The New York herald., 1877-02-03
the Last-Thetr Comparative Intel
lectual Stature.

the Last-Thetr Comparative Intel
lectual Stature.
The great occasions which permit and
call for display of high capacity enable us
to see our distinguished public men at their
best and to estimate their intellectual ability
and equipment. Such an occasion is al
forded in the measures which have been
taken and are in progress for determining
the Presidential election. This is crisis
unexampled in our history, n crisis not
merely without precedent, but hemmed IN
with constitutional and practical difficulties
of no ordinary kind and rising to great Dig
nifty by the importance of it's consequences.
In the whole course of our history since the
adoption of the constitution no problem has
been presented better fitted to test the re-
sources of American craftsmanship, ana
none of our really great political problems
has ever been more successfully solved. IL
has been constantly predicted by eminent
iurists and statesmen that the supreme trial
of our constitution would come whenever
Presidential election should depend on
disputed votes. That crisis has at last
come, and our public men have proved
adequate to meet it, aided as they
have been by the sobriety and patriotism
of tho people. Some of our public men are
! acquiring so much distinction and lustre in
| the peaceful settlement of this controversy
that it seems simple act of justice to them
to recognize their merit, and of justice to
| this generation to assert its title to rank In
intellectual ability with the last.
Great talents are so much indebted to fit
opportunities that a country may be un-
aware of it's af1luence in important men.
Had it not been for our civil war nobody
| would have suspected the military capacity
that lay concealed under the unpretending
exterior of General Grant. Mr.. Chase would
never have acquired the reputation of a
| great financier in ordinary times. The re-
markable combination of mental and moral
qualities which stamp Charles Francis
Adams as our first statesman would have
been unknown to his countrymen if he had
not held the trying position of our Minister
to England during the civil war. We need
] not recur to Grays fanciful lines
about "village Hampdens" and 'muto in
glorious Millions" to illustrate truth of
which our own history is so full. Even
Washington would have passed among
his contemporaries merely as re-
spectacle planter had it not been
for the troubles of the Revolution.
1t is q partial compensation for the great
national trials which we have gone through
in this generation that they have furnished
| H. J0x tc Nd
enabled the country to estimate one Of its
possessions-the intellectual capacity of its
public men.
Among our orators it may not be possible
TO name three who are equal to the illustri-
Gus trio Of tho last age whose names will be
recalled without mentions but we have
several who have won great triumphs by the
sheer force of argument and eloquence.
Among our contemporary orators Mr..
Eyarts who is to address the Electoral Com
mission, has been the most fortunate in
the number of his splendid opportu-
mites and his adequacy to every great
occasion. There is no orator of our time
whose eloquence has been so favored by
connection with events which will live in
history His brilliant success on the first
of those occasions, the impeachment of
President johnson, established his pre-em-
inence and he has since been tho first man
to be thought of in connection with every
occasion Of national importance. He was
the leading counsel of our government be-
fore the Geneva tribunal, and on that great
occasion, not merely of national but inter-
national interest, his resplendent success
assured him European reputation as one
of the first advocates OF our time.
He had another splendid opportunity on
an occasion which merely required ornate
treatment of historical subject in his Sc
lection to be the Centennial orator at Phiia-
delphia. That patriotic and extra-profes-
sional effort more than satisfied expectation,
high as expectation was. He has another
great opportunity to display his abilities as
the leading counsel before the Electoral
Commission. If he fails to establish the
claim of his client it will be his first failure
on an important occasion. Another of our
orators who has won great distinction is
Senator Conkling, whose first really great op-
portunity came to him in the recent Senate
debate on the Electoral bill. lie acquitted
himself in such manner as might alarm
Mr. Evarts for his laurels if Mr. Evarts were
of jealous temper. Senator Coukling is
ten years the junior of Mr. Evarts. and
about the same age that Mr.. Evarts was
when he made his great speech in the i'm
parchment trial, and that Mr.. Webster had
attained when he made his celebrated reply
to Hayne. With ten more years on his
head, if opportunities should favor him, he
has chances of eclipsing every American
orator among his contemporaries. We have
alluded to these two because they just
| ro,y ofopJ prn-amincut but we have