Year: 1873

General Buffers Massachusetts Cam


paign-Tho Real Issue tho Presi-


dency.


We published yesterday very full and COM
prehensive exposition of the present political
oommotion in the "Old Bay State" of the
friends and enemies of ''bold Ben Butler" in
his present campaign for the insignificant post
Of Governor of Massachusetts, compared with
his present position in the national House of
Representatives, and of the reasons which
have determined him, sink or swim, to stake
his political fortunes upon this venture. Our
correspondent upon this interesting subject
says that General Butler desires to be Gov
ernor because he feels that he must conquer
his enemies at home before he can aspire TO
any new achievements on the broader field of
national politics; that he sees plainly enough
that he could not 60 before national conven-
ton as candidate for President with his own
State against him, and that his great object in
this local contest against the Puritans Of the
old whig party-he having been Southern
rights democrats the endorsement of Massa-
chusetts for the next Presidential council of
the republican party of the Union.


This explanation, substantially derived from
General Butler himself, solves the late per-
picking mystery of the spirited and embit-
tered struggle between the Butler and the anti
Butler republicans Of Massachusetts, for the
State Convention which, on the 10th inst
will meet at Worcester to nominate the party
candidate for Governor and for other pur-
poses As the nomination of this Convention
will be equivalent to an election, should Butler
secure working MAORI ty in this nominating
body the victory will be his. He will be
chosen Governor of Massachusetts in Novem-
Der by the people, and, thus possessing the
endorsement of his State, the great impedi-
ment which has so far hedged him in will be
removed, and he will be free to contest the
national field with Blaine, Conkling, Morton
and the other high-reaching Buckinghams of
his party. We judge, too from our special
correspondents specific information on the
subject, that Butler will secure the Worcester
Convention for which he is SO vigorously
fighting, and that, backed by the national
administration and its henchmen, he will be
the next Governor of Massachusetts,, against
all Puritan boilers and opposing forces.


The question, then, recurs, How can the Pres
idential schemers who are actively engineer
ing for another term to General Grant har-
monize their programme with that of General
Butler? They may persuade him in 1876 to ac-
cept, on the ticket with General Grant, the
party nomination for the Vice Presidency as o
convenient stepping stone to the White House
four years later Was it not by this process
that General Jackson advanced Martin Van
Buren, to the dignities Of the succession, and
may not General Grant do the same thing for
his faithful friend, General Butler, upon an
issue (the back pay billy where bold cham
pion is now to the administration worth a
thousand timid apologists such as Morton?
And, having declined the Vice Presidency on
the ticket with Lincoln in 1864 because he
thought then his services would be more valu-
able to the country in the army, why should
not Butler in the event of third term to
General Grant, be remembered in 1875 for his
self-sacrfcng patriotism in 1854? At all
events, Buffers bold battle for the advance
ment of his claims by Massachusetts, in the
view presented, rises to the importance of
strategic movement for the Presidential sue
cession, and hence this great excitement in
Massachusetts,.