Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1876-06-23
THE PRESIDENTIAL FIELD,

THE PRESIDENTIAL FIELD.
In their Presidential ticket nominated at
Cincinnati last week-Gen. HAYES, of
Ohio, for President; W. A. WHEELER, of
New York, for Weep RESIDENT Re
publicans have, after narrowly escaping a
wreck by the choice of BLAINE, gotten a
ticket upon which they can concentrate
their party strength, or, at least, the great
bulk of it. Their good fortune in missing
BLAINE is only equalled by our good for
tune in their missing BR1sTow, who, with
a national reputation as great reformer
the main question in the present cam
paign-would have given the Democrats
infinitely more trouble than Gen. HAYES
will. At the South they have relieved us
of all trouble, for HAYES record puts
him beyond even the probability of any
support from but one Southern State
South Carolina. A man who could, two
years after the war ended, vote in his seat
in Congress against the repeal of the Test
Oath for lawyers, though it was proposed
by THAD. STEVENS, cannot possibly be
trusted in the Presidential chair by
a superfuous degree of hatred. Cut off
from the Southern vote by their own act
the Republicans will look alone to the
North and West, and in these sections the
questions at issue are mainly reform and
finance. OF the first idea, as the intimate
friend of Secretary DELANo, HAYES will
not be enthusiastically accepted as re-
preventative man; nor OF the secondhand
money--is he a trustworthy custodian,
seeing how near a rag-money canvass, he
made the opening Of his victorious fight
with ALLEN, in Ohio, only coming do wn
squarely to hard money when spurred to it
by the N. Y. 'Tribune,'' and other in
fuences in and out of his party. AS SOL
der, he was a good one, but not dis
tinguished enough to make him ''solder
candidate.H
This much on one side. On the other
hand this ticket is accepted by the whole
Republican party, if not enthusiastically
at least willingly. There will be no OBJ
lection of any Importance to it in any large
class of the party.
Writing of the hour, and looking only at
this ticket, there should be 40 great diff
Guilty in beating it, if the St. Louis nomina
lions are OF the right sort. The Democrats
are at this time IN possession of the country;
they hold enough electoral votes to-day to
carry the Presidential election. and the
struggle with the Republicans will be to
wrest them from them. 1t is great ad-
vantage to start with. 1t is not the feeble,
disorganized, disheartened party that was
forced from sheer expediency to put Mr..
GREELY in the field in ~. 1t has pos
session Of one House of Congress,
and has exposed more corruption
chat the country ever dreamed of and is
still going on in that direction. OF these
exposures the Republicans in the coming
campaign must bear the odium; it was
their government under which these cor
rnptions existed, it stares them in the face
and they feel it so keenly indeed that they
are going back nearly a half century to
hunt up pecadilloes of Democratic office
holders long in their graves to offset it.
The last victim who gives point to the
whole is Nh. BLAINE, their representative
man, the most prominant candidate for the
nomination at Cincinnati, a man whose
gy-eight hours, in sending telegram to
London to have it repeated back from there
asserting his innocence to the investiga-
ting committee Of the House. The Repub
lican party is handicapped with hundreds
of cases like this. It wants character
more than anything else; the time for the
cry of saving the Union has passed. There
is no national idea in it's platform which is
not also that Of the Democrats and the lat
ter will have the advantage of discarding
Sectionalism.
The Democratic party, always supposing
it presents good ticket, will commence
the campaign with the best of prospects.
It will have every State in the South GER
tain, except South Carolina, situation
that has been brought about by the colored
race having become exclusively Republicans
and the whites being forced into the Dem
ocratic party to obtain control of their
State governments. If in addition they
can carry siXty-three electoral votes the
day is theirs. Of this sixty three we may
count thirty-fve New York; as almost
certain. The rest are open for the strug-
gle. It is evident from all signs that there
is to be an earnest campaign on both sides.
and brag and prophecies of victory on
either side will be thrown away. If ST..
Louis nominates TILDEN, which makes
sure of New York, and HENDRICKS, who
will make sure Of Indiana. the Democratic
chances to carry the next Presidency are
just two to one for winning.
The battle is to be fought at the North
and West. We of the South can hardly be
in the heat of it. The Cincinnati nomi-
nat ion puts it out of the question that any
Sou thern State now Democratic shall
cha nge. 1t is to be fought by the Demo-
crat S of those sections on the issue plain
and simple whether this is to be an honest
COVE rnment, an impartial government, and
a go vernment of equal rights for all Sec
tions Of our country, and they are to fight
it without the help of GHATz Brown,
and other Republican politicians who have
lately aided them.
In the meantime, everybody is waiting
for st. Louis.
RAN TUCKER is the only one of the new
Congr essmen from Virginia who became
famo us. He says, with reference TO the
next term, that he desires to submit his
claims to convention as he was nomi-
mated in the first instance by one, for