The New York Times, July 25, 1860
The political contest is assuming a curious shape. The shattered condition of the Democratic Party has destroyed everything like an organized opposition to the Republicans, based upon principle, and converted the whole campaign into a desperate struggle not to get into power themselves, but to keep their opponents out. The highest ambition of the motley Anti-Republican host just now, is to play the dog in the manger. Not a solitary man among them believes that either DOUGLAS, BELL or BRECKINRIDGE can possibly be elected President by the people. Everybody surrenders this expectation. But they all have a lingering hope that, by uniting their forces, they may possibly prevent any election at all; and the great aim of each faction just now is, not to vindicate its own position,—not to justify its own principles and policy, — but to hit upon some expedient by which they can slur over their differences and unite their votes, so as to defeat the election of a President.
Gov. HUNT has proclaimed this to be his special purpose and wish. He is willing to unite with any party, for the purpose of defeating the Republican candidate. Yet Mr. LINCOLN holds not a single political principle to which Gov. HUNT has not, in time past, given his full assent. He is not pledged to a single act which Gov. HUNT has not pronounced judicious, just and essential to the public good. It would not have been easy to find a man for a candidate who represents more accurately the position Gov. HUNT has maintained, through the more active portion of his political career, than Mr. LINCOLN. His votes in Congress were less radically Anti-Slavery than Gov. HUNT’s. Yet for the special purpose of defeating him, Gov. HUNT is eager to unite with Mr. DOUGLAS, for whose public character he has never professed the slightest respect, and whose public conduct he has rebuked in the strongest terms!
While Union men are thus eager to unite with DOUGLAS, Douglas men are equally anxious to unite with BRECKINRIDGE,—not to elect him, for that they all know to be impossible, but for the sake of defeating LINCOLN. In that object all have a common interest. His success renders certain their exclusion,—while, in the event of his defeat, they have still another chance at a portion of the spoils in the general scramble that must ensue.
Gov. HUNT professes an extreme regard for the public tranquillity. He shudders to think of the public discontent which would follow the election of a President by less than an absolute majority of the popular vote. The Ex-Governor strains at a gnat and swallows a camel. We have repeatedly had Presidents elected by a mere plurality, without the slightest peril to the public peace. Gen. TAYLOR was thus elected, and Gov. HUNT supported him both before and afterwards. Mr. BUCHANAN is a minority President,—yet Gov. HUNT has neither witnessed nor dreaded any popular discontent on that account. The alternative he courts is infinitely more perilous. He advocates throwing the choice of a President into Congress. With a House of Representatives in which no responsible party has control,—with three States equally divided, so that faction, corruption, intrigue and venality of the most flagrant kind might give the country a President for four years,—and with the prospect that, except by practices which would shock the moral sense of the world and rouse the people to the highest pitch of just indignation, no President at all could be chosen by the House,—Gov. HUNT courts all these chances of turmoil and disgrace, under the shallow pretext that he fears such an election as the country has repeatedly suffered, without the slightest danger or inconvenience! It is not easy to estimate the perils of such an election as he desires. If a President should be chosen by the House, the chances are ten to one that it would be effected by downright corruption, and that this high office would be absolutely sold to the highest bidder. If the House should fail to choose, the Senate would appoint, from the two Vice-Presidential candidates, the Executive for the next four years; and in all probability their choice would fall on LANE of Oregon!
Remember the struggle of last Winter over the Speakership,—the excitement, the commotion, the menaces of disunion, the perils of personal collision on the floor of Congress, the universal turmoil and confusion to which that contest, comparatively unimportant, gave rise. Then imagine the PRESIDENCY, with all its power and patronage,—its control of legislation, its influence upon the foreign and domestic policy of the country,—cast into the same fiery furnace of selfishness and fanaticism, to be fought for with the same passions, heated to tenfold fury by the magnitude of the results dependent upon it. Is it possible to conceive a scene more exactly adapted to the purposes of the partizans of rebellion and civil war than this? Could YANCEY and his band of conspirators desire a more favorable opportunity for plunging the country into the abyss of bloody revolution? Even in the paltry contests hitherto waged in the lower House, deadly weapons have been in hand,—threats of a struggle of force have been made, and fears have been entertained that the rash and reckless spirits who find their own advantage in their country’s ruin, might precipitate the crisis by a bloody struggle in the halls of Congress. But if the Presidency were the prize to be contended for, their temptation would be a hundred fold as great.
Upon such perils Gov. HUNT looks with calm complacency. He courts them, deliberately seeks to bring them upon the country, rather then see a President duly elected, as several have already been, by a plurality of the American people. He could not possibly do the country a worse service; he could not involve the Union in more tremendous perils, or hang a blacker cloud over the political-horizon, than by carrying the election of President into the halls of Congress. Such a scheme is perfectly in keeping with the selfish and reckless ambition of the Disunion Conspirators of the Southern States; but it should never receive the countenance of men who have at heart the real welfare of the country. Gov. HUNT would repent in dust and ashes the success of the conspiracy he is aiming to organize, if the good sense and patriotism of the people did not render such a calamity impossible.