New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1875-06-11


in November by the results of the State cleo
t;on month earlier. In 1875 Pennsylvania
will not name in October the victor in tho
Presidential contest and there will be no need
Of the tremendous expenditures Of money,
breath. and patriotism, of which both parties
have been heretofore so prOdigal, in order to
carry the October election and make sure OF
its moral effect.
Connecticut is much smaller State and OF
less consequence in the Presidential election ;
but the election in that State coming in April
has had significance attached to it which 1t
will not have hereafter, on account OF the In
dlcations it furnished of the set of the political
tide and of whatever changes had taken place
in public opinion since the elections of NOyom-
Der previous. On one or two occasions the
Spring election in Connecticut has been watched
by the whole country with the most intense
interest, because in the evenly balanced cOndi-
ton of parties it was supposed that the pres
tige of victory then would greatly strengthen
the winner and be the fOrerunner of more
general and sweeping triumph in the contests
of the year. This was notably the case in the
Spring of 1860, when New-iiampshre i'll March
and Connecticut in April led Off the Prcsiden-
tal year. The Republicans had been carrying
everything before them for three or four years,
and threatened to carry the country in No
vcmber. They held all the Northern States.
The South was suen and discontinued,
and with the increasing prospect OF the
triumph of the new party in the Presidential
struggle, the disailection grew and secession
began to be more generally talked of a. the
only way of escape from the impending ca
lamity. 1t is believed that the decision of the
question: whether the Democratic party would
hold together and make a united fight in No
yembcr rested upon the result in Connecticut
in April. Ex-GOv. Thomas ii. Seymour, the
most popular man OF his party, was nominated
by the Democrats against Gov. buckingham.
The State was never before or since, so holly
contested. In the end the Democrats were de-
feated by few hundred votes. Not much,
but enough. The line of Northern States was
held unbrokcD, and the Southern politicians
saw that il was useless to prolong the strug-
Gle. Had the result been different there
might have been no split at Charleston. posi-
bly, no Republican success in the Presidential
election, ard the whole current of our history
might have been changed.
This was one of the occasions upon which
Connecticut held position of the highest i'm
portance; higher indeed than she had any
title to. The change of date for holding her
elections will slip the little State into the pro-
cession with other and larger States, and her
politicians viii find themselves perhaps of less
importance than they have hitherto thought
The change will have the good effect too of
preventing in Il large measure the raids into
the State from New-lOrk, of which there have
been loud complaints by both parties for, with
the elections on the same day in both states,
the repeaters and suffers will have enough to
do at home without going among their neigh
bnra