The Daily Cincinnati Republican, And Commercial Register

POLITICAL CANT AND HYPOCRISY.
The party of all the pretension are shocked at the moral character of Col. Johnson. Since the nomination of that distinguished republican for the second office within the gift of the people of this country, they have discovered, precious and pious souls! that his moral character is an insuperable objection to his election. The editors of the Daily Adv. of this city are particularly offended by this fresh indication, as they allege, of the absence, in the republican candidates and the republican party, of those high moral qualifications for which they and their partizans are so eminently distinguished. We confess that we admire this sensitiveness to moral fitness; and particularly among those who expend it so liberally upon others, that they find very little to apply to themselves.
With regard to the private and moral character of Col. Johnson, we refer the reader to the article which we copy to-day from the Globe. Not an additional word is necessary to show how grossly he is calumniated, and with what reprehensible unfairness he is pursued by the harpies of the opposition.
We should be glad to know, from these professors of moral perfection, whether "lying and evil speaking" are regarded as admissible qualifications in their school of political ethics; for if not, the "great constitutional party of the world" will scarcely prefer or support a candidate at least during the present campaign.
But this delicate sensitiveness to moral character and conduct, comes with a peculiar grace from the "whig" party. Undoubtedly they have the clearest right in the world to insist upon a high standard of moral fitness, since they offer such examples of it in their own persons and their own candidates. In the person and character, for instance, of George Poindexter. This individual was not only petted and eulogised by the opposition, to a degree that was equally excessive and disgusting; but he was selected from among the federal leaders of the senate, the Websters, the Claytons, the Clays and the Calhouns, as the symbol and representative of their party, and as such was elevated to the highest dignity at their bestowal,—the presidency of the U. S. Senate. Not only so, but he was the particular object of Bank and federal man worship. It was little less than deification. It was a sort of apotheosis (the man being politically dead,) in which the minions of the Golden Calf seemed to surpass all their former exhibitions of an idolatrous devotion, in the splendor of the rites and the pageantry of the carousal. At Philadelphia, the City of the Bank, these tokens of admiration and worship were particularly vivid. "His reception" (says the Bank chronicler) "was of the most triumphant character." At New-Castle he was received by the "whig committee" of Delaware, "the band striking up, 'see the conquering hero comes,' and the cavalcade displaying flags and banners. He was then handed over "to the care" of the Philadelphia committee, (a very proper precaution, as we are convinced, in the sequel.) "The receipt at Philadelphia," continues the narrator, "was truly brilliant and enthusiastic."
The wharves were lined it is estimated, with ten thousand "whigs," and the "distinguished guest" was literally covered with blushing honors, from the moment of his landing, during his gross and disgusting harangues, down to the period of the carousal; and this was attended by the "whig" ladies! in great numbers, who seemed to vie with their male associates in pushing to its acme, this united revel of Bacchus, Bankism, and Nullification.
With the disgusting particulars, personally and morally, of the character of the individual thus placed at the head of the federal leaders in the Senate chamber, and thus apotheosized (if we may so speak) by the Bank partizans of both sexes, we shall not offend the senses of our readers at this time. They have been fully portrayed in the journals of the day. They are familiar, not only to the people of his own state, who have discarded him from their confidence and driven him from their public councils but they have acquired an ignominious prominence throughout the Union. We will only add at this time, on the authority of the Gallatin Democrat, a paper published at the threshold of his own door that he was supported in Mississippi in his political course of apostasy and profligacy by persons who would not allow him to visit their families!
The partizans who thus idolize this individual, literally leprous, personally, morally and politically, are precisely the partizans who appear to be the most shocked at the nomination of Col. Johnson, and whose sensitiveness at his alleged (though falsely alleged) moral unfitness for the same station to which they have elevated Mr. Poindexter, has been exhibited in so many amiable and characteristic traits! Truly we may believe, with an eminent modern writer, that, "there is only one step from pleasant sin, to sheltering hypocrisy."