Year: 1872

Some years ago, when Americans were less
known in Europe than they now are, and when
the prejudices sstill entertained against the
young Republic in the monarchies of the Old
World were more intense than at the present
time, foreign writers were accustomed to
seize upon the license of Presidential cam
paign to exhibit us in the worst possible light
before their countrymen at home. The incon-
siderate exaggerations of partisan journals
were quoted as faithful representations of our
political morality and Of the character of our
public men, and the abusive language of vio-
lent stump orators was accepted as good evil
dence of our national rowdyism. The people
of the United States have properly objected to
in one notable instance famous English au-
thor admitted the injustice he had done US
and made an ample recantation of his ISLANDERS.
But if Charles Dickens had postponed his
apologize note to the new edition of Martin
Chuzzlewit' until the campaign of 1872 we fear
that there would have been on his part less to
retract and on our part less cause of complaint.
The personalities Of the present campaign
have been of q character to degrade us i'll the
eyes of strangers and to destroy our self-re
spect. The unusually bitter quarrels of the
politicians have laid bare the uncleanness of
all party organizations and disclosed the ques-
tionable integrity of most public men until
Christian citizens who have been unwilling to
believe in the general depravity of their fell
low men are compelled to admit that dishon-
esty is the rule and honesty the exception in
public life. The patriotism and integrity that
marked the earlier years Of the Republic and
that prevailed in the high offices of the gov
ernment up to o quarter of century ago
seem to have entirely disappeared, and to have
given place to q deplorable looseness of politi
cal morality in all stations, from the highest
to the least important. Many who were be-
fore strong in the belief that the charges of
partisan organs on both sides against their
political opponents were for the most part ex
aggerated, and who have been slow to regard
all politicians as equally selfish and corrupt,
are forced into the conviction that the whole
political system is rotten at the core and that
very few honest men are now to be found in
public life. If this is a severe judgment it is
one the politicians have drawn upon them
selves.


Everybody remembers that for the past
dozen years the republican party has been
extolled by its creators and adherents as pecu-
liarly q party Of high morality and pure
patriotism. It's mission was one of humanity;
its objects were represented as exceptionally
pure and disinterested Some persons, it is
true, set down these sounding claims to New
England cant and pharisaical pretension but
the people in general, weary of the errors and
follies of the democratic party, were disposed
to trust the young organization with Lincoln


at its head, and to give it credit for pure and
honest intentions. Yet we now find the lead


ing organs of republicanism fouling their own
nest and denouncing the shining lights of the
party in the most malignant manner until the
people are nauseated with the ordinations
and recriminations of the fighting factions.
In every political organ column after column
teens with personal abuse of leading public
men who happen to be on the opposite side in
the Presidential contest. In one journal we are
told that Greeley, who baptized the republican
party with his tears, and whose arguments and
persuasions turned to its faith thousands and
tens of thousands in the rural districts, has
been all along traitor to the Union, in SYM
pathy with the slave Confederacy and eager to
destroy the government. In another we are
taught to believe that General Grant is con-
frmed periodical sot that he has committed
acts that would drive him in disgrace from the
high Office he fills that he is sordid and cor
rupt in all his official action. On one side
Sumner, Banks, Trumbull, Schurz, Austin
Blair, Farnsworth, Sprague, Julian, Chase,
Fenton and others who have been leading
spirits in republicanism up to the present
time are painted in the most rssyyolting colors,
varying in shade from felon to fool On
the other the record of court Of law is ad-
duced to show that Vice President Colfax; the
candidate for the Vice Presidency, Henry


Wilson Blaine, Patterson of New Hamp-
shire Dawes, Painter, Scofeld, Kelley, Eliot,


Fowler, Bingham, Garfield and Boutwell,, the


Secretary of the Treasury, were all bribed by


the notorious Credit Mobilier of the Union
Pacific Railroad for their votes and influence
in Congress The democratic party is in
but little better condition. Charles OConor
and his associates denounced the action
of the representatives of that organiza-
ton at Baltimore as the most degrading and
corrupt political bargain ever consummated,
while the democratic organs brand the
Blanton Duncan Conventionists, from whom
Mr.. O'Conor received his nomination, as the
Hessians of the administration army. In like
manner the partisan journalists weary their
readers with article after article devoted to
abuse of each other, as if the destinies Of the
United States for the next four years hung
upon the character and capacity Of handful
of paid writers for the daily press, some of
whom are not American citizens and have no