The New Orleans daily Democrat. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1877-1880, 1879-01-15
SENATOR EDMUNDS.
THE CHARACTER OF THE EXPONENT
OF THE NEW ENGLAND IDEA.
The Face OF st. jerome ana the Brain Of
st. Just-A Partisan who stlckies at
Nothing to serve His Party.


AMERICAN PUBLIC LIFE,
past or present. He belongs to a class of
public men-a large class, presenting consid-
cradle variety Of type, but all bearing unmis-
| taxable generic marks OF identity-which the
peculiar state OF things In the last quarter of
a century raised to the surface and to COM
manding eminence In our country. For gen
eral convenience the class may be designated
by the name OF the section In which 1t has had
it's origin and OF which some Of It's most per-
feet types are now the representatives
class Of New England Radical politicians. 1t
would be mistake to call Senator Edmunds
statesman In the good, broad English sense
| OF that term, for he Is not one. He is, how
| ever,a politician Of the very highest class, and
In an era like the one we have just passed
through, in which any lucky escape from
| common vulgarity has been considered re-
spectability, Edmunds easily takes the
relative rank which, under circumstances
admitting OF a higher standard, might be
reserved for the real statesman.
OF course 1t is not my intention to impugn
the personal integrity, the individual respec-
| liability or the representative character OF Mr..
Edmunds. On the other hand, whether
viewing him In respect TO his mental quail
fications, his moral quality or the record OF his
acts, his bitterest enemy would have to adj
NIT the Spartan purity Of his life so far as
all the grosser shortcomings OF public men
are concerned. But it is this very
STATUS OF PERSONAL REsPEUrABrLTrY
that makes him, in his character OF politi-
clan, SO formidable not to say SO dangerous.
IT ia oacv puu1lOh tn disnOap Of a fhinf
ass In public life; for that, whenever such
person assails any great public interest or
ranges himself on the baneful side of any pub
lie question, an epithet or sneer Is sufficient
thief to be crushed by an epithet, nor an ass
to be annihilated with a sneer. On the other
hand he Is tremendous battery of intellec-
tual power, mental culture and moral exacti-
tude, entrenched in an impregnable Iedoubt
OF personal integrity, whence he delivers the
most terrible sOrties against the constitution
and lays the most insidiOus mines underneath
the peace and welfare OF the country, to blow
them up on occasion.
It may sound odd to speak Of impregnable
personal integrity and steadfast devotion to
the wicked task OF destroying the cOpstitu-
tion In the same breath. But / take 1t that, in
q generation which has seen the Freedmens
Bureau, the Credit Mobilier, the Whisky
Ring, Bill Tweed, the Electoral Count and
John Sherman's financiering, all In the course
OF sixteen years, any man whose hands
are not Immediately In the act OF riffng
somebody or something of valuables, may be
called
A PARAGON OF INTEGRITY
That is to say, the dreadful depression OF
morals in our country of recent years has
forced new standards OF judgment; producing
imitation OF the value OF real honesty, some
thing like the issue of @ flood OF paper money
initiates the relative value Of precious metals
and depreciates everything else. In the
country OF the blind, q one-eyed man may be
king. So In nation full OF John Sherman's,
Garfields and Bill Tweeds, above ground or
under it, Edmunds becomes a saint. Recur-
ring to the financial simile, should say that
the Edmunds type OF purity and integrity
SUSTAINED about the same, relation to the best
Democratic type, as we see it exemplified in
the Senate for example, that the silver dollar
bears to the gold unit OF value In the estima-
tiOn OF the mOnOme.alists.
This, Isthink, will pass for fair analysis
OF Senator Edmunds' reputation as q man
and q citizen.
IN POLITICAL LIFE,
as the representative OF school, the expo
nent OF an idea and the advocate of policy
or principle, Senator Edmunds is simply an
attorney retained by party organization to
support its fortunes and promote Its cause
partisan, with no thought beyond the sue
aspiration for the country az large S save w
through the enginery OF the caucus. To |
shects n1m the A4ooo Of American people are
to rule. To him the Constitution
is an instrument, not for the conservation OF |
popular rights inalienable as to the whole |
body polite, but foe the perpetuation Of the |
sovereignty Of the Republican party. When |
ever strict construction enures to the tempo |
rary benefit OF Radicalism, as at one stage of |
the electoral count, then Edmunds Is strict |
eonstructionist, even to the point Of extreme
stretch the theory or strain the application of |
the venerable instrument to subserve the ends
OF Radicalism, then Edmunds is latitudina-
rian enough to put to blush the memory OF /
Alexander Hamilton and William H. Seward |
And through every varying phase of his con-
stitutiOnal tergiverSation Edmunds manages.
sometimes by skill in the turning OF phrases,
and sometimes by an ingenuity Of sophistry !
that Is miraculous, to have the law and the l
prophets on his sfde Having infiexibly pre-
determined to do a partisan act, Edmunds
will proceed in an elaborate argument to con-
vince himself that he ought to do 1t. Then
he will exhaust the textbooks of logic to
prove that ne ought not to refrain from doing
it. And finally he will ransack the treasures
OF dfalectics to show that he ought never TO
have entertained any other intention than the /
one which he is about to execute Finally,
when he acts ne has done nothing more por
bly, prompted him to do.
St. just was the lawyer of the Mountain"
In the French Directory that invoked the
reign OF terror. There was no crime against !
person or property, no cruelty, no vengeance,
no outrage upon the laws of God, imaginable
Or conceivable by that Internal cOnclave, that :
Sc. just could not find lawaDd reason for.
His mission was to find verdicts OF guilty .
against whOmsoever Barere, Marat and Dan
ton might take it into their heads to butcher
It made little difference whether st. Justs
verdicts OF guilty preceded the executions OF \
.he victims of his coparceners or were e1 post d
facto SO long as they were found ana rem
Tered the French nation of justice in 1889 was
satisfied. Edmunds Is
THE ST. JUST OF THE RADICAL PARTY, Is
N o1,r time. And as I have heretofore OBJ Y
,eryed. he plays that role masked In the |
,ountenance and external character of ST. Z
Jerome.
His last performance Is exactly in keeping