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The Old Guard

A MONTHLY MAGAZINE,

DEVOTED TO

Literature, Science and Art,

AND THE

Political Principles of 1776 & 1860.

VOLUME VI, 1868

NEW YORK: Van Evrie, Horton & Co., Publishers,

No. 162 Nassau Street.

Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2011 with funding from

The Institute of Museum and Library Services through an Indiana State Library LSTA Grant

http://www.archive.org/details/oldguardmonthlyjv6burr

ALPHABETICAL INDEX.

A. PAGE.

Astorre Manfredi : An Historical Ro- mance, founded upon the Fall of the Italian States. Written by Monte- verde. Translated from the Italian expressly for The Old Guard, by Mrs. Kate ComstockBurr. .1, 82, 171, 256, 331, 420, 491, 580, 651, 731, 811

A Sharp Letter from a Southern Gentle- man 149

A Message from God to Usurpers and Dictators 232

A Brave Marchioness 744

41 American Slaveholders " the Founders of American Liberty. By Dr. Van Evrie 831

Are we a Free People ? 853

A Hand Grenade from Father Ryan 868

B. Bread and Sack 470

C.

Christianity and War Politics .609

Crimes of " Reconstruction " 648

D.

Dead Under the Roses. A Novel. By Miss Nellie Marshall, authoress of "Eleanor Moreton," "Electra," etc., 46, 91, 185, 276, 349, 411, 505, 671, 672,943 E. Editor's Table . .77, 157, 237, 317, 397, 477, 557, 637, 717, 797, 878, 957

F. French Jacobins and American Aboli- tionists 537

Financial and Commercial. .632, 792,873,

952 H.

Histories 300

Horrible Persecution in the South 378

History of the Tenure of Office Bill 388

PAGE.

Homer and Milton 514

How Free States are Subverted 729

I. Is the Democratic Party United ? By the Editor 383

L.

Lesson of the Eighth District of Ohio. By the Editor 231

Letter of Brutus, the Patriot Assassin, to Cicero 682

Land Monopoly, Civilization, Savage Na- ture 756

M.

Mongrel Rule and Ruin 249

Maimderings 286

Moral and Intellectual Characteristics of Savage Races 374

Modern and Ancient Ideas of Liberty Contrasted. By the Editor .. 40 1, 48 1, 561

Marguerite ; or, Two Loves. Translated from the French of Madame Emile de Girardin 600

Maimed at Chickamauga. By Fanny Fielding 817

O.

Our Book Table. .73, 153, 233, 313, 393, 473, 653, 633, 714. 793, 874, 953

"O, Humbug" 198

Origin of the Swiss Republic 568

P.

Political Literature of America. (By Ed- ward A. Pollard) 204

Pendleton's Plan 380

Political Science in America 633

Plymouth Rock and James River. (By

Dr. Van Evrie) 697

Proofs of Grant's Guilt of the "Horrors

of Andersonville" 788

Petersburg During War Time 856

ALPHABETICAL INDEX.

R. PAGE.

Rosemary and Pansies 298

Resistance to the Reconstruction Acts Not Revolutionary. (By the editor). . . 641

S. Secrets Let Out of the Senate Chamber.

By the Editor 161

State Sovereignty and Negio Suffrage. . . 195

Sub Rosa. A Maiden's Love Story 366

434, 521 Saint Paul and the Habeas Corpus 870

T.

Tricks of President Making. By the Edi- tor 1

The Strange Story of Baron Trenck 33

Types of Mankind. By Dr. Van Evrie.

62, 139, 216, 302, 362, 458

The Principles and Policy of Democracy. By the Editor 82

The Battles of Virginia, including Sharps- burg and Gettysburg. By John Esten Cooke, author of "Surry of Eagle's Nest," &c 135

The Condition of the South 223

The President's Powers of Removal with- out the Consent of the Senate. By the Editor 241

The Memphis ' « Baptist " on Anthropolgy By the Editor 309

The Nature of the Rump Revolution. By the Editor 321

The Positive Democracy. By the Editor.408

The Negro Bureau. 443

PAGE,

The Last Battle of " Stonewall " Jackson.

