GENERAL GRANT'S NEXT VICTORY.
[FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENI.]
New York, October 9, 1869. MY letter of August 13, published in the Spectator of August 29, has been honoured with sufficient notice on both sides of the water to warrant me in reverting to its subject, and even in saying something about its writer's opinions without laying myself open to the charge of presumption. Upon the latter point I shall be very brief. As to the opposition to General Grant, which some persons have been able to find in that letter, I shall merely say that those who know my name may find it among those of the officers of the meeting in New York at which General Grant was nominated for the Presidency, where it was placed, not at my instance, but with my heartiest consent, at a time when many, if not most, of those who are now his noisiest supporters were sneer- ing at his abilities and scoffing at his political reserve. Between him and Mr. Seymour, with all due respect for the latter's personal character, my choice is quickly made. General Grant is wise and good, a man of firm purpose and single heart ; Mr. Seymour is a politician, a man of expedients, steadfast only as a partizan. The Spectator rightly said that I did not predict that General Grant would not be elected, adding that I evidently believed that he would not. If it had been said that I believed it probable that he would not be elected, with this slight modification the construction of my letter would have been quite correct. My mere opinion is of very little importance ; but it is changed, and I now believe it probable that General Grant will be the next President of the United States. This change of opinion, however, has not been produced by the result of the elections in Maine and Vermont. I did not believe that the Democrats would carry even the former of those States, at either the local or general election ; and my observation has not led me to place great confidence upon the result of a State election as an indication of feeling and opinion upon questions affecting the general politics of the country.
It might be supposed—" naturally" supposed, as we say—that if the people of a commonwealth gave a majority of ten thousand votes for Republican candidates at a mere State election, they would at an election for President give at least as large a vote, and probably a larger one, for the Republican nominee. But this can- not be counted on with safety. It is a remarkable fact that the more local and personal the issue of an election, the stronger is the feeling about it, and the larger the number of votes polled. The interest of the canvas is, under ordinary circumstances, in inverse proportion to the magnitude of the question at issue. Propose a radical change in the fundamental law, the constitution, and, unless the question of unlimited beer and whisky is involved in it, you have a languid canvass and a moderate vote. The choice of a President, under ordinary circumstances, is less interesting than that of State officers. But let the question be whether Seth Doo- little or Loony McShane shall be pound-keeper or hog-reeve, and you may be sure that every free and enlightened citizen who has a voice upon it will make himself heard through the ballot- box. And this through a not unamiable weakness of human nature. The remote and the abstract do not move us as quickly or so far as the near and the personal. In illustration of what I have just said let us compare the votes cast in Maine and Vermont for President of the United States and for Governor of those States at previous elections. That of 1864 might be passed by for obvious reasons. The country was then in the midst of a great civil war ; the condition of polities was in the highest degree abnormal ; and men voted an " unscratched ticket" there who had never done so before ; yet in 1864 the whole vote cast in Maine for President was 106,014; for Governor, 108,865. In 1860 the same State cast 100,918 votes for President, but for Governor, 122,577. In 1856, again, for President, 109,784; for Governor, 120,967. Vermont cast for President in 1860 a total vote of 44,644, but for Governor, 48,920. Connecticut in the same year cast for President 80,950, but for Governor, 88,375. The whole vote recently cast in Maine was very much larger than any preceding one ; and the Ins used to the utmost all their advantages against the Outs. I should not be surprised if the vote in November were somewhat smaller than that cast at the late State election, and yet that the Democrats, disheartened and with no hopes of success, should suffer themselves to be beaten even worse than before.
My previous letter expressed no mere " arbitrary individual opinion." Its conclusions were, at the time when it was written, those of the best informed and most independent men I know. The cause of the change in our political prospects, according to my observation, is not "the growing and extending influence of Republican principles," but the blind and brainless action of the Democratic party. It must be confessed that since the war both parties have shown a want not only of statesmanship, but even of skilful political party management. There were only two worse possible nominees, not rebels, for the Democrats than Mr. Seymour —Mr. Pendleton and Mr. Vallandigham. For the Vice-Presidency they found in Mr. Frank Blair the worst, the most offensively bad candidate that they could have picked out of the Union Army. Hence in a great measure their almost certain defeat. I see daily that this is true. Among my acquaintances comparatively few are malignant Democrats ; by far the greater number are Republicans or Democrats who were hearty supporters of the Government during the war. I therefore, of course, hear not a little Radical talk in favour of the recent action of Congress. But I also hear much of another tone, and from men who held up some of these loud-talking Radicals when their knees were dissolving in the dark days of the rebellion. Some time ago I was at a little dinner party of intimate friends where about a dozen were at table. All were Republicans, and all had done some earnest work in the war. In the course of the evening the condi- tion of the country was spoken of, when one man said, as nearly as I can remember, "I confess that I am disap- pointed and surprised at the result of the war. I feel less as if I had a country than I did before ; as if the country I loved and was proud of was gone, and instead of it there was a nondescript place with a nondescript government managed or to be managed by Negroes and Chinamen, and Irish and German emigrants." Somewhat to my surprise, this speech met with a prompt and hearty assent from nearly every man and woman at the table, where the course of Congress and the im- peachment of the President were decried without reserve. Now, I know that not one of those people has changed in principle or in feeling, and yet that they all will vote for Grant. Among my acquaintances is an intelligent and high-minded publisher, who has been a Republican from the formation