The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1876-11-02
HAYES AND WHEELER.

desire to say few words upon the record of
the two candidates, as illustrating the character
of each. In 1860, prior to the election of Mr..
Lincoln, Tilden avowcd his adhesion to the
Southern view of the right Of secession. He
declared our system to be compact Of con-
federation between the States" without a com
mon arbiter to enforce a just construction and
execution of the instrument. He asserted the
right Of u State to snap the tie of confedera-
ton as nation might break treaty; and the
right to repel coercion as a nation might repel
invasion" He thus ranged himself with Frank
lin Pierce. who in January of the same year, in a
letter to Jefferson Davis, gave laid and com
fort' to the conspirators of secession and dis
union. When secession came Rutherford B.
Hayes accepted the resulting war as g. Just and
necessary" and demanding the whole power
of the country" When the great war meeting
OF April, 1861, was held in New York, Mr.. Til
den declined to sign his name to the call, requir-
ing first to know what resolutions were to be
passed at it, showing by how delicate thread
his devotion to the country was suspended. Mr.
Hayes said then he would prefer to 20 into the
war il he knew he was to be killed in the course
OF it rather than to live through and after it
without taking any part in it. In 1864 when Mr..
lilden was at Chicago helping to concoct that
resolution of surrender passed by the Demo-
cratic National Convention, General HAYES was
writing from the field that !" the officer who at
this crisis would abandon his post to electioneer
IoI eca1 III SonEiehs ought 10 pe scalped.' 1t
is claimed by Tilden's friends that Lincoln
sometimes consulted him. So he toyed with
other dangerous men in the North-corre-
sponded with them, conferred with them,
pleaded with them, argued with them,
iested them, toyed with them, that thereby
he might mollity them, and measure them,
unfang them, or convert them. Lincoln
was diplomatist as well as a patriot, and
considered nothing loss which removed an
OBSTACLE from the path of the nation, or
h!Gnted the weapon or parried the blow of an
enemy. Lincoln may have sent for and con
tcrred with Mr.. Tiden but the documentary
proof must be furnished before the country
can believe that such conference was between
friends who confided in each other, and were
equally intent upon a common object Like
wise the characters of the two men are in
marked contrast. Hayes set UP for himself
noble standard when, in college days. he
wrote in his private diary these words "The
reputation that desire is not that momentary
emlnence which is gained without merit, and
lost without regret. Give me the popularity
that runs after, not that which is sought for. :"
Contrast these words with the spirit shown by
Mr.. lllden, whose training began in the school
OF New York politics, in the corrupt DAYS of
Van Buren, and whose career has been a con-
tinuous devotion 10 the methods and princi-
pies and measures of that dynasty of which
Tweedism was but the logical and necessary
issue. The country can, of all possible calami-
ties, least afford to endure the overshadowinp
danger which would come from transplantinS
to Washington the seeds which have produced
as a legitimate growth, the Tammany growth in
the city of New York.--Ron. Ed.oard McI'As,-
son at Newport.