By a Member of his Staff 44-6

The Democratic Nominees and Platform . 628

The Symbie of Moore's Fountains 688

The Limits of Obedience to Acts of Gov- ernment 621

The Vice of "Loyalty " 772

The Coffee House of Surat. (A French

Legend) 779

The Politics of Political " Rings" 784

The Plea of Necessity and Standing Ar- mies 848

The Princess Orsini; An Historical Epi- sode in the Life of Philip V., of Spain. 891 The Eflectsof the Abolition Policy, so far as Developed 902

U.

Ulysses S. Grant. By a General in the

United States Army 628, 615, 705, 760

839, 927 V. Voltaire's Theory of How America was Peopled 622

W. Will the South be Represented in the De- mocratic Convention ? By the Editor . 89 Who Is to be the Democratic Nominee?

By the Editor 526

Who are the Traitors? 542

What of the Night? 801

What Next? 881

POETRY

The Soldier's Home at 44

Cuffee in Congress. By Fanny Downing.. 135

The Lover's Good Night 138

Sonnet 148

Fragments from the Greek 152

To Mary. By Mrs. Helen Rich 194

The Soul of Music. By R. W. Wright. . . 203

The Contrast. By Mrs. Helen Rich 222

The Southern Heroic Dead. By Rev. T.

J. Ryan, of Tenn 227

The Tree of Life 254

Sleep, Darling, Sleep 255

Guess Who ? 295

Who Killed King Cotton ? 296

Hope 308

Thine Eyes 361

The Ivy and the Oak. 373

Epigram 382

Those Eyes 392

May Song 419

The Soul's Idol 472

Omens 490

The Night of Death 552

Love Vine. By Bell-de-Nuit 570

A Talk With Myself 57^

Only. By Elsie Hackling. 592

Mrs. Shoddy's Ball 593

Cirrus. By Bell-de-Nuit 608

Aline. By Renishaw 627

Ho! For the Ballot-Box. By "Ben. Franklin," of the New York Day-Book.647

Democratic Campaign Song 650

Outward Shows Be Least Themselves. .696

Smile and be Contented 728

Night 730

Make the Best of it 743

Carpet-Bagger's Hymn 759

Echoes 777

The True Betrothal 783

After 787

Brunette and Blondine 810

I am Lonely. By Frand D. Hoover 830

Political Religion 855

Sonnet 862

Thlecathcha ; or, The Broken Arrow 863

The Sunny South 869

Democratic Battle Song 890

In Memoriam— Cleburne 95"

CAUCASIAN

THE OLD GUARD:

A MONTHLY MAGAZINE, DEYOTED TO THE PRINCIPLES OF 1776 AND 1787-

VOLUME VI.— JANUARY, 1868.— No. I.

TRICKS OF PRESIDENT-MAKING.

pKEsiDENT-Tnaking has now be- come a business with a very large number of American politicians— quite as much so as burglary, horse- jockeying, or stock-swindling, with all the various gradations of thieves, speculators, and sharpers. If there be now and then some steady-mind- ed man who has not lost his wits nor honor, in these wild whirlwinds of fanaticism, revolutionism, and rump-congressism, he must stand for many long hours, (alas! shall we not say weeks and months, and even years?) dubitant and despairing to find out who are the most respecta- ble and worthy gentlemen — the Pre- sident-makers, or the other spirited and light-fingered jockeys. These President-makers are conspirators against the peace of the American people. Almost every one has a candidate of his own, which he pub- lishes everywhere, and upon all oc- casions, with the lungs of a Stentor,

and the rhetoric of the town-crier. He trots him out before the people as the jockey his old ring-boned and spavined donkey, well brushed-up and charged with oats for the occa- sion. Alas ! it is sad enough to look back at some of the men who have been put up for President in these latter years of our history. One was held up to the admiring gaze of the people as " an old coon," another as " a mustang colt," and another, the most wretched specimen of all, as a " rail-splitter," and we know not what other gentry of the field, the barn-yard, and the hovel have been dragged out of the lowest places of mire, to be made emblems of, or ac- tual pos essors in, the once high and honorable office of President of the United States. At the present time we hear mentioned, in connec- tion with this great office, the names of a dozen military furiosi of a ra- ther low grade, both in intellect and

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by Van Evrie, Horton & Co., in the Clerk's Office Of the District Court of the United States for the southern District of New York.

