THE AMERICAN PRESIDENCY.
MHE announcement that Mr. Blaine does not intend to 1 allow himself to be nominated for the Presidency, has brought the subject of the election for the Chief Magistracy into special prominence. It may be that Mr. Blaine does not intend his determination to be taken too literally, and that if he is pressed sufficiently, he will con- sent to become the Republican candidate. Mr. Gladstone resigned the leadership of the Liberal Party with quite as much impressiveness, and yet did not hold to his resolve when the voice of the party called him back to power. It is possible, then, that even if Mr. Blaine seriously intends his decision to be regarded as " written with a pen of iron and on a rock of granite," he may be induced to with- draw it. At the same time, we cannot help thinking that Mr. Blaine will not be put into nomination at the next Republican Convention. And for two reasons. In the first place, we believe that Mr. Blaine, who is nothing if not far-sighted and clear-headed, knows that, even if he were made the Republican candidate, he could not secure election ; and he is determined not to lose another Presidential election, for to do so would mean political extinction. No man could survive in American politics who had twice been rejected at the polls. Mr. Blaine, if he stood, would stake everything on the die, and he probably thinks that the chances. are too much against him to run such a risk as that. We have no desire to examine in detail the causes which would alienate a considerable section of the Republican Party if Mr. Blaine were to stand. We believe, however, that many of the leading Republicans who have set their faces dead against his becoming President, would, if pressed for their reasons, in effect reply as Lord Melbourne replied to those who urged him to take Lord Brougham into his Cabinet. They would simply ask their country- men to consider how many and how serious must be the reasons that prevented them from supporting a man of such talents. There is a black mark against Mr. Blaine's name in the minds of the more serious Republican politicians ; and Mr. Blaine knows this, and, like the clear-headed statesman he is, is acting on the knowledge. That, we believe, is the prime cause of Mr. Blaine's refusal to offer himself as President. A secondary cause is, we expect, to be found in the opportunity which Mr. Blaine's act of self-effacement gives him in regard to President Harrison's candidature. While still a candidate himself, any attempt to forbid the nomination of President Harrison would have been discounted as mere self-seeking. The Convention would not have allowed him both to put himself forward and to say : Even if you won't have me, you shan't choose my rival.' Now, however, he can effec- tually veto a Harrison nomination. The friends of " The Knight of the White Plume," as Mr. Blaine is fantasti- cally called by his Hibernian admirers, will be strong in the Republican Convention, and will almost certainly be able to make it a condition precedent to the deliberations of the party that General Harrison is not to be nominated. They will urge that the party is divided over the rivalries of these two men. The only way out of the difficulty, therefore, is for both of them to retire, and for some candidate liked by both factions to be chosen. Our leader,' the followers of Mr. Blaine will be able to say, has shown a patriotic example by retiring the moment he saw that his nomina- tion would be a cause of dispute. Let your leader show that he is not a self-seeker by doing the same.' That is the sort of pressure which President Harrison could hardly resist ; and we may therefore take it for granted that un- less, owing to some extraordinary and unforeseen accident, peace should be made between Mr. Blaine and his former nominee, the Convention will have to seek a third man. Who is likely to be this third man ? Pro- bably not any well-known party politician like Mr. McKinley, or the late Speaker, Mr. Reid. They and the rest of the well-known politicians are already. com- mitted to one side or the other. But if the man of compromise is not to be a politician already before the country, where is he to be found ? It is absolutely neces- sary, in order to win a Presidential election, to secure a candidate whose name at least shall be known to the country, and who, whatever else he is, is at any rate not invisible. President Harrison, for example, could never have secured nomination had he not been the grandson of a former President and national hero. A mere family solicitor in Indiana would have taken years to make himself known to the people at large ; but the grandson of the hero of Tippecanoe was visible throughout the States. It was the difference between a Mr. Jones of Exeter being put forward to lead an English party, and a Duke of Bedford. One man might personally be as • unknown as the other ; but the latter, owing to his name, could gain the essential quality of visibility in a quarter of the time required by the other. The Republican Con- vention, then, if they want a third man, as we suspect, will want him visible as well as uncommitted. Fortu- nately, they have to their hand an ideal dark horse,—Mr. Lincoln, now Minister at the Court of St. James's. Mr. Lincoln is not committed, and yet he is known, or rather, capable of being known to the country in. ten minutes, His name at the poll will be worth a quarter of a million votes. The Convention will be full of old soldiers, and not one of them, when it is put to him, will feel anything but delight in voting for the son. of the man who saved the Union, and left behind him an imperishable name. If Mr. Lincoln allows himself to be nominated, he will not only carry the Convention, but will prove the most formidable candidate that the Republicans. could possibly have chosen. Already this fact is widely recognised, and it is evident that, unless the movement is checked, Mr. Lincoln will be the third man, granted, of course, that a third man is required, and that he will consent to stand.
That Mr. Blaine is not going to be President if the Republicans win, is to us a subject for congratulation; not, however, because we imagine Mr. Blaine to be unfriendly to England. Mr. Blaine is a statesman, though a reckless one, and knows perfectly well that, though the gamins of politics like to twist the Lion's tail, the rock-bed of American sentiment is dead against quarrelling with England. Mr. Blaine may wheedle the Irish, but he will never let them force him into a position of real hostility to England. It is because we believe that Mr. Blaine would injure his own country were he to become President, that we are glad to think that contingency has passed beyond the region of practical politics.. Mr. Blaine is essentially a dangerous politician. Possessed by a number of vague, restless, Imperialistic ideas, he would, were he once to gain supreme power—and Mr. Blaine would be no Presi- dent Log—be almost certain to lead his country into a series of adventures likely to do her injury and discredit. We, who have had experience of Mr. Blaine's European analogue, Lord Beaconsfield, know the injury that statesmen of this kind may do to their country. It is true that our good fortune saved us from most of the ill consequences of the great Hebrew politician's dreams ; but America, embarked on a similar line of policy, might not have such luck, America needs nothing beyond what she has at present ; and as her sincere well-wishers, we are heartily glad. to see diminish- ing the influence of those who would lead her into political follies. The Anglo-Saxon was meant by Nature to be a conqueror, but not a Jingo ; and for the English tongue Jingoism, in any of its forms, will always in the end spell ruin.
While dealing with the subject of the Presidential elec- tion, we cannot refrain from a word or two in deprecation of the annoyance often shown by Americans of all parties at the interest excited in England by the Presidential elections. How can we not be excited at what is for us incomparably the most interesting event that can take place in external politics ? There is no Europea,n succession which is of half the importance to us. Who succeeds President Harrison, is a matter far nearer to the people of England than the succession to the thrones of Germany or Italy, Austria or Russia. We do not want to interfere, but in the case of so near a relation, we cannot help desiring to know how things are going to be settled. If the people of America would only believe it, the interest felt in the election in. England is in no sense selfish. We do not want, as some of them imagine, to see a President elected who will knuckle down to England. The people of this country, for all their shyness, and consequent appearance of churlish- ness, are sincerely proud of America, and genuinely anxions that she should choose well when she chooses her Chief Magistrate. They feel that the credit of the whole Anglo- Saxon kin is involved in the choice, and are eager that the greatest post to which any English-speaking man can be elected should be worthily filled.
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