the spring elections in New Hamp-
shire and Connecticut resulted in no per-
ceptible damage to the administration lines;
and as, in the next place. those Senatorial in
vestigating committees brought to light no
very extraordinary official crimes or mis-
demeanors on the part Of the administration,
this line of attack, by which the main fortress
was to be carried by storm, was reduced to
ftful and struggling bombardment.
But the leading idea Of the new opposition
alliance was that by which Missouri had been
wrested from the administration by forty thou
sand majority-the idea Of the fusion Of the
democratic party with the ant-Grant or
liberal republicans upon liberal re-
publican platform, sinking oil these old,
offensive democratic war and reconstruc-
ton issues in this new movement and flank
ing the administration on the vital issue of the
reconciliation of the South This bold and
splendid idea was inaugurated at Cincinnati
and ratified at Baltimore in the nomination
Of the common opposition ticket of Greeley
and Brown. Under this arrangement the
anti Grant republicans, with their candidates
and these principles, were brought to the
front, and the rank and file of the democratic
party were placed in the rear, in recognition
of their fusion in this new organization. This
fusion had in stealing the thunder Of the ad-
ministration, succeeded in revolutionizing not
only Missouri, but Tennessee and Virginia;
and why should it not succeed in the country
at large? The logic Of the proposition was
irresistible in favor Of the experiment, and
with the adjournment Of the Baltimore Con-
vention in July thore did appear to be a gen.
eral reaction in the public sentiment through
out the Union, which promised political
revolution in November.
But this promise was like those clouds which
sweep down from the Abyssinian mountains
upon the neighboring desert, only to vanish in
the burning air. The calculations Of this ap-
parently resistless opposition alliance fell