Year: 1868

MT. AuguSt DoimOnt Ii the CHAIRMAN OF the
National Executive Democratic Committee,
whose business it is to appoint the time and
place, drum up the party and provide the hall
for the grand Sanhedrim of the Democratic
Presidential Convention. At meeting of his
committee at Washington on the 22d of Feb
ruary last (the day after Secretary Stan
ton was ordered by President johnson to turn
over the War Office to General Lorenzo
Thomas) the Fourth of July was appointed as the
time and New York as the place for said Presi-
Dental Convention; and then, in the midst of
great excitement at the national capital, which
Enthusiastically foreshadowed the impeachment
and removal of President johnson, said August
Belmont and his committee, as if nothing had
happened or was likely to happen on this Stan
ton affair beyond nine days wonder, ad-
journed and dispersed.


We have already called the attention of Mr.
Belmont to this appointment Of the Fourth of
July as great mistake under the circum-
stances, suggesting withal the urgent necessity
of change to an earlier day. We are gratifed,
therefore, to learn, in the absence of any move
ment in this direction from Mr. Belmont on his
own responsibility, that the Congressional
Democratic Executive Committee have unani-
mously passed resolutions requesting Mr.. Bel
mont aud his committee to reconsider their
action of the 22d of February, and to issue call
for their Presidential Convention to meet in New
York early in June, instead of on the Fourth Of
IL, xho& = xl.o4 of Ill
the democratic members of Congress will shortly
second this motion. The opinion seems to be
unanimous among the democrats at Washing
ton that the political necessities and welfare of
the party call for action close upon the heels of
the republican Chicago Convention.


This, we say, is a movement in the right
direction, and doubtless it will result in the
change of time suggested. We have not yet
been able to learn why or how it was that Mr..
Belmont and his committee, being there on the
spot attached, apparently, so little importance
to this second and decisive nare-up between
Johnson and Stanton as to consider it un-
worthy a moments attention. Mr.. Belmont
and his committee ON the 2lst of February, if
we are not mistaken, paid their respects to the
President at the White House, but were not
given the slightest hint of the executive bomb
shell which had been or was to be that day
thrown at the head of Stanton In the War
Office They knew all about II, however,
that evening; and surely they had seen and
dous effervesccnce in the republican Congress
sional camp to be convinced, when the COM
mittee met next morning, that there was some
thing like revolution involved in this Stanton
Thomas affair. How was 1t, then, that Mr.
Belmont and his committee assembled on the
22d al If nothing unusual had happened within
the preceding twenty -four hours, and dis
charged their business and


Folded their tents, like the Arabs,


And as silently stole awayt


Our theory may be somewhat uncharitable,
and yet we think il sufficiently plausible to
be stated. We suspect that Mr.. Belmont and
his committee snuHfed the impeachment and
removal of President Johnson, and that, con-
sidering him "gone up they, after the
and drop him. His day of usefulness to the
was gone--his term was short
even If not removed, he was,
or would be, so tied up by Congress that he
could no longer help himself or his friends
But worst of ALL if this unfortunate but obsti-
nate and selfwilled man should get into any
serious trouble on this Stanton imbroglio, the
odds were 80 heavily against him that the
safest course for the democracy would be to
give him wide margin and keep at q good
distance till the end of this foreshadowed i'm
peachment, which would probably be not
before the last of June. They would help him
all they could against this impeachment in
every way, but they would give Mr.. Johnson
quietly to understand that he was not and
could not be dreamed of as democratic last
resort or possibility in any event for the sue
cession. Accordingly, Mr.. Belmont and his
committee limited their visit to the White
House to the polite formalities Of morning
call, and left Mr.. Johnson, in regard to any
Presidential calculations, to the comfortable
reflection that the ungrateful democracy had
cut him adrift, and that he would have to


"paddle his own canoe"


But whatever may have been the reasons
under the extraordinary circumstances calling
for an earlier day, whatever may have been
the objects Of Mr.. Belmont and his committee
for appointing the Fourth Of July for their
National Convention, we dare say that this
pressure from Washington will result in an
earlier call. We are strengthened in this con-
clusion by the presence in this city of the Central
Committee General Gordon Granger, chair
man, Of the Cleveland Soldiers Convention Of
September, 1866, who are bringing all
their forces to bear upon Mr.. Bel
mont for the saving of month Of pre-
cous time. Assuming, then, that the day


for the democratic convention, including the


Inauguration Of the new Tammany Hall, will