I  am  truly  yours,

WnnnxLD  S.  Hanoocx.
To  Geitkrai.  W.  T.  Sherman,  Commanding  Army  of  the  United
States,  Washington,  D.  C.
WZtfFIELD  SCOTT  HANCOCK.
CHAPTER    XIII.
THE  LIVING  STATESMEN    OF  THE  PAST.
THERE  is  notliing  more  depressing  to  the  patri-
otic philoeoplier  than  the  fact  that  a  candidate,

like  General  Garfield,  all  the  defects  of  whose
record  are  charged  upon  him  by  his  own  politi-
cal friends,  should  be  so  strenuously  sustained  by
the  leaders  of  the  Kepublican  party,  and  at  the
same  time  that  these  leaders  should  refuse  to  do
justice  to  the  admitted  excellencies  of  General
Hancock,  the  Democratic  candidate  for  President.
Dwelling  upon  this  painful  spectacle,  the  com-
parison between  the  old  political  leaders  still  left
upon  the  stage,  and  tlie  new  men  who  have  taken
command  of  the  administration  party  of  the
country,  becomes  equally  natural  and  necessary.
Before  the  civil  war,  long  before  the  slavery
agitation  cast  its  dark  shadow  upon  our  national
councils,  the  public  men  of  the  United  States  of
both  parties  were  engaged  in  the  work  of  true
statesmanship,  and  the  old  Whiga  and  Democrtits
of  both  sections  mingled  together,  differing  about
evanescent  issues,  but  sincerely  desirous  to  promote


4  06  LIFE  AND  PUBLIC  CAREER  OF

national  concord  and  prosperity.  Now  the  8tate»-
men  of  the  South  of  both  the  old  schools,  Whigis
and  Democrats^  so  far  as  the  present  Bepablican
party  can  do  it^  are  pushed  into  insignificance.
