The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1873-06-12

Think Of what Simply this-a curious
circumstance in American history-that the
men, who principally inaugurated the cru
SADIE against slavery, who destroyed the
friendly feelings existing between the diff
ferent sections of the Union, who brought
on the bloody civil war, who succeeded in
freeing the negroes, humiliating the people
Of the South, and bringing them to poverty
and ruin, that these men never. profted
much thereby, that they never reached the
goal OF their ambition, and that three of
them, the most prominent, the most tai
ented, the most influential at one time, are
dead and died in bad odor with the great
party they had lqboriously built up and led
TO victory. Such is the fact. Seward,
Chase and Greeley were the great
brains of the Republican party
They originated it, they gave it life, they
watched over it, they fostered it, gave it
strength, energy and power, and finally
led it on to conquer and triumph and reign.
That IS what they did, and every we'll
informed man knows it. Seward suggested
the "lligher law" the law higher than the
Constitution of his country, a law to over
ride and trample upon it, by which the pas
sions and prejudices of men were to be ex-
cited and slavery was to be reached and
grappled with and destroyed. Men were
to see that law by the inner light of their
hearts and regard it as paramount to all
other and written laws, and be guided and
governed 10y it. Who so powerful in the
Senate as Seward? Who so powerful and
influential with the opponents of slavery
and the Southl No one. If his party
ever came to be in the ascendency, he nat
urally expected to be rewarded, to be
placed at its head, to become the Presi-
dent of the United States. This was
the darling wish of his heart, the
goal of his restless ambi tion. Did he ever
reach it? No When his party became
strong and powerful and likely to succeed,
his services were forgotten or held for
nought, and lis claims were set aside by
the Convention at Chicago, which nOmi-
mated Lincoln, common man, who had
done very little for his party in comparison.
1t is true that Lincoln enabled him to play
second fiddle" and during the war, he
could ring his little bell and put any honest,
patriotic man into dungeon at his pleas
ure, but that was a small recompense for his
services and not what he wanted. The war
over, and Lincoln out of the way through
the instrumentality of the crazy Booth,
what followed? Seward was again set
aside for one Grant, at the commencement
of the civil war Democrat, as his father
was before him, man disgracefully COM
PEELED to leave tie United States service
and take to hauling wood or waiting on a
lanyard, but who had, by fortunate cir
cumstances, become a successful general
and popular hero. Thus the once great
idol of the Republican party was
left to himself to do what he
could And so he wandered about over
the world and around it, and came home
and died, disappointed, broken-down
man.
Chase Jared little better, the hard-work-
ing, indomitable Chase, who made himself
famous by his opposition to the fugitive
slave law, and strained and perverted the
doctrine of State Rights, to prevent its
being duly executed under tie Constitution,
as good faith and honor required. True,
he was made Secretary of the Treasury, and
finally, one of the Judges of the Supreme
Court, for which he was untitled. But
what of that2 His heart was set on the
presidency, and when his own party dis
carded him, he even begged a nomination
from the Democracy, and really wore him
self down and paralytic, in his fruitless
efforts, and died, like Seward, an outcast
from his party, full of disappointment, grief
and modification.
And Greeley, honest Horace" the very
soul and embOdyment of Radical Republic
everybody knows how he died. and
what killed himErunning for the Presi-
dency under Democratic nomination, in
opposition to his own party, which
denounced and blackguarded him as a
traitor, a driveller and rascal. All this,
with hard work, and failure staring him in
the face, brought on a brain fever and so
he died raving and his old Radical friends
made war on his daughters, and broke his
last viii and testament, as the folly of a
mailman! Poor old ''honest Horace Gree
ley" After such life as his what mel
ancholly end
And so the great party leaders died, all
falling to get what their hearts painted for,
all in bad repute with their triumphant
party, all discarded and abandoned by their
old friends, al chagrined, disappointed,
mortified and humiliated wrecks Of hu-
mamty Is there any retribution in thisl
Did YOU ever think Of itl