Smyrna times., 1886-02-24
The Passing Of a Generation.

The deaths in the same week of two
men who were prominent during the
era of the rebellion, and who were the
chosen leaders of the Democratic party
in Presidential contests after the war,
would ofitself be a noteworthy coinci-
dence. Following within few months
the death of the first and of the last
commander in-chief of the Union Army,
the country could hardly have more
striking reminder that a generation .
which has left an inefiaceable impress
upon our history is so rapidly passing
away that it is already almost gone. |
The death-roll which records within |
the short space of about a year the |
names of Grant, Mcclellan, Hancock, |
Seymour, all of them Presidential can
didates, three of them famous generals, !
one of them President for eight years,
thins out our great men at an almost
unprecedented pace. 1.-The great pOliti-
cal struggle between the Republican
and Democratic parties, which resulted
in the civil war and ended in the
emancipation and enfranchisement of
the slaves, began with the nomination
of the first Republican candidate for
the Presidency thirty years ago. 1t is
only when some event occurs which ar
rests attention and suggests a retros-
pect that we realize how very few of
the leaders in this great struggle now
survive. Beginning with the canvass
of 1856 and ending with that of 1880,
fifteen candidates contested for the
Presidency, who belonged to the gen
Grafton which brought 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-
| finder"; Tilden and Hayes. The con-
spicuous 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 COVER
nOrs' 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
! Fessenden, BEN Wade, Oliver p.
Morton, Thomas A. Hendricks,
"Thad" Stevens and Schuyler COlfax,
are either dead, or remain as political
relics, like n. p. Banks and Lyman
Trumbull. In Congress to-day sit but
a few men who sat in that body before
the war, and of these few John Sher-
man and John A. Logan alone retain a
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 politi-
cal generation of the rebellion period
has passed from the stage. The con-
trast with the generation of the revolu-
tiOnary era renders it the more note
worthy. 1t is now barely twenty-One
years since AppOmattox, and yet near
ly all the leaders in the struggle are
physically or politically deceased.
The revolution ended in 1888, but it
was not until 1925, forty two years la
ter, at the expiration of MOnroe's Sec
Ond term, that the country ceased to
elect Presidents who had entered pub
lie life before or during the long con-
test which began in 1775. The Senate
TO which Monroe addressed his last an
nual message in December, 1924 con-
tanned several men who had been sol
diers in the revolutionary army nearly
half a century before, like Rufus King
of New York, John Chandler of Maine
and Nathaniel Macon of North Caro-
lima, and it is easy to see that the pro-
portion of men still in active political
life who were actors in the revolution
was, even at that long remove, quite
considerable. This was due in no
small measure 90 the youthful precocity
of these survivors, the Senator Macon
of 1916 to 1928 having been only a boy
of Is when he left Princeton College in
1775 to enlist in the patrOit army, and
the President Monroe of 1917 to 1925,
but Is years old when he joined the
revolutionary army. The fathers
also escaped the danger of assassination,
which removed two of the four Presi-
dents who were elected between 1860
and 1884. Imperceptibly, but hardly
less surely, the humber members OF
the war generation are departing along
with its famous heroes. Many men
will help to elect the next Congress in
the Fall of 1886 who were not born
when Lee surrendered, and many more
who retain only bOyish memories Oi
the war which that 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 emo
tiOns and the projudices ofthe rebellion
epoch, and cannot be stirred by the
most fervid appeals to 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
Cleveland, the first man ever nomina-
ted for the Presidency by either party
whose public career did not begin until
long after the rebellion, marked the
end of an era in our history as clearly
as have the deaths since his inaugura-
tion of Grant, Hendricks, Mcclellan
Hancock and Seymour. The nation
has entered upon another epoch as dis
tinct from the last as that which began
with the Inauguration of John Quincy
Adams, the first President who was
not of the revolutionary day, in 1925
and which ended in the organization Oi
parties upon new lines.-NelO YOrI