TEICKS OF PRESIDENT-MAKING.

[January,

morals, on the ground that they " have saved the Union," which is, however, neither saved nor in any immediate way of being saved, so far as we can perceive. And it is a noticeable fact that those who boast that they have "saved the Union," quite as freely proclaim that they are working "outside of the Con- stitution," which once sacred instru- ment they even confess they have "repudiated." A "saved Union," with a "repudiated Constitution," is an idea indeed worthy of the in- telligence of a people who elected such a man as Abraham Lincoln President of the United States, and who have since that day of delusion and ineffaceable shame, set them- selves deliberately to the business of tearing up the very foundations of the Union, and annihilating one half of the States of which it was ori- ginally composed. While this fear- ful state of things is upon us — while the very existence of the Union and of free government is associated with doubts in the minds of some of the most thoughtful and prudent of our people — 0ne would think that the question of the next Presidency was loaded with a degree of responsibi- lity, of profound and solemn impor- tance, which removes it at once from the company of subterranean politi- cians, into the more elevated region of statesmanship and patriotism. But, alas ! the great crowd of place- hunters, contractors, speculators, and various other styles and types of adventurers, who are just now busy with this matter of President- making, know nothing of patriot- ism nor statesmanship, and are, for the most part, as oblivious to every idea of principle, or of public or private honor, as though they were

born in Ashantee. Indeed the whole style and scope of their poli- tics is much more worthy of Airica than of America. They remind us of the mob of villains who pro- cured the banishment of Cicero, the great civilian, from Kome, for the purpose of elevating some military adventurers to the chief magistracy of the Commonwealth, who were thus painted by the glowing pen of Morabin :

"It was the same gang that Cataline, in his conspiracy, had raustere I together; fellows, who, having neither substance nor honor to loose, were ready for any enter- prise under this new chief, who, like the other, breathed out nothing but violence, eonfusion, and plunder."

The ancient Locrians ordained that a man who should propose a new law should go into the market- place with a rope about his neck, and repeat before the assembled peo- ple the change which he proposed, and if his proposition was not agreed to, he was immediately strangled for his arrogance. If we had a simi- lar law in relation to all who are guilty of proposing the name of some mountebank, some unprinci- pled military tyro, or some intrigue- ing political adventurer for Presi- dent, we should, after a short time, be happily free from the earthly presence of a profane and noisy mob of rascals, who now occupy a large share of the newspapers and telegraphs, to the exclusion of more interesting and important matter.

This mountebank style of nomi- nating and electing a President was resorted to in this country, in the first place, by the opponents of the Democratic party, because of the conscious weakness or unpopularity of their principles before the peo-

18G8.]

TRICKS OF PRESIDENT-MAKING.

3

pie. The Democratic party rose into power as the party of the peo- ple, as the friend of a general poli- cy to make the burdens of taxation as light as possible, and to oppose all schemes of special legislation, which are almost always for the be- nefit of the rich, and against the in- terests of the poor. So successful had the Democracy proved in its administration of the public affairs, that its very name became associated in the minds of the masses with whatever was liberal and generous, and just towards themselves. And therefore, such a hold had the party upon the confidence and the affec- tions of the people, that its oppo- nents found it impossible to dispos- sess it of power by any direct issue against its principles. It could be defeated at the ballot only by rais- ing a noise in which the voice of principle should be unheard, and where the passions were played upon through every device which pecu- liarly seized the imagination of the ignorant and the vulgar. Example, the Harrison log cabin and hard ci- der canvass of 1840. Mr. Clay was the acknowledged leader of the Whig party, and he was certainly the choice of the party for President, but he was recognized over the whole world as the representative and em- bodiment of the principles of the party. Therefore, much as they loved him, (and no great political leader was ever more idolized by his party,) they did not venture to thrust such a ! rue representative of their principles bef< re the people as a Presidential nominee. That is, the President-makers, the place- hunters, and hungry dogs of the party pressed some unknown, per- son over whom they could make a

