Is Garfield's Nomination Binding?

That no man is worthy of support for the office of President of the United Stiltes who coukl not enter upon a competitive canvüss for the nomination with the least hope of suucess is a proposition that will be generally admitted. Thenominatingconventionsof parties are supposed to be faïrly representativo of the people. ïhe snpposition is soraewhat violent as applied to such bodies as the Chicago Convention, where the will of the people was trodden under foot in the defeat of Blaine, but the theory holds good that delegates are expected to represent their constituencjes. And we suppose it will not be denied that a man who, after thorough preliminary canvass, would be overwhelmingly rejected by a NatioDal convention of his party is not entitled to the support of that party. When such a eandidate isselected the delegates havefailed in the performance of their duty, and their constituent are uuder no obligation to ratify their wofk. The principal is not bound by the acts of his agent when the latter violates instructions. If a man who is sent out to buy horses expends the money confided to him for that purpose in the purchase of cows or sheep, the employer has ground of action for the recovery of lua mouey. He is not bound to accept the work of his agent as his own act. This is precisely what was done at Chicago. The delégales were bound by all the usages of party to put up a man whom honest men could support. But, instead of selecting such a eandidate, they made choice of a man whose candidacy would have been amonstrous absurdity had he eutered the lists with Graat, Blaine and Sherman four or live months before the date for naming a ticket. The question, What would have been the fute of General Garfield had he essayed tlie ordeal through which Grant, Blaine and Sherman passed laat winter and spring in their competition for the Chicago prize, brings before the tnind the picture of a shattered wreek taken away from the public gaze by discreet añil pitying friends a month before the assemblingof the delegates. We don t believe tliere is an intelligent man in the United States who I thinks General Garfield could have been nominated if his cainlidacy had been avowed when Blaine a?id Sherman were operating their respective bureaus. Had he or his friends taken auy step caloulated to challenge attention to his record, a blast of annihUation would have swept his presumptive candidacy out of sight. He would have been hissed off the i st:ige by the very men who are novv working for his election - working for a man whom they despise, because their politica! fortunes are In the same boat ; with his. All the temblé indictment now sented ngainst him in the Democratie press, collated from Republican and official sónicos, would have been hurled at his head by those Republican journals that took up the respective causes of Grant, Blaine and Shcrman, and ho would have been compelled to crawl off the track - the saddest wreek of misdirected ambition that the country had ever seen. And not only in the journals of his party, but in the millions of dooumenis sent out by the bureaus, the back-salary grab, Credit-Mobilier and the De Goíyer infamy would have been put in their worst light. And the effect would have been acycloue of popular indignation, an indignant protest of the Itepublican masses against the insolent presumption of a man with such a record aspiring to the chair of George Washington. No honest man can feel that he is bound to attest his fealty to party by voting for such a candidate. The decency that would have rejected him as an aspirant last May is bound to reject him now.-