Plotting for the Succession
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PLOTTING FOR THE SUCCESSION.
The politicians of all parties are already busily engaged in pipe-laying and plotting for the succession to that goal of their ambition, the White House. It is believed, and admitted even by Governor Walker’s friends, that he has squared his conduct in Kansas with a single eye to his own interests as regards the political future. He threw out the bogus returns, as it appears from his own statements, not so much because they were bogus, as because their reception would have injured his own reputation with the country and that of his party. And Senator Douglas and other notabilities of the Democratic party, who must take ground for or against Walker’s position, delay committing themselves, not because they have any doubt on which side the morality or justice of the case lies, but because each wishes to shape his course so as to avoid damaging his prospects for the Presidential nomination of 1860.
The great bane of the last administration was that its nominal chief desired a reelection, and was more intent on making capital for himself than on doing his duty to the country. That he miserably failed in both respects, should be a warning to deter the members of the present administration from a similar course. Nevertheless it is stated, and with every appearance of probability, that Secretary Cobb is perverting all the influence of his position to obtain the succession.
As a remedy for the factions and fends which will distract the govering party if these schemes be persevered in, it has been suggested that the party should express their preference for Mr. Buchanan for a second term. But in the first place, the President’s advanced age and probably growing infirmities will make him both unable and unwilling to serve again; and also there is no machinery existing in the party by which such a preference could be expressed for the incumbent’s reelection, as would bind other members of the party not to work for the nominations.
Nor are the opposition leaders less active than the Democratic in arranging the ropes. A remarkable evidence of this is found in the anxiety of the Tribune to kill off Governor Banks, whom the Evening Post is laboring just as anxiously to place on the inside track. The Tribune correspondents started a rumor that a receipt from Banks for $10,000—corruption money of course—had been found among the effects of the broken firm of Lawrence & Co. But on explanation it appears that the sum was only $700, and that the purpose for which it was loaned was the ordinary business one of paying for an addition to Mr. Banks’ house.
In our opinion, those politicians of either party who begin to work for a nomination years before the Conventions meet, have only their labor for their pains, and rather damage than advance their claims. For many [gap] Gen. Pierce and Senator Douglas were working like beavers for the Cincinnati nomination, flattering themselves that they had killed off [gap] Buck by sending him to London; but the latter, looming up at the proper time, upset all the schemes which his rivals had concocted in his absence. So with the other parties, Fillmore might have run better if he had not been placed in the field too soon. Fremont was not talked of until within a very few weeks before the whole North was rising up to do him honor; while the old stagers who had been log rolling for years to obtain a heavy Northern support, were swept off the course as so many incumbrances.
Our conclusion therefore is that the coming man is one who bides his time, and lets his rivals waste their efforts and temper in premature and unavailing struggles for the mastery.