Year: 1879

THE Republican press is engaged
Just now in making it appear that
there Is q great Grant "boom"
amongst the intelligent and prop
erty-holding classes of the South.
Hon. Alexander Ell. Stephens has
been paraded as preferrlng Grant
to Tilden, and as thinking that
Grant would make an excellent
President. Mr.. Stephens takes oc-
casion to meet this circumstantial
lie by q denial that he had any
conversation whatever with the
newspaper Bohemian who forged
1t. The support which Grant will
receive from the South will be con-
fined to the Republican National
Convention, in which body there
will be almost solid Grant delega-
tlons. They will consist, for the
most part, of scallawags, carpet
baggers and other unscrupulous
men who, during the eight years
Of Grants administration, made
Republican rule in the Southern
States memorable for its infamy.
There may be some imaginative
politicians who suppose that the
real people of the South are going
to take their cue from this element,
but they are confined to the Re-
publican party and to a very small
section of. it at that. All such
speculations are mere chimeras,
unworthy of the attention of
grown men. If the Republican
party had not voluntarily forfeited
its character to being national
organization by the deliberate
adoption and constant carrying
out of proscriptive and sectional
policy 1t might by this time be war
ranted In looking to the South for
the electoral votes of some States.
But that party has made its bed
and must lie in it. 1t has unfurled
the "bloody shirt" and has started
In to rally the "solid North" an
effort in which its failure will be
quite conspicuous. The strictly
local and sectional character of the
Republican party will be shown in
the next Presidential election.
The tally which will contain its
array of electoral votes will not in
clude the name of single Southern
State. The Democratic party, on
the other hand, will prove its dis
tinctively national character by
having, in addition to the sixteen
so-called Southern States, such
States as New York, New Jersey,
Indiana, Connecticut, California
and Oregon. Such an array will
forever explode the pretensions of
the Republicans to being the ma
tional party par excellence, a pre-
tence which has been as amusing
as it is outrageous, Grant proba-
bly, less than any other Republican
candidate could rally the popular
vote OF the South. While South
srners are quite ready to honor him
as citizen and successful soldier,
they are too much attached to
honest administration and to the
traditions of the country to see the
latter violated that the former may
be sacrificed wholesale. The Grant
"boom" in the South. outside of
the Republican party, is and will
be confined to few eccentric men
like DR.. FELTON, and Bob Toombs-
men who are always noted for the
smallness and selectness of the
company they keep. Toombs has
carried his singularities to the ex-
tent of declining to consider him
self as Interested as citizen in the
affairs of the United States. He
devotes himself exclusively to the
care Of a large law practice; and,
ut intervals of years, he opens his
mouth to make bitter and fanciful
speeches, which are always quoted
as the utterances of Southern
Democrat, although he has not
called himself a Democrat since
the war, and takes delight in oo-
casionally berating the party.