New-York tribune., 1875-02-04
TIE WISCONSIN SENATORSHIP.

The Senatorial contest in Wisconsin ended
yesterday with the defeat of Mr.. Carpenter
and the election, by coalition of Democrats
and boiling Republicans, Of Angus Cameron
of La Crosse. Mr.. Cameron is native OF
Caledonia, Livingston County, in this State,
and is a lawyer. He has served six terms in
the Wisconsin Legislature. has been Speaker
of the House, and is hard currency Repub
lican.
The retirement Of Mr. Carpenter from the
Senate is not an occasion for regret, except
as it takes from that body a man of brilliant
abilities, who might, if he had been 80 dis
posed, have had q useful and honorable
career. Mr.. Carpenter has, upon occa-
sions, shown intellectual force and power
that ranked him among the leading minds
certainly of his party, and perhaps of
the nation. With these, however, he has
exhibited q certain perversity of disposition
upon questions involving considerations
of morality and purity, something like
a moral strabismus that has clouded his ca
reer and destroyed his usefulness. 1t was his
misfortune, or rather it was the intrinsic fault
in his character, that all through the war
he was neither statesman nor patriot,
and hardly a politician. Through the
times that offered smaller men the
opportunities they made the most of, to come
to the front and enjoy the hOnOrs while they
participated in the enthusiasms and inspira-
tons of lthe great struggle, Mr.. Carpenter
practlced law and was known as a Dem
ocrat. 1t was not until the war was
over and the Republican party had
o,,1 1icI,o al
its work that Mr.. Carpenter stepped into
prominence as a member of the party and
Senator from Wisconsin. He had missed the
opportunity that many men of his cast of charac-
ter had seized Butler had not missed it, but on
the top wave of it had sailed out of compare
tive Obscurity, and by bringing his peculiar
talents and his wonderful audacity to
the aid of the country, had so taxed
the gratitude of the party and the people that
they kept HIM in Office and tolerated his
monstrous idiOsyncrasies for years after his
unftness was known. So with Logan and
many others who have been borne along since
the war upon simple and sincere sense of
grateful obligation for the services they rem
dered when the country was in need of them.
Mr.. Carpenter missed his opportunity and
missed all the inspirations of the war. He
came into public life upon the strength only
of his brilliant abilities as an advocate and q
public speaker. The profession of attorney,
which he pursued during the war; when other
men of less intellectual power but higher pat
riotism put away their briefs and buckled
on their swords, he continued as politician
and Senator. He found a triumphant party
reveling in the spoils of conquest and the
plunder of camps. He had had no part in
the hardships of the campaign or the dangers
of the fray. 1t was his to come in with the
camp followers at the end of the fighting and
the beginning Of the racket for the
spoil He caught easily the spirit of the
occasion and the temper of the time. There
was no need for him to "point with pride
to his "record of the past" He had only to
mix in the hurly burly and go along with the
tide. In the midst of all tho glorifcation and
gasconade he was keen enough to see that it
was a period Of plunder; that the victorious
party was foundering amid the inev-
table consequences of o long war;
that greed had succeeded patriotism
that cunning knavery was making the most
of its opportunity to take advantage Of the
simple gratitude of the people; in short, that
it was the era of greed, plunder, and spos.
And so he went with the crowd went with
it as participator in the junketing and
as advocate and attorney for the de-
fense when the people called them
to account. The Credit Mobilier transac-
tions, which scandalized the country, found
in him swift apologist and ready champion |;
for the salary grab and back pay outrage he
was an advocate IN the Senate, and smooth
and plausible defender to the people he
gave open and unblushinG support to Sena-
tors who, upon the clearest testimony, were
convicted of bribery he opposed all
efforts to reform the Civil Service, and
jeeIed at the well-meant efforts Of pa
triotic men in shat direction; he was the
natural ally of corruptionists; he favored dis
honesty with the instincts of a criminal law
yer, and consistently supported every measure
that tended TO tho Initiation Of dishonest