New Ulm weekly review., 1886-03-24
ANOTHER EPOCH OPENED.
The Passing of a Generation.

ANOTHER EPOCH OPENED.
The Passing of a Generation.
Beginning with the canvass of 1856
and ending with that of 1880, fifteen
candidates contested for the presidency,
who belonged to the generation which
brought on OF carried through the war,
Buchanan and Fillmore; Lincoln, his
three rivals in 1860, Douglas, Breckin-
ridge and Bell, and his sole opponent
in 1864, Mcclellan; Grant, and the men
whom he defeated in 1868 and 1872,
Seymour and Greeley; Garfield and
Hancock, the candidates in 1880, are
all dead. There remain of the whole
list only Fremont, no longer a path
fnder;'' Tilden and Hayes.
The conspicuous men of Lincoln S
cabinet are mostly dead, like Seward,
Chase and Stanton, or in the retirement
Of old age, like Simon Cameron; "the
war governors" are nearly all gone, or
where a stray one, like Curtin, of Penn
slvania, fingers, no longer powerful;
the great leaders in congress before,
during and Immediately after the war,
like Charles Sumner, Henry Wilson,
William Pitt Fessenden, "Ben'' Wade,
Oliver P. Morton, Thomas A. Hen
bricks, ''Thad'' Stevens and Schuyler
Colfax, are either dead or remain only
as political relics, like N. P Banks and
Lyman Trumbull. In congress to-day
sit but few men who sat in that body
before the war, and of these few John
Sherman and John A. Logan alone re-
tain commanding position, while
Secretary Lamar is the only man in the
cabinet whose political record dates
back of 1861.
There is something remarkable about
the speed with which the political gen
Grafton of the rebellion period has
passed from the stage. The contrast
with the generation Of the Revolution
ary era renders it more noteworthy. 1t
is now barely twenty-one years since
Appomattox, and yet nearly all the
leaders in the struggle are physically
or politically deceased. The Revolu-
tion ended in 1888, but it was not until
1925, forty-two years later, at the ex-
piration OF Monroe's second term, that
the country ceased to elect presidents
who had entered public life before or
during the long contest which began in
l775. The senate to which Monroe ad-
dressed his last annual message in
December, 1924, contained several men
who had been soldiers in the Revolu-
tionary army nearly half a century be-
fore, like Rufus King, of New York,
John Chandler, of Maine, and Nathan
iel Macon, of North Carolina, and it is
easy to see that the proportion of men
still in active political life who were
actors in the revolution was, even at
that long remove, quite considerable.
Ibis was due in no small measure to
the youthful precocity of these surviv-
ors, the Senator Macon of 1915 to 1928
having been only a boy of Is when he
left Princeton College in 1875 to enlist
in the patriot army, and the President
Monroe of 1917 to 1926, but IS years
old when he Joined the revolutionary
army. ''The fathers" also escaped the
danger of assassination, which removed
two of the four presidents who were
elected between 1860 and 1884.
Imperceptibly, but hardly less surely,
the humber members of the war gen
GRAFTON are departing along with its IA
nous heroes. Many men will help to
elect the next Congress in the fall of
1886 who were not born when Lee sur
rendered, and many more who retain
only boyish memories of the war which
chat event ended. The few surviving
politicians of that age have lost their
old audiences. The great majority of
the men whom they now address never
shared in the emotions and the preiu-
dices of the rebellion epoch, and can
not be stirred by the most fervid ap-
peals to passions which, unlike their
fathers, they have never known. The
passing of the generation which fought
the war involves the dropping of war
politics. The election of Grover Cleve-
land, the first man ever nominated fol-
the Presidency by either party whose
public career did not long begin until
long after the rebellion, marked the
end of an era in our history as clearly
as have the deaths since his Inaugural.
ton of Grant, Hendricks, Mcclellan
Hancock and Seymour. The nation
has entered upon another epoch as dis
tinct from the last as that which begun
with the Inauguration of John Quincy
Adams, the first President who was mo-
OF the Revolutionary day, in 1926, anc
which ended in the organization of par
ties upon new lines.-New York Eve
ming Post.
No Sinecure.