novel hurrah, and some sort of vul- gar excitement. They finally pitch- ed upon William Henry Harrison, a weak and harmless man, who was utterly unfit for the office, and who had no sort of record except that of having, as thousands of others had, fought against the Indians. But he lived in a log cabin, and was fond of hard cider. So he was drag . ed forth from a perfectly natural ob- scurity, and put upon the track for President. Then began such a cam- paign as mortal eyes never looked upon before, and for the honor of gods and men, it were well if they never should behold the like again. It was tragedy, comedy, buffoonery, mountebankery, and the immortal gods only can tell what it was nrt, all pitched together, tumbled toge- ther, knocked together in such infi- nite and endless confusion, in such grotesque labarynths of fun and irolic, as must have made the very devils laugh out of the nether re- gions of dv spair. Said one of the shrewd leaders of the party : " We never yet won a single battle — let us stoop to conquer." Then they filled the whole land with log cabins, which were, in some instances, hauled about by fifty or sixty yoke of oxen, followed by great loads of barrels, typical of hard cider. This was the glory and the genius of their hero, of their candidate for President, he lived in a "log cabin," and he drank "hard cider." The \ olitical battle chorus of those great times was :

"Hun ah, hurrah, for Harrison and Tyler ; A good log cabin and a barrel of hard ci- der."

This was the music everywhere snng, not only in the portable log cabins, in the subterranean gin- shops, and along the windy streets,

THICKS OP PRESIDENT-MAKING.

[January,

but it burst forth also from the par- lors of the rich and the refined. The whole people seemed on one big drunk upon hard cider. It is due to the most respectable members of the Whig party to say that all this was exceedingly disgusting to them; but the business of the campaign passed out of their hands into the hands of a mob, which had no prin- ciples, and ca^ed less for the tradi- tional respectability of the Presi- dential office. The hard cider man was elected — elected by noise. But, poor old man ! he died just thirty days after he was inaugurated, amid the clamors of the office-seekers, who came swarming at him as if jumping out of the bung-holes of the innumerable hard cider barrels which had been the emblem of the princi- ples and social habits of the mob which elected him.

Martin Van Buren, the Demo- cratic nominee in this hard cider campaign, was deservedly unpopu- lar, with a nature utterly selfish, and a heart as cold as frozen slime. He was easily and badly defeated ; but that defeat was no triumph of the principles of the successful mob. Party it could not be called, and principles it had none. Or, if it had, they were very successfully hidden beneath such a pile of rubbish as never encumbered this earth in the same space of time before. But the public mind and the public morals were debauched. Politics sunk into a slum, patriotism and statesman- ship de enerated into a noise. To this day the political decency of the United States has not recovered from that " log cabin," " hard cider," and " coon-skin" campaign. It per- manently fixed upon the country a class of professional President-ma-

kers, who are quite as offensive to political respectability as the vora- cious vermin of Egypt were annoy- ing to the peace of the children of Israel in the days of King Pharaoh. But the " coon-skin" and " hard-ci- der" campaign killed the once re- nowned old Whig party. It never rose to the dignity of a party again. At the next canvass it sought to re- gain its character by nominating its great leader, Henry Clay, against the Democratic nominee, James K. Polk.

At the opening of the campaign, both parties started with some of the mountebank tricks which had been so successful in 1840. But it was soon apparent that the people themselves had not fully recovered from the disgust which followed the buffoonery of the log-cabin canvas, and this kind of campaigning was, to a great extent, immediately dropped by both the friends of Mr. Clay and Mr. Polk. So this canvas was, after all, mainly con- ducted upon the principles of the two parties. In such a trial the Democracy was, of course, success- ful. Though Mr. Clay was one of the most popular men, and one of the greatest statesmen this country had produced, yet even his tower- ing personal popularity was no match for the naked principles of Democracy when fairly and square- ly presented to the people.

In the next campaign the Demo- cratic party was defeated by Mr. Van Buren's running himself as a stump candidate against the regu- lar nominee, General Cass. It was a work of spite, of revenge, on Van Buren's part, for having failed to receive the nomination himself. The Democratic party of the State

18G8.]

