Democratic Sentinel, Volume 4, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 February 1880 — UNHAPPY REPUBLICANS. [ARTICLE]

UNHAPPY REPUBLICANS.

How the Third-Termers Captured Pennsylvania Against the Sentiment of the State —Significant Letter irom Horace White to the New York Nation.

Senator Don Cameron’s exploit at Harrisburg is still the principal topic of conversation here [Washington]. Opinions differ as to its effect upon the Republican Conventions of other States, but some facts are settled and agreed upon as regards the event itself. One is that the Pennsylvania Convention did not want to renominate Grant, but that Cameron compelled them to do so. Another is that Blaine could have beaten Cameron —that is, could have prevented the adoption of the Grant instructions—if he had had the spirit or the wit to fight for his rights. A third is that the leaders of the third-term movement are going to nominate Grant at Chicago, even by a majority of one, if it is possible to do so. and that they would do this even if they apprehended he would be beaten at the polls. Consequently, evidence offered to them that Grant is a weak candidate—and there could be no better evidence than the Harrisburg Convention itself —weighs not a feather in their calculations. They do not want another Republican administration that they cannot control, and in preference to it they will take a Democratic one cheerfully, and tiust to the chances of the next four years. Conkling would have preferred Tilden to Hayes before the latter was installed into office, and he went so far toward bringing the former in that the Democrats conceived that they were betrayed by him when, at the critical moment, his nerves gave way. Party rage, which has so often served his turn, appalled him in that instance, but it did not prevent bim from disclosing that he wants no more Republican victories of that kind. As for Cameron, he has introduced himself to the public as a sort of Barbary Corsair or Roman Proconsul entertaining a well-grounded contempt for the people whom he slashes— that is, for his own party in his own State. It is spoken of as a remarkable thing that 113 delegates out of 246, although stoutly backed by public opinion at home, dared to call their souls their own in the presence of this terrible fellow. For there is not a more fearful wild-fowl than your Cameron living I Blaine really represented tho vestiges and remains of popular sovereignty in party government at the Harrisburg Convention. I doubt if there will ever be so strong a show of opposition to personal government in Pennsylvania again, until the party has been soundly thrashed at the polls. It is a ludicrous waste of energy to send sixty or seventy able-bodied men to Chicago to m ike a unit and to cast one vote. That this is done is but another instance of the survival of forms after the substance has vanished. Perhaps the most startling sign of the times is the ease with which such things are done—the facility and abandon with which the State of Pennsylvania is lowered from the attitude and character cf a Commonwealth to that of a province under the government of a Pnetor. Doubtless Mr. Blaine was an unfit man to bear the standard of the Commonwealth in tho recent engagement; nevertheless lie did bear it, and when the wheels of tho “machine” rolled over him it was tho Commonwealth’s blood that gushed out.

The Blaine men here in Washington, however, prefer to bo considered cunning fellows rather than victims. They say now that the course of the Harrisburg Convention ran parallel with their intentions; that it was not their purpose to kill the Grant movement suddenly, because that would have drawn all the anti-machine fire upon them; that they prefer to have the batteries of the Independents directed against the third term during the next four months rather than against their man; that the moral effect of the Harrisburg massacre must tell in their favor throughout the country; that Cameron’s victory was virtually a defeat because his majority was so small, etc., etc. The third-term people, on the other liaud, say that all they wanted at Harrisburg was all the votes ; that they were not so grasping as to claim any more than the whole number, and consequently they are satisfied. What they expect is that the impetus gained in Pennsylvania will produce an exactly similar result in New York, and that the momentum of these two States will carry Illinois and Massachusetts—perhaps also Indiana—and that anything more which they need they can easily obtain from the South. If the Blaine men have any programme as well defined as that, I have not heard of it. They talk vaguely about Illinois as the bulwark and breakwater that is to roll back the third-term flood. Gen. Logan, however, is quoted for the third term, and Gen. Grant, as it happens, has a nominal residence in Illinois; the supporters of Washburne do not oppose the third-term movement, but do serve to divide the opposition to it. Gen. Logan’s machine in Illinois is not the same thing as Cameron’s in Pennsylvania, or Conkling’s in New York. It is less subject to the one-man power. It was wholly in the hands of the Blaine men four years ago, and it dragged Logan along with it. It would probably do the same now, but for the adventitious circumstance that Gen. Grant has a house in Galena, where he occasionally spends a week’s time. Something will really depend, as regards Illinois, upon public opinion. Any such demonstration of hostility to the third term as took place at Harrisburg would be fatal to it, because it would point to the loss of the State in the election, and the managers there have not reached the state of mental equipoise which can look calmly upon such a contingency. Illinois is not a sure State by any means, and an adverse result in Ohio in October would be likely to deluge it. Meanwhile it is among the possibilities that Blaine may surrender to the third-term movement and become as good a Grant man as anybody. But the third-term men will never surrender to him. They have the great advantage of knowing exactly what they want, and it is a mistake to suppose that they have any second choice. * * * *

Returning to the Harrisburg Convention, I remarked that the third-term leaders know what they want. They have no set purpose to undermine the republic by paving the way for Grant pr a future President to go in for a

fourth term or any other number of terms. But a third term happens to fall in with their system of prsetorship. Gen. Grant gave that system full swing, and he was the only man who could do so with tolerable safety, having a military reputation to fall back upon to serve as a screen for civil disorder. They know perfectly well what they can do with him, because they have tried him. His methods are their methods. Given four years more of this species of license and they calculate that they will not bo troubled again with the presence of 113 dissenters at a Harrisburg Convention. As regards the election, they set much store upon the pride and self-reliance of the American people, v hich leads men to say, “Who’s afraid? If we don’t like a President can’t we change him every four years?” The answer is: “No, unless you can get more than 113 delegates into your nominating convention ”