of the party, but who has spent money and energy to the extent of his ability against the reconstruction policy of the majority in Congress, and who was ready to support any good Union Democrat for the Presi- dency. I saw him about a fortnight ago, and asked him what he was going to do. "Well," he said, in a desponding tone of acquiescence, "we must submit. The decree has gone forth that the Democratic party must die, at which I shall be glad enough ; but it is hard to be obliged to throw constitutional govern- ment overboard, and work with these radicals to kill it (i.e., the Democratic party). But what decent Union man can vote for Governor Seymour and General Blair ?" An eminent lawyer, a prominent Republican from the party's earliest days, said to me in the most unequivocal manner and evidently with fixed purpose, as to the legislation of Congress during the last two years, "This will all have to be put right again. It cannot stand. These laws or the Government will have to go." He was ready, I know, to support almost any hearty Union Democrat ; but he will not touch Seymour and Blair with a pair of tongs. I often see a gentleman who served with distinction during the rebellion, and who led a brilliant charge in one of the most important vic- tories of the war, a man of rare intelligence, goodness of heart, and purity of life. Not three months ago he said to me, "I do hope the Democrats will nominate some man that I can vote for. I did not go into the war to humiliate those Southerners, and bring the negroes in upon us. I fought for the Union and the Constitution, and emancipation was but an incident of the war ; at first a military necessity, and afterward a legitimate consequence. But I want the Constitution, and I do not want the Negro." Yet that man will vote for Grant, because he "would as soon vote for the Devil as for Horatio Seymour." Another friend who only carried a musket during the war has blown out to me at the action of the Radicals in Congress, but yet will vote for Grant because Seymour "fired shots at his back when he was on the Chickahom-
iny." Only the day before yesterday two men met in my office, one a New Yorker, a War Democrat, the other a Massachusetts man, a Republican, who had fought all through the war at sacri- fice of money, health, and almost of life, but who yet has for the last two years denounced the action of his party without measure. "Dash it," I have heard him say, "I would rather, ten times over, trust the men that fought me than such fellows as Charles Sumner and Thad. Stevens!" I had not seen him for some months, and was surprised when he turned to the New Yorker, saying, "You're a Grant man, I hope." "W-e-ll," answered the civilian Democrat, "I suppose I am, because I can't vote for Seymour, and won't vote for Blair." "Just so," said the military Republican, "that's just my case. It's hard not to be able to smash those Radicals, but who can vote for that Copperhead sneak ? Grant at least will be honest and earnest." And so it goes. Not one of these typical men, representing hundreds of thousands all over the North, has changed in feeling or opinion ; but they find themselves driven to the support of the Republican nominees, although they detest the Republican policy.
But the political unwisdom of the Democrats did not find its last or its fullest expression in its nominations. Ever since the can- vas was begun they have been doing the work of the Republicans with all their might. The action of the Southern people and the speech of the Southern politicians have been almost priceless to the Republicans. Had it been necessary, the Chicago Convention could not have done better than to raise a million of dollars and send it to the South, to make sure that the Southerners would act and talk just as they have been talking and acting for the last two or three months. Instead of behaving like men sobered by past events, and who meant to attain a legitimate end by peaceful constitutional means, they have been blustering and raving, cutting, slashing, and shooting in the old bad way ; and this when the object was to. bring War Democrats and Moderate Republicans at the North to. vote for such—with such a record for the past eight years—a mart as Horatio Seymour.
Hence, and hence only, the change in our political outlook ; and in so far as the elections in Maine and Vermont are the fruit of such changes they are an indication of the future. -But they do not indicate any abandonment on the part of the people of those States of State rights for themselves, or any willingness to act outside the Constitution, as far as they are concerned, or any inclination to receive the Negro among themselves, if he should come among them in any appreciable numbers. The triumph is not of Radical Republican principles, but of Ins over Outs, and Unionists over Copperheads. Such will be Grant's triumph in
November. A YANKEE.
P.S.—Let me say a word, and I hope that I may say it once for all, about what the Spectater calls my "constitutional fetish- worshipping." What I worship is worthy of notice here only because I venture to speak for such a crowd of honest, intelligent, thoughtful fellow-worshippers. The Constitution is no fetish of mine : I do not worship it. I would lay unhallowed hands upon it to-morrow. In at least a dozen important sections I would change it radically. More, I should like to have a new constitu- tion less federal in its character, one new feature of which should be a grant to Congress of the power of regulating citizen- ship and suffrage throughout the country—a power which it does not now rightfully possess. I am ready to work with any man for such an amendment of the Constitution. But while the Con- stitution remains what it is, I, or rather we, believe and feel that it can be disregarded only at the cost of honour, of honesty, and of the safeguards of liberty. For the Constitution of the United States is a law, a grant, and a compact. To the people, the legislatures, and the courts it is a law,—the supreme law, the law of laws ; to the Government of the United States it is a grant, a grant of limited powers, and not only of limited powers, but of existence ; between the States as corporate political bodies it is a compact, a compact expressly and solemnly made for consideration on both sides. Such an instrument may well be changed, and we think might well be changed, according to the mode provided by the parties to it ; but it cannot be violated with honour or with safety. "Blessed is the man that sweareth unto his neighbour, and disappointeth him not, though it were to his own hindrance."
As to the Negro, we are at a loss to see why constitutional government should be imperilled and set at naught for his welfare more than for ours. In communities in which white men maim and slay white men upon the slightest provocation it would be strange if negroes were made exceptions to the general rule ; and against the working of that rule. the United States Goveriunent has and has had nothing to say. A YANKEE.
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