Litchfield enquirer., 1880-06-10
Convention Infalibility.

 lie magnates debated the question of papal in- falibility at Rome. Among other curious proceedings of the Chicago Convention was debate involving the same issue in different form On Friday, Senator Conkling offered the following resolution:
 Resolued, d,-As the sense of this Convention, that every member of it is bound in honor to support it's nominee whoever that nominee might be- and that no man should hold his seat here who IS not ready SO to agree.
 This resolution passed with but three dis sentng votes. MT. Conkling then procured call of the roll with view of forcing these three dissenters out of three quarterso of thou sand of the faithful, upon the record. They proved to be delegates from West Virginia. Mir. Conkling then moved the following reso- luton:
 Resolued, That the delegates who on this roll call have voted s'no" do net deserve to have, and have forfeited their votes in this Convention.
 Mir. Campbell, the chairman of the West Virginia Convention, one of the opponents of the resolution, then made manly speech de- nying the right of the convention to impose any such test. Others followed. bearing testi. mony to the soundness of Mir. Campbell in the Republican faith. and one speaker was so un- kind as torefer to the fact that Roscoe Conk- ling had refused MT. Hayes any help in the campaign of 1876 Mir. Brandagee, from this state, then made one of the spread-eagie ap- peals for which he IS remarkable, proposing that these three delegate, should be passed on every call of the roll. Further debate follow ed. Mir. Garfield defended the independence of the individual delegate, and MT. Conkllng, finding that the convention was not disposed to follow histyrannical lead, withdrew his reso- lution. So ended a matter which really involved a principle of greater moment than any regarding which any differ ence of opinion was developed in the con- vention, except that of civil service reform.
 Has political convention right to bind all its members in advance to support such nomi- nses or such platform as it may adopt? We say, most decidedly, that it has not. There is unquestionably certain degree of conformity to the will of the majority fairly due from the minorities of any convention. If it's chief duty is the selection of a candidate we hold that, so far as mere preferences go, the preference of the majority should be binding on the mi nority. Nor should member feel at liberty to bolt nomination fairly made except for serious personal unfitness on the part of candi date, or unless he believe that his nomination was compassed by fraud or bribery, or comes afterward to believe that the candidate is seeking to obtain an election by fraudulent and corrupt practices
 In short, then, convention, nominating candidates of bad character, corrupt, or in- competent, cannot claim the support even of As own members for such candidates. There is merely an honorable obligation on the part of gentlemen meeting for the selection of candidates to forego personal preferences and dislikes in regard to the nominees they have helped to select. How, then, does the Conk- ling test comport with this duty ? It makes no exceptions. but binds the member in ad- vance to support candidates whom he may know to be corrupt or unfit Mir. Conkling, by the way, is not the originator of the test he proposes. Benjamin F. Butler tried to apply 1t, years ago. in Massachusetts Republican Convention, with as marked lack of success as has characterized MT. Cenkling's tyrannical proposition of Friday last. Gen. Butler sought to bind the Convention in advance to his SUD- port, should he succeed in procuring nomi- nation. MT. James Freeman Clark coolly re- pudiated the Butler test, and afterwards assist ed at his defeat in the convention.
 Tbe excuse usually offered for this species of tyranny is that the individual member, by taking such a test, merely expresses full confidence in the collective wisdom of the body to which he belongs. Unfortunately it does good deal more than this It binds him to sustain it's action, right or wrong Sup. pose convention were to pass such resolution as this: "The body of politicians here assembled are given infallibe insight and cannot choose bad candidates; they are given infalible per- ception of political truth; therefore, every mer1ber denying our infallblity shall be ex- communicated at the outset !" Could any thing be more absurd? Yet, can anything short of infallibility justify claim of ir. plicit obedience2 Granting that the Chicago Convention might select an unfit man for its nominee, has 1t right to bind the consciences of members with tests that might commit them to great wrongP Clearly not Councils of theologians who believe themselves divinely inspired might perhaps consistently venture upon such measures of repression as these When mere men, mere politicians, like But Ter and Conkling, undertake to crush cut op- ' position by such methods it is a tyranny against which all good citizens should rebel. It is no honorable obligation, but pirates oath, based. on a sort of pirates necessity, with which they seek to entrap the con. sciences of the better men over whom thelr coarse tyranny is exercised.
 Editor Anthony of Leavenworth, Kansas, seems to be a marked man. A few years since, if we are not mistaken, he was nearly killed; and yet, only week ago, he was again under fire. He had handled somebody's rep- utation rather roughly while the man was on trial on criminal charge. The fellow was acquitted, fired at Anthony, but hit the lawyer who had cleared him. Editor Antho- ny is almost as as fortunate in the unskillful- ness of his enemies as the Czar.
 Senator Whyte, member of the commis- sion to fix upon new site for the Washington Observatory, goes for place near the city where statesmen can retire and look at the statelier bodies which move in heavenly spheres. Admiral Rogers, on the other hand, prefers the best place for astronomers obser- vations. Goshen would be capital compro- mise.
 Democrats and Greenbackers have fused in