TRICKS OP PRESIDENT-MAKING.

of New- York largely followed the lead of the vicious bolter and mal- content, Van Buren, and, therefore, was the cause not only of the de- feat of the party in that campaign, but of innoculating it with the virus of " Freesoil," a stupid fan- aticism of which it had always been perfectly free. This FreesoUism was a twin sister of Abolitionism, and was far the most mischievous of the two, because it carried the elements of negro equality under specious and unsuspected robes. That portion of the Democratic party which sloughed off into Freesoilism under the lead of Van Buren, for the most part, never returned to the Demo- cracy. When the Republican party was formed, on the ruins of the Whig party, nearly all the Freesoil- ized Democrats fell into it; while the " old line Whigs"— -that is, the unabolitionized Whigs, quite gene- rally associated with the Democratic party.

The nomination of General Scott by the shattered Whig party was another effort to steal into power under the popularity of a military hero, and by cunningly hiding its unpopular opinions in a great heap ot pa' ade and noise. As a military hero, General Scott was undoubt- edly, and deservedly, the foremost man of his conntry. His fame stood without a rival, and unquestioned. The intention of those who nomi- nated him was to run him in, as they had Harrison and Taylor, un- der the pressure of a great excite- ment and a great noise. But in this they totally tailed. Their can- didate was so loaded down with the obnoxious, not to say danger- ous opinions of the party present- ing him, that he was worse beaten

than any nominee ever had been before. The Democrats, with a comparatively obscure nominee, went into the canvas solely on the platform of their principles, and calmly appealed to the reason and the patriotism ot the people, which left the military hero strand' d at an unimaginable distance behind the comparatively obscure civilian. It was an instance of the resistless power of correct principles, when put with decision and boldness be- fore the public. Had the Demo- crats at this time taken the bait held out to them by their oppo- nents, to go into a mountebank campaign of mere hurrah and noise, they would undoubtedly have been beaten. Still, in the next canvas of 1856, the opponents of Demo- cracy, conscious that they had no chance before the people on a plat- form of their principles, started another campaign of ground and lofty tumbling, in which comedy and buffoonery were to take the place of everything like a canvas of ideas. Their nominee, Fremont, was an adventurer, without sense and without character. Correctly enough they dubbed him their " mustang colt," and made a cam- paign worthy of the wild horses of the Rocky Mountains. But they were beaten in the chase by the Democrats, who went in solely upon the basis of argument and princi- ple. Had the Democrats attempted a heroic or mountebank campaign, they would certainly have been de- feated this time. They have never won a single presidential victory on the heroic basis. Their only triumphs have been those of prin- ciples and patriotism. In the fatal champaign of 1860 they were defeat-

6

TRICKS OF PRESIDENT-MAKING.

[January,

ed, not by the strength of their enemies, but by their own dissen- sions. And when the impartial his- tory of these bad times shall be written, the Democratic delegation from the State of New York will have to father the chief weight of the odium of the Abolition triumph. Efforts have been made to throw the blame upon the southern De- mocracy, but without the least jus- tice or truth. The South said, " Give us a Constitutional candidate, and we will accept him." But the North, under the lead of the New York delegation, said, "No, you shall take Douglas or nobody!" The South reasoned and entreated, but in vain. And all this time the foremost man in the New York dele- gation held in his pocket a letter from Mr. Douglas withdrawing his name from the Convention. But he refused to present it. Had he not done so" Governor Seymour, or any other gentleman upon whom the northern delegations should have agreed, would have been unani- mously nominated, and would have been triumphantly elected. The refusal of the northern delegations to agree to any other name than the one which was especially and irre- concilably obnoxious to the South, and that, too, when the only cer- tainty of electing the Democratic nominee was in the vote of the southern States, was the cause of Lincoln's election, and of all the indescribable horrors which have followed. We should be a faithless public journalist were we to with- hold this simple statement of facts. Not long before his death, Dean Bichmond expressed regret and sorrow at the part he played in this most unwise and unjust affair. And

he said, with painful emphasis, that "If the Democratic party had the thing to do over again, we would never touch the negro war." Said he, " "We made a mistake, and, il We could recall ic, we would leave the Republicans to skin their . own skunks." But, alas! how true it is that the Democratic party " skinned the skunk" for them, and received as their reward nothing but the stench ! The misfortune is, that some, calling themselves Demo- crats, have so long familiarized themselves with the stench, that they seem rather to like it. So we judge, from the tenacity with which they cling around the names of some of the most justly abhorred instruments of the war.

