Year: 1871


| Republican Candidate for the Vice Presi-
dency.


1t is generally understood that Vice Presi-


dent Colfax is not and does not intend to be


candidate for another term of four years as
! President of the United States Senate. If
| any doubts upon this point existed down to
| the time of the Vice Presidents narrow escape
| from suffocation in the close and unwholesome


atmosphere of the Senate chamber, we dare
say that that solemn warning, with his own


testimony on the subject, have conclusively


settled the question. Considering Mr.. Colfax,


then, out of the field, the inquiry recurs Who
will be the republican candidate for Vice
President in the great national contest of
1872?


This is really the only doubtful question in
| reference TO the republican Presidential ticket.
General Grant has so completely baffled all
the ambitious malcontents Of his party, lately


intriguing to supplant him, and with his simple


and acceptable policy-retrenchmen and
| economy, the payment of the debt and peace
at home and abroad-he has so strengthened
himself everywhere In the confidence of the


masses of his party that even Sumner, Fenton,
Trumbull, Logan and Gratz Brown have
apparently abandoned the idea of any serious
resistance to General Grant in the regular
Republican National Convention. Mr.. Greeley,


in his latest authoritative manifesto on the


subject, announced that at present he is op-
posed to the nomination of General Grant for
another term; but this manifesto probably


only means that Mr.. Greeley has still an axe
or two to grind in the Custom House, and is


waiting for something to turn up" He has


always been very crotchety and disposed to


kick out of the traces in reference to the


Presidential ticket or platform of his party


before the national party convention, or in


the convention or after the convention; but


with the regular opening Of the battle he has


generally fallen into line and worked like a


beaver for the regular ticket and the cause of


the party. Nor can we suppose that in the
present case he has been so far deluded by


the batteries of njudicious friends or the ''soft


sawder" of designing enemies as really to be-


lieve that even in the exceedingly doubtful
contingency of scrub race there is the ghost
| of a chance for him as the farmers candi-
date" for the White House. Our impression is
| that as republican politician Mr.. Greeley
has pinned his faith to the coat-tail Of Senator
| Fenton, and that the pair of them are engi-


neering for the Vice Presidency, and in behalf
of Mr.. Fenton for the republican nomination
for the succession.


Mr.. Fenton was candidate for this position
in the Republican Convention Of 1868, and he


was doubtless somewhat disappointed in being


cut out of it. We fear, too, that the New
his guns for him, or that this spiking of his
guns by divided vote from New York, has


had much to do in determining his present


attitude of armed neutrality, to say the least
of it, in relation to General Grant Still we
| incline strongly to the opinion that if things


can be so arranged as to secure the support
| of the administration for Mr.. Fenton for Vice


President in the approaching Republican
National Convention there will be no further


opposition from MIR. Fenton or Mr.. Greeley to


the continuance of Mr.. Murphy in the Custom
| House, and no further opposition from the
Fenton faction to the e-election of Mr.. Conl-
| ling to the United States Senate. The equiva-
| lents thus suggested for the elevation of Mr.
Fenton to the Vice Presidency in 1872 are
prina .tacie strong inducements for the bar
gain; and yet, considering the facts that the


strength of Mr.. Fenton in New York has been
reduced to that of mere faction and that
outside of New York he is cipher, we fear


that he will fail in 1872, as he failed in 1868.
The simple truth is that Mr.. Fenton has no
reputation as statesman, nor as political
speaker or leader. He has only the reputa-
ton of local political party manager and
lobby man, of the style of Thurlow Weed,
though far inferior to Weed in the manipula-
tions of caucus or lobby.


At all events, in our judgment, from all the
signs of the times, Mr.. Fenton will not be put
upon the ticket with General Grant in 1872


Where, then, shall we find the man ? Within


the last thirty years we have had three cases


which have proved that the Vice President


may become more important functionary


than President of the Senate in the chapter of
| accidents marking the uncertainties Of human
| life even in the White House. We refer to
the cases of Tyler, Fillmore and Johnson.
The wings in 1910, with General Harrison,


put up John Tyler, of Virginia, boiling old


line democrat on their Presidential ticket as
makeweight, especially among the floating


Southern democracy. Harrison soon died in
the White House from the tortures of the
| swarms of whig offce-seekers drawn to Wash
| inoton with his inauulratiOn TYLER became
President, and his old democratic instincts


next brought him into conflict with Henry


Clay, the whig leader in Congress, and the
results were the accommodation of Tyler


from the whig church, the loss of the spoils


and influence of the administration by the
whig party and the election of Polk over
Clay as President in 1874, although 1t was