The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1886-02-17
OLD LEADEKs 00INa.
Remarkable Contrast Eminent Men Of Two
Great EpoChS.

femRFkable Contrast Eminent Men OF Two
Great EpOClsS.
NW York Eccnhq Post,
The great political struggle between tho
Republican and Democratic parties, which
resulted In the civil war and eudediu the
emancipation and enfranchisement OF the
slaves, bsgan with the nomination Of the
first Republican candidate for the Presi.
deucy thirty years ago. 1t is only when
some event occurs which arrests attention
and suggests retrospect that we realize
how very few OF the leaders In this greR;
struggle now survive. Beginning with the
canvass Of 1856 and ending with that OF
1850, fifteen candidates contested for the
Presidency, who belonged to the genera.
uun wnlCu Drought on or carried through
the war. Buchanan and Fillmore; Lin.
BreCkinridge, and Bell, and his sole op.
ponent in 1861, Mcclellan; Grant, and
the men whom he defeated In 1868 and
1872, Seymour and Greeley; Ga field and
Hancock, the candidates in 1880, are all
dead. There remain OF the whole list only
Fremont, no longer a pathfinder; Til.
den and Hayes.
Tie conspicuous men Of LinColn's Cab.
met aye mostly dead, like Seward, OhaSe
and Stanton, or In the retirement OF old
age, like Simon Cameron; "the war Gov
ernors" are nearly all gone, or where a
stray one, like Curtin, Of Pennsylvania,
fingers, no longer powerful; the great
leaders in Congress before, during and
Immediately after the war, like Charles
Sumner, Henry Wilson, William Pitt
Fessendon, "Ban" Wade, Oliver r. Nor.
ton, Thomas II. Hendricks, "Thad" Ste.
vens and Schuyler Colfax, are either dead
or remain only Us political relics like
n. T. Banks and Lyman Trumbull, In
Congress to day sit but q few men who sat
in that body before the war, aud OF these
low John Sherman and John A. Logan
alone retain commanding position, while
Secretary Lamar Is only man in the Cab.
met whose political record dates back OF
1861.
There Is something remarkable about
the speed with which the political gener-
alton Of the rebellion period has passed
from the Stage. The contrast with the
generation Of the Revolutionary era rem.
ders 1t the more noteworthy. II 10 now
barely twenty.one years since AppomAt-
tox, and yet nearly all the leaders in the
struggle are physically or politically de.
ceased. The Revolution ended in 1853,
but 1t was not until 1925, iorty.two years
later, at the expiration OF Monroe's Sec
rond term, that they ceased to elect Presi-
dents who had entered public life before
or during the long contest which began in
l775. Tie Senate TO which Monroe ad.
dressed his last annual message in Deem,
Der, 1928, contained several men who
had been soldiers in the RsvOu-
tionary army nearly half a century
before, like lIufus King, Of New York,
John Chandler, OF Maine, and Nathaniel
Macon, Of North Carolina, and 1t 10 easy to
see that the proportion Of men still In
active political lie who we're actors In the
Revolution was, even at that long remove,
quite considerable. This was due In no
small measure to the youthful preCoCity
Of these survivors, the Senator Macon OF
1915 to 1928 having been only a boy Of
Is when he left Princeton College in l775
to enlist in the patriot army, and the
President Monroe Of 1917 to 1925, but IL
years old when he joined tho Revolution
airy army. 1.-THE fathers" also escaped the
danger Of assassination, which removed
two Of the four Presidents who were
elected between 1860 and 1884.