thing less
than to make their patent reconciliation cement out of fire and
gunpowder, both useful things in themselves, but liable in concert to
bring about some odd results in the way of harmonious action. It is
generally thought wiser to keep them apart, and accordingly Mr.
Vallandigham was excluded from the Convention altogether, and the
Southern delegates were not allowed any share in the Address or
Resolutions. Indeed, as the Northern members were there to see what
they could make, and the Southern to find out how much they could save,
and whatever could be made or saved was to come out of the North, it
was more prudent to leave all matters of policy in the hands of those
who were supposed to understand best the weak side of the intended
victim. The South was really playing the game, and is to have the
lion's share of the winnings; but it is only as a disinterested
bystander, who looks over the cards of one of the parties, and guides
his confederate by hints so adroitly managed as not to alarm the
pigeon. The Convention avoided the reef where the wreck of the Chicago
lies bleaching; but we are not so sure that they did not ground
themselves fast upon the equally dangerous mud-bank that lies on the
opposite side of the honest channel. At Chicago they were so precisely
frank as to arouse indignation; at Philadelphia they are so careful of
generalities that they make us doubtful, if not suspicious. Does the
expectation or even the mere hope of pudding make the utterance as
thick as if the mouth were already full of it? As to the greater part
of the Resolutions, they were political truisms in which everybody
would agree as so harmless that the Convention might almost as well
have resolved the multiplication table article by article. The Address
was far less explicit; and where there is so very much meal, it is
perhaps not altogether uncharitable to suspect that there may be
something under it. There is surely a suspicious bulge here and there,
that has the look of the old Democratic cat. But, after all, of what
consequence are the principles of the party, when President Johnson
covers them all when he puts on his hat, and may change them between
dinner and tea, as he has done several times already? The real
principle of the party, its seminal and vital principle alike, is the
power of the President, and its policy is every moment at the mercy of
his discretion. That power has too often been the plaything of whim,
and t