Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1886-06-05
LOGAN'S BOOK.

". "
subscription 10y Edgar NJ. LcVau, of Lancaster.
The proposition Is updeniable that no man
should write book unless he has a message
10 deliver, and the latter should be of some
moment to justify its perpetuation in printed
form. Since the invention of the printing
press, there have probabl yneyer been so many
books forced upon an innocent world as in
this generation. The number OF publishers
was never So great and the products of their
presses never so extensive. Any one who
would conscientiously wade through this
unceasing stream of new liter ature, would
need to borrow the numbe of years that the
patriarchs lived, aud finally would be forced
10 confess that his time WAS inadequate to the
task. In fact, there are too many books
printed The lucubrstions of any brain,
however immature, are deemed proper tor
publication, IL the work will sell.
This commercial view of book. making il
becoming very disgusting 10 all true literary
minds, aud its increase in the past few years
has been watched with no little concern
The Grant autobiography was a good work
IN Its way, depicting in the language of one
oi the greatest actors i'll the civil war, his
own tremendous personality therein.
Blaine's "Twenty Years in Congress" too,
may be pardoned for the racy, iuCisive mau-
ner in which is described how one of the
most active public men of tue day figured in
national politics But this sort of thing
must stop somewhere and we think the line
hidN ht StltlN uEdNu ON - Inc tfrpAt tDn-
spiracy."
There is no reasonable excuse for the exis-
tence oil the book under review. 1t is the
outcome of no public demand. ten. Logan
performed good service in the war Of the
rebellion, As did thousands and tens of thou
sands Of others who have not telt 1t their duty
| to give to the world as is given in this book,
| commonplace facts founding a malicious
| superstructuTe. 1t was not difficult To sur
mise the kind of book that Gen. Logan would
1 produce. when the plaraptpr All nnlitipal
| speeches i'll recent campaigns were remem-
/ Oered. No more violent "bloody shirt
| strieker has taken the stump for the Repub-
| lican cause than our soldier author. The con.
| unulty with which he rang the changes on
the dangers that would result 10 the country
| from Democratic asCenuenCy are well remen-
| oered IN the campaign that ended in his dis
comtiture. The fact that the people took no
stock in his arguments, the manifest conf
dence that the public have shown in Mr..
CLeVeiand's administration, would have been
warning to "a reasonable man that the sec
tlonal issue has been eliminated from Amer
| lcan politics. Yet, in Mr.. Logans book, this
| Is the whole burden of the story.
| The book Will, therefore, have little call
| except from the curious reader, desirous OF
| KNOWING the kind of book so untlinching an
| eremy OF Lindley Murray could produce, or
| from malignant Republicans who are all too
| eager 10 allow any theory which tends to
| paint the great error OF those who seeded
| from the mon in biacher Colors. Mr.. Lo-
gan makes the great blunder of LAYING down
| his conclusion and then attempting to build
| up premises 10 suit He starts out to tud
"a great conspiracy dating with the first
| discussion OF slavery and the tariff III the
| earliest congresses. Through the most
harmless remarks of men long dead in the
| earlier stages of the country's progress, his
| eagle eye detects the beginning OF treason
| able conspiracy that ended in the rebellion.
| II IL this iaundiced view that makes the
| whole book illogical and absurd.
| In his view the Z" conspiracy began in L. -
| when there were $500, 900 whites and 800 600
| blacks in the country" He mixes up with it
| Jefferson, one OF the most pronounced op-
| pOnents OF slavery, because he was success
| tul IN negotiating the cession from France OF
| the "tOlony of Louisiana the author
| knowing little and caring less for the broad
craftsmanship involved in that move.
| Through the "Missouri Compromise " and
| the tariff acts of lS2I and ISIS, Mr.. Logan can
| descry the same fell designs of Southern
| leaders to destroy the Union whenever an
| opportunity was afforded. In all the free
/ Interpretation disputatiOns, in every public
| act OF John c. Calhoun, it is claimed that the
secession bud was growing and its ripening
INTO frultage was only question OF time.
Manliestly, the unpredjud mind weares
/ OF this anticipatiVe style of viewing the acts
| Of public men. 1t is not difficult now in the
| light of after events TO know what we would
| have done in their situation. But in the heag
| OF the times with momentous questions star
| ing them in the face, with the future all
| unfolded, 1t is wrong to assume that they
saw clearly all that was going to happen and
guaged their acts and words accordingIy
Mr.. Logan Is apparently unable to rise to the
dignity OF assuming that those whom he CON
uemns as conspratOrs acted from honest
motives. ii the same style of criticism was
directed against Mr.. Logan's career how
would he be found? For 1t has not vet been
forgotten that he was one OF the most violent
slavery men in the Illinois legislature shortly
before the war, at time when the Sucker
state led all its sister common weaiths in its
hostility to the colored man.
Inc most interesting parts OF Mr.. LOgan's
book are where he introduces the language
OF the men who moulded the events of
their time. The great debate between
Lincoln and Douglas makes intensely in.
terestng reading for those to whom the war
Is only cruel memory. the correspondence
anu legislation that preceded the Rebellion is
also OF interest, but Mr.. Logan has not been
the hTst to give 1t To the world. As might
be expected, the authors estimate of MIR
buchanan is very belittling, proving that he
had not read with profit Curtis life of the
sage of Wheatland.
AS the work draws on to a conclusion il
grows positively humorous. Listen to this
display OF the exuberance OF Loganese
thought: " For awhile with cbaStened
spirit the reconstructed South seemed To re-
concie itself in good faith TO the legitimate
results OF the war, aud all went well. But
time and peace soon obllterate the lessons
and the memories of war And il was not
very long after the Rebellion had ceased. and |
the old issues upon which it was fought had |
disappeared from the arena of National pOli
tics, when its old leaders and their successors
began slowly, carefully and systematically
to relay the tumbled-down, ruined founds- |
tons and walls of the Lost Causo--a work in |
which, unfortunately, they were too well
aided by the mistaken clemency and magma |
nimlty of the Republican party, in hastily re- |
moving the political disabilities of those
leaders"
II Mr.. Logan has any presidential aspira-
ions, this thought here presented should
forever settle them, for narrower view of |
the conduct of the Southern leaders since the |
war could not be taken. Of course the author
defends the stupendous crime of 1876, where |
by Samuel j. Tilden was derauded of the |
presidency. Bringing his narrative down TO |
the Cleveland administration, he asks "What
next?' Let us all fervently pay that this
inquiry does not mean a second volume of
the twaddle that is contained in the $40 pages
devoted to .'The Great Conspiracy"
THE MISERABLE MOST.