There never was a nomination weaker in itself than that of Lin- coln. Personally, he was a bald and ungainly mountebank, and the platform on which he was placed was a most transparent cheat and lie. It was such an impudent fraud that it provoked the laughter of the whole country. Even those who made it laughed while they were running it. For instance, see the following resolution of that plat- form :

"Resolved, That the main'enance in- violate of the rights of each State to order and control its own domestic institutiong, according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to the balance of power, on whi hvthe perfection and endurance of Our political fabric depends."

Now, everybody knew that the Republican party was organized for the express purpose of interfering with the institutions of a portion of the States. It was born of a determination on the part of its godfathers to destroy the institu-

1868.]

TRICKS OF PRESIDENT-MAKING.

tions and rights of one-half of the original States of the Union. And it now rejoices in the belief that it has accomplished that purpose. The above resolution was a delibe- rate and impudent falsehood, as much so as a convention of thieves, who should solemnly "Besolve, That we are honest men," would be. The manner of nominating Lincoln was worthy of the nominee and of the aims of his party. The stu- pendous fraud took place in a build- ing erected for the purpose, and appropriately called a- Wigwam, and the nomination of the " rail-split- ter" was declared amid the most unearthly and devilish shouts in imitation of the savage war-whoops of the wild Indians. Over the chair of the President of that barbarian Convention was stretched a huge wooden knife, emblematical of the bloody business they had on hand. The whole performance, nominee and all, was an insult to civilized mankind, and the manner of con- ducting the campaign, by trained and uniformed bands of military " Wide- Awakes," should have arous- ed the fierce indignation of the American people, and would have done so, had not the Democratic party attempted a weak and silly dilution of the same abomination. It was the misfortune of the De- mocratic party to be controlled by a most venal and incompetent lead- ership—men who had cunning with- out sagacity, and zeal without pur- pose and without honor. The way they all broke, like bubbles in the black whirlpools of the "Wide- Awake" revolution,was proof enough of that. Those who did not go clean over to the wild wigwam party ran into holes, out of which they

have not fully crawled to this hour The country was, in the hour of its peril, abandoned to its late by the only party which could have saved it. And, alas! after four years of bloody fighting for the glory of ne- groes, and for the complete over- throw of both our State and Fede- ral systems, the leaders of the De- mocratic party had still no concep- tion of the means of saving the country. They had no other thought but that of getting back into power, no matter by what means, and no matter what princi- ples should guide them when m power. To their lofty imaginations, the business of all men in this world was to make a President, without much reference to his prin- ciples or his capacity. The most stupendous and dangerous delu- sions and errors were to be caucus- ed, or screamed, or marched out of men's m nds, as easily as the Chinese devi's are scared away by the horrible clangor of the gougs. O, there never was such incompe- tency— such oblivion of everything like a just conception of a great and terrible emergency ! A coun- try was not to be saved, but only a President was to be made. And his nomination was not allowed to grow out of the pressure and pre- ference of the popular sense, but was to be brought about by secret caucusing, and tricks, and subter- ranean pipe-laying. Example — About five weeks, more or less, be- fore the Chicago Convention, there came a mysterious individual into this city from our sister city of Philadelphia, on a mission as secret as the whispers in the goblin caves of the genii. He hired a room on Broadway, then known as Hope

8

TRICKS OF PRESIDENT-MAKING.

