Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1886-02-27
NO. "A.
OLD LEADERS GOING.

The great political struggle be-
tween the Republican and Dem
ocratic parties. which resulted in the
civil war and ended in the enamel.
patton and acknowledgements 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 arrests attention and suggests
retrospect that we realize how
very few of the leaders in this great
struggle now survive. Beginning
with the canvass of 1926 and ending
with that of 1880 fifteen candidates
contested for the Presidency, who
belonged to the generation which
brought on or carried through the
war. Buchanan and fillmore; Lin.
coin, his three rivals in 1860, Doug.
las, Breckenridge, and Bell, and his
sole opponent in 1864, Mcclellan /;
Grant, and the men whom he de.
feated 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, nolongera pathfinder !;
Tilden and Hayes.
The conspicuous men of Lincoln's
Cabinet are mostly dead, like Sc
ward, 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 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 z. Morton,
Thomas FL. Hendricks, "Thadn Ste-
yens and Schuyler Colfax, are either
dead or remain only as.political rel
les, like n. p. Banks and Lyman
Trumbull. lD 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 retain commanding position,
while Secretary Lamar is the only
man in the Cabinet whose political re.
cord dates back of 1861.
There is something remarkable
about the speed with which the 20.
litlcal generation of the rebellion
period has passed from the stage.
The contrast with the generation of
the Revolutionary era renders it the
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 Revolution ended in
1888, but it was not until 1928, forty
two years later, at the expiration Of
Monroe's second term, that they
ceased to elect Presidents who had
entered public life before OF during
ing the long contest which began in
1875. The Senate to which Monroe
addressed his last annual message
IN December, 1923, contained sever
al men who had been soldiers in the
Revolutionary army nearly half a.
century before, like Rufus King, Of
New York, John Chandler, of Maine
and Nathaniel Macon, of North Car
DINA, and it is easy to see that the
proportion of men still in active DO
litical life who were actors in the
Revolution was even at that long
remove, quite considerable. This
was due in no small measure to the
youthful precoclty of these survivors,
the Senator Macon, of 1916 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 1925,
but Is years old when he joined the
Revolutionary army. "The fathersn
also escaped the danger OF assassin
alton, which removed two of the
four Presidents who we're elected be-
tween 1860 and 1SS4.-Ner York
Erening Post.