Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1876-04-07
WASHINGTON, ID. c., /
March 20, 1876. I

March 20, 1876.
Hon. GEO. NICHOLS, Mortified, VT.
: DEAR SIR Your favor of the 18th
instant has been received, assuring me OF
the pleasure it would give the republi-
cans of Vermont to meet me at the con-
vention to be held at Burlington on the
29th inst, and while gratefully acknowl-
edging your courteous invitation, | feel
confident that my duties to the State, !
have the honor, in part, to represent,
will be better discharged here than in
even the recently redeemed city of Bur-
lington.
| have also full faith that the conven
ton of Vermont republicans, which is
to assemble on the 29th of March for
the purpose of selecting delegates to the
National Convention to be held at Gin
cinnati, will perform that important duty
with fidelity, and that the delegates will
be such as cannot fail to confer honor
upon the State both by their sterling
character as men and wisdom as repub-
licans.
To me it appears to be evident that
the election of republican President in
our centennial year is quite possible, and
possible only because he will deserve to
be elected. Our candidate must be the
embodiment of the Union sentiment Of
the country neither ready to apologize
for the preservation Of the Union nor for
the emancipation of race, and true, not
only to all the fundamental principles
which have ever given vitality to the re-
publican party, preserved the national
credit, protected the great industrial in
terests of the country and opened the
way for return to specie payments, but
our candidate must also furnish in his
own behalf a name and character, as
man of affairs, with robust convictions
of duty, that shall be sufficient guar
anty to secure ability, purity and strict
economy in all branches of the Execu-
tive Departments.
The coming national contest is likely
| to be conducted with earnestness, perhaps
| by resort to all the vituperative elo.
quence and extravagant abuse which ex-
IRENE partisanship is apt to esteem as
among its most potent weapons of politi-
cal warfare, but this system Of tactics
has signally failed where it might have
been expected to have been the most eff
fective, and we may well feel our courage
REINFORCED blythe late overthrow of the
New Hampshire Democracy whose ha-
tired of republication suffers no diminu-
ton from any disadvantage of northern
latitude.
A sad mistake, as it turns out, was
made in the selection of General Belk-
nap for Secretary of War-a mistake
now happily corrected by the selection Of
a successor of unquestioned fitness as
well as unquestioned republieanism yet
even those who may have had most
cause to dislike the late Secretary never
suspected his personal integrity until he
dropt from his high position. In fact,
it is the truth of history to say that mil
itary officers have almost universally es-
capped such imputations-a exception
being so rare as to provoke world wide
commentary; but even military men,
had they been placed in the Garden Of
Eden, might not have done much better
than he who said, "he qOonaan gaze me
and l did eat" The flaming sword is
already drawn to execute justice.
No true republicans desire that any
guilty man shall escape, and they have
pursued and will pursue and punish ras-
calls as swiftly when found stealing into
their own party as when found in any
other, but they do not connive at the es-
cape of Tweed, nor do they stop the
pursuit on any trail because it leads to
their own camp. The republican party
does not attempt to crock all mankind
by one general indictment based upon
the offence Of a single individual, al
though it will be found to possess suffi-
cient health and righteous wrath to cut
off all offending members, knowing that
it will then still hold in its patriotic
ranks large majority of the people.
A house of representatives, where
northern democrats are mainly excluded
by their speaker from the lead on COM
mittees, and where ex-confederate officers
now hold the dominating influence, can
not be expected to act with exalted ideas
of patriotism, but solely inspired, as it
would seem, with the purpose to rule the
government they so lately sought to ruin
The measures proposed under the plaus-
ible guise of reform may be so gaunt
and grotesque as to raise painful doubt
whether or not the real design may not
be to cripple the ordinary administration
of the government and to produce at
length imbeeility by slow starvation.
Some better return for amnesty might
possibly have been exhibited.
Ever since the close of the war every
republican congress has resolutely re-
duced by many millions the annual ex-
penditures of the government, and in no
equal portion of our history for half of
a century has the per centage of losses
been so small, by defalcations in the col
lection of customs and internal revenue.
as in the terms of Lincoln and Grant.
All just and reasonable curtailments of
expenditures, however, should be eagerly
accepted, whether coming from unusual
and reckless quarters or otherwise; but
absolute public necessities should not be
left unprovided for, even though the
democratic party never more needed to
talk loudly of economy, credited as it is
everywhere with so little, and to that
little nowhere holding any valid title.