Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1880-08-06

MT. EuNhIu y. Iutllh Vi burlington, the
Democratic nominee for Governor of Yer
mont, is n gentleman of whom we desire to
speak with oil possible respect and candor
He is a man Of fine abilities, superior educa-
ton and culture, and has long held leading
position as a lawyer His father, Hon Sam
uel S. Phelps, for the twelve years next pre-
ceding the first election of the late Hon. Sol
ONION Foot, was a member of the United
States Senate from this State, in which body
he took high rank, though pitted against such
renowned statesmen as Webster, Clay, Cal
houn, Benton, Clayton, Berrian, and host of
others that might be named, nearly all of
whom passed away from the public service,
and from life also, Just before the outbreak
of our great civil war Senator Phelps was
Wing in those days, of the stamp then known
as "silver grays," 10 indicate their pro-slav-
cry sympathies and their pronounced oppo-
stion TO the growing anti-slavery sentiment
of the country, and especially in the ranks of
the Wing party. Young Phelps imbibed his
fathers political sentiments, and started out
in political life a 'silver gray Wing" and so
continued until the breaking up of the Wing
He then, as was natural, became Democrat
and his political affiliations, more or less pro-
nounced, have since been with that party
His intense hostility to the anti-slavery prin-
ciples and purposes of the Republican party
left him no choice. He must be n Democrat
or nothing, politically; and so, sympathiz-
ing fully with that party in its pro-slavery
pvirif tbpt,ob hayipfr Ettla ole ~,
with it, he cast his lot with the Democracy
Ordinarily he has taken but little part, and
apparently but little interest, in public affairs
and has seldom appeared as the champion of
Democratic principles, and never, we believe,
as an active party manager. He has little
taste, we think, for such things, and no very
high opinion, personally, of most of his po-
litical associates. Young Phelps was born,
as the saying IS, with a silver spoon in his
mouth, was nurtured in affluence, educated
without regard to economy, and grew up to
manhood surrounded by all the Injuries, as
well as by all the refining influences, which
wealth and high position give. He has never
known, for a moment, from his infancy up,
anything of the rugged and thorny pathway
which nearly all American youth are COM
PEELED TO tread, imbibing, the while, those
broad and deep sympathies with struggling
humanity which actual experience alone can
develop. He has lived all his life in a kind
of higher social atmosphere, having little to
do, and absolutely nothing in common, with
the great mass of the people. By birth, ed
ucation, social position, habit and taste, he is
80 10
tleman in the State of Vermont
His record during the war was not such as
to commend him to patriotic citizens. Too
refined and gentlemanly TO be guilty of the
gros disloyalty in speech and indecencies in
action in which some of his present political
friends and supporters INDUCED, he was yet
a chronic Pathfinder andgrumbler, whose in
huenee, we are sorry to be compelled to say,
tended to obstruct and discourage all meas
ures and efforts looking to a vigorous prose-
cution of the war. While not blatant cop
perhead, like some we wot of-instinct and
breeding made this impossible-he was yet
copperhead, whose sympathies were always
understood to be against those who were
struggling to suppress the shareholders re-
bellion.
And this is the gentleman whom the De-
mocracy of Vermont have selected as their
candidate for Governor A greater burlesque
could hardly be imagined He is the very
antipode of any possible conception of De-
mocracy, either as regards principles, or the
elements of which the party is composed !;
and the very men who have put him in NOM
ination know it. He is put forward, as is
Gen. Hancock, simply as a respectable mask,
to conceal all manner of iniquity in the par
ty behind him. But this too common dodge
viii deceive nobody in the world not even
themselves; and the vote, on the 9TH day of
September, will show that the people of
Vermont are not to be taken in by any such
juggling tricks