[January,

Chapel, for a certain day and for a certain purpose, which purpose, however, did not escape his lips even in a whisper. He was follow- ed, in a day or two, by a number of Democratic politicians from the State of Pennsylvania. Their move- ments, too, were as secret and as cabalistic as their forerunner. Let- ters had already been quietly dis- patched to certain other politicians, in the city and out of it, and, on the day fixed for the purpose, Hope Chapel was secretly opened at the back end, while the front doors were barred and bolted with tripple care. Then, one by one, these poli- ticians, in the most mysterious manner, made their way through a churchyard, and thence through a sort of subterranean passage, into the back end of Hope Chapel Hall, where the business of this 'secret conclave was opened, with low tones of voice, scarcely above a whisper. The very walls and seats were watched to see if they had not ears ! The key-holes were inspect- ed to see if they had not eyes ! The old pulpit was ransacked to see if some uninvited guest had not se- creted himself amid the folds of the dilapidated curtains. What horrid murder was about to be planned ? What conspiracy against our coun- try ? What torture for the inno- cents to be invented ? Why, nothing of the kind ! Only a President was to be made ! And, as the public had no interest in the matter, the doors were, of course, securely bolted against it ! It is a specimen of the way in which President-making is conducted in these latter and de- generate days. It is safe to say that, in nine cases out of ten, the public is cheated of its preference

by the secret caucusing and man- agement of the politicians. Instead of waiting to see what name the public mind points to for that high office, the mere tools of the poli- ticians are forced into prominence, and then begins a system of un- bounded laudation and lies, for the purpose of wheedling and cheating the people into the support of the secret caucus-planned nominees. In this way, President-making has come to be about the most mysteri- ous, crafty, and altogether cheating kind of business followed, even in an age of almost universal decep- tion and cheatery. Men who should venture to be half as untruthful, and crafty, and deceptive in ordi- nary business affairs as they are in this line of President-making, would be looked upon as knaves and ras- cals, who would be refused credit at every mercantile house in the land. Nay, let one of these Presi- dent-makers show himself as great a liar in social life as he is in poli- tics, and he would be inexorably banished from all respectable so- ciety! Let them set on foot the same tricks to cheat the people in other matters as they do in politics, and they would very speedily be brought into criminal boxes in the courts of justice. The nomination of General McClellan at Chicago was brought about by the most ap- proved modern machinery for Pre- sident-making. Of the high re- spectability of that gentleman we bear a cheerful testimony, but of his qualifications for the office of President, nobody ever dreamed until a certain school of politicians imagined they could make him per- sonally useful in that way. The plea for his nomination was not fit-

1868.]

TRICKS OF PRESIDENT-MAKING.

ness, but availability. And that was a plea put in, not by sagacity and patriotism, but by shallow selfish- ness and craft. The results proved that it was not a sagacious nomina- tion. The machinery that accom- plished it was not worked by men of mind and character. It was the work of politicians, full of all sub- tlety and noise, but empty of the weightier matters of intelligence and patriotism. Hundreds of loud screamers and excitement-makers were sent from this city, as so much baggage, to Chicago, for the pur- pose of " creating public opinion," as though public opinion consisted in unearthly rattle and noise. One night, in front of the Sherman House, while some "delegate" was pouring forth ineffectual screams from the balcony, we noticed one of these New York public-opinion- makers, in the shape of a small body, but vulcanic lungs, " wo. king up" the Presidential thunder, in this manner: — rushing through the vast crowd, he would pause a mo- ment at one point, and, with the voice of a Stentor, peal forth : " Three cheers for General George B. McClellan!" Then, springing a rod ahead, he would pause, and scream, in another tone of voice: V Three che rs for Little Mac !" Then, in still another place, and with rounder and fuller tones, he bellowed: "Three cheers for McClel- lan, the hero of Antietam!" And so on, through the crowd, this thun- dering little President-maker rush- ed, playing the part, and making the noise, of twenty men. And so the tremendous shouts, reverberat- ing with McClellan's name, rolled through the vast throng for hours. That, we say, was the most approv-

