The Portland daily press., 1880-07-05
Hancock.
What the Nation Thinks Of the Military
Candidate.
IN. Y. Nation.1

N Y. Nation.l
The nomination of General Hancock by the
Democrats would have been most seasonable
and appropriate in 1872 or in 1876. In both
those years there fingered among the party in
power strong tendency to apply military
methods to the government of considerable
portion Of the Union, and to tolerate, if not
countenance, the elevation of the military
above the civil authority, for variety Of OBJ
jects, vaguely described under the general
term of Saving the results of the war;" This
tendency was represented, too, by the pres
ence in the Presidential chair Of a man who
was soldier, and nothing but soldier, and
who had given repeated proofs that he looked
on the Presidency as an essentially military
ONCE. The Democrats were greatly ham
pered in their efforts to resist this ten
dency by their supposed sympathy with
the enemies of the Union, by the pres
ence of the great body of the "ex-rebels''
in their ranks, and by the suspicion that they
really desired to weaken the general Govern
ment. No way of meeting this would have
been so effective as the nomination of soldier
like General Hancock, whose services to the
Union on the battlefield were incontestable.
who had at the same time given unmistakable
proof OF his dislike of military interference
with the regular working of the Constitution
and the laws, and who might nevertheless be
relied on for full as much vigor in the execu-
tion of the laws as General Grant Instead of
this, however, they nominated in 1872 a candi-
date from whom nobody looked for vigorous
administration, in whose discretion nobody be-
l. l.
doctrine that almost anything was justifable
which kept Democrats out of power. In 1876
they nominated a candidate who had all along
opposed the war, and was suspected of having
encouraged the rebellion. Now, when the con-
troversies created by the alleged unlawful use
of military authority have passed away, and
when there seems to be general acquiescence
in the supremacy of civil authority every
where, they come forward with soldier whose
opinion on civil affairs are, for the most part,
unknown, and whose one excursion into the
field of civil jurisprudence was made fifteen
years ago in the South, by refusal to allow
the troops to take entire charge of State Gov
ernment. General Hancock's utterances in
Louisiana in 1867, creditable as they were to
him, bore on state of things which has Who'll
ly passed away, and were made in controver-
sy which has actually ceased, and indicate
nothing whatever as to his attitude towards
the problems by which the country is now
beset.
Ais nomination comes, too, Just as the Re-
publican party has finally discarded military
ideas and military methods, and has nomin-
ated a man whose fame is almost wholly based
on his career as an economist and legislator
And yet the Republican party has not hitherto
stood for administrative reform and legislative
enterprise. 1t has been essentially war
party. 1t has to no small extent thrown dis
credit on peaceful agencies in the work of rem
ovation and paciication. 1t is the party which
one would naturally expect to cling to soldier
government and "strong man" government
1t is, therefore, more than surprising to find
that no sooner has it returned to the paths of
peace, and produced candidate whose tri-
umphs have been almost almost all legislative,
than the Democrats, the great friends of gov
ernment by discussion and persuasion, and of
policemen as against soldiers, the great ene-
mics of attempts to work on opinion through
the revival of war memories and passions,
should throw all their civilians aside their
lawyers, their statesmen, their fnanciers, and
appear oD the scene with a major. general in
full uniform, and begin to tell us of the battles
he fought the guns and prisoners he took, and
of the mildness and good sense with which he
exercised the powers of military dictator
over large bodies of the American people half
a generation ago. or course the object OF this
is we'll known. 1t is meant to meet the suspi-
cion of Democratic sympathy with the rebel
lious South; but it must be admitted that a
great political party is in bad way when it
has no better mode than this of commencing
itself, in time of profound peace, to public
much sobered by unhappy experience of ad-
ministrative and financial disorder, and rea-
sonably anxious for careful adaptation of the
governmental machine to the needs of rap
idly increasing population and to a growing
complexity of interests and responsibilities,
both material and moral.