ed recent invention for President- making. That, too, was the way Lincoln was put upon the track. It was noise, and not sense, which nominated the "rail-splitter." The results are worthy of the means which procured his elevation. McClellan was not really the choice of the Chicago Convention. His nomination was against the sense of tho great mass of that body. It was brought about by the manage- ment and pressure of a few poli- ticians. And this could be effected only by dividing the policy, and giving the nominee to the politi- cians, and the platform to the peo- ple of the Convention. In this, of course, the people were cheated, as they always are when they consent to divide with the politicians. It was never the intention of the fac- tion which procured the nomina- tion of General McClellan that he should run upon the platform of the Convention. It was found ne- cessary to concede that platform to the Democratic people, in order to procure his nomination, but its re- pudiation was agreed upon, even while it was passing in the Conven- tion. And McClellan's letter, ac- cepting the nomination and repu- dia ing the platform on which he had been put, was dictated by the very men who had helped to con- struct it in Convention, and who all the time intended to commit a fraud upon the honest masses of the party. In all this matter the people were treated as so many nine pins, to be put up and knocked down as the politicians pleased. Are we to have this patent ma- chinery for President-making work- ed again at the next canvas? If we are, then defeat is inevLable. It is a time when /bra? of principles , and force of character combined, can alone insure success to the Demo- cratic party. But the politicians of the President-making school are not addicted to principles, and they dread any statesman of high char-

10

TRICKS OF PRESIDENT- MAKING.

[January,

acfer, because they cannot use him if elected. This is the chief diffi- culty in the way of nominating any man who is really qualified for the office of President. The politicians always want a man who is not qua- lified t > get on without their " aid and direction." A man like Grant, for instance, would be as helpless in the Presidential < nice as a rickety child without a cripple's chair to stand in. Sherman would not be much better off; for he, too, though possessing far more natural ability than Grant, is as innocent of states- manship, and as ignorant of the duties of the President, as he was of the laws of civilized warfare, when he went through the South, like a drunken Goth, or a blaspheming Hun, destroying private property, burning libraries and works of art, and driving innocent women and helpless children from the shelter and protection of their homes ! Gods ! what a nominee for the De- mocratic party he would make !

But our little friend, the Presi- dent-maker, steps forward — he with the little head and tremendous lungs — and suggests, "but we must have an available candidate " Undoubtedly we must, O, good friend leather- lungs ; but then, is it not true that the greatest civilian, and the man of the hignest character as a states- man, is precisely the most available just in these times? The tide b of military glory is even now running low in this country. To the great mass of honest white meu, our mili- tary glory has come to smell very badly of negroes. The very name of " loyalty" has got already such a stench of Africa about it, that good, old-iashioned, white respectability everywhere holds the nose at it. Therefore, by all means, let us no- minate some man for President who represents the bloody agency throu rh which all this horrid stench of let-loose-negroism, and negro-equa- lity; has been b» ought upon us. That will be worthy the intelligence of

a lunatic asylum. "We profess that the object of the Democratic party is to preserve the Constitution and restore the Union — to raise our poor, tax-ridden and disorganized coun- try up out of this horrid slough of negro-stinking equality and despot- ism ; and to prove the sincerity of our professions, we must, of course, nominate, as our standard- bearer, some comparatively brainless fellow, who represents the fiery means through which all these hor- rors have been poured out upon us. So, at least, things our little philo- sopher of availability, Stentor Lea- ther-Lungs, Esq., whose feathery imagination a ready swims around in an unfathomable ocean of spoils and plunder. A good lick at the plunder of office is what is general- ly meant by saving the Union among our little philosophers of availability, the President-m ikers. A President is to be made for them rather than for the country. Snug berths are to be provided for innumerable blockheads, or perhaps a system of government bonds, which are too literally bonds for the people, is to be preserved for the exclusive benefit and giory of a select compnny of bondholders, who gather all the gol- den harvest of interest and profit into their own pockets, while they saddle all the tax upon the poor. But let us settle one fact as foregone, that any nominee for President re- presenting the bondholder, as a class, or any Candida e representing the blood and violence, and wrath through which the country has come into its present deplorable condi- tion, or any nominee whose success depends upon the clap-trap and frauds of a screaming campaign, will not be the next President. The first great and terrible question which the poor masses of this coun- try have to answer, before all others, is, " What shall we do to be saved ?" Men do not go training and scream- ing like wild geese over such a tre- mendous issue as that.

1868.]

ASTORRE MANFEEDL

11

ASTORRE MANFREDI :

AN HISTOEICAL EOMANCE, FOUNDED UPON THE FALL OF THE ITALIAN BTATES.