The Kansas Herald Of Freedom

Our Candidate for
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
For 1860,
GEN. JAMES HENRY LANE.
Of Kansas,
Subject to the decision of the Republican
National Convention.

Our Candidate.
We place at the head of our columns
this week, as our candidate for the Presidency
in 1860, the name of Gen. JAMES
HENRY LANE, subject to the decision of
a Republican National Convention. We
have been looking over the country for
some time, to find some person in whom
was centered all the necessary qualifications
of a chief magistrate of the United
States—one who was eminently fitted for
the responsible situation indicated. At
times our mind has rested on Gov. Chase
of Ohio: then on Senator Seward of
N. Y.: then on J. C. FREMONT; but
when we have called up the history of
these men and their proclivities, we have
been compelled to abandon each in their
turn. Gov. CHASE is honest and capable,
and combines all the elements we would
love to see centered in a candidate, save
that he is not progressive enough, in short
is an "old fogy" in some respects. Years
ago he saw the encroachments the slave
power was making upon the institutions of
the country, so disregarding self and party,
he threw himself into the breach, and
through some ten or fifteen years has been
laboring unremittingly to bring the country
back to its original position. In the
Senate of the United States, as the Governor
of Ohio, or in private life, he has
been laboring with all the energy for which
he has such an honorable reputation, to
give the proper direction to public affairs.
But he has made no progress—he occupies
the same position he did when his
name first appeared before the country.
By this time, had he kept pace with other
prominent aspirants for office, he would
have been a disunionist of the Garrisonian
school; or, in fact, he would have occupied
a position far in advance of this
class of politicians. Gov. Chase, as United
States Senator, recorded his vote
against the compromise measures of 1850,
and against the repeal of the Missouri
Compromise in 1854. To put such a man
in nomination for the Presidency would
be to look too much like discarding expediency
and going in for PRINCIPLE!
All we have said of Gov. Chase, applies
with equal force to Mr. SEWARD.
There is no use in talking of putting such
men on the course, for their defeat would
be inevitable.
And JOHN C. FREMONT. True, the same
objections cannot be urged against him.
His record, until within the last two or
three years, is vague and unsatisfactory;
but he has made considerable progress
since then, yet he is only occupying a
half-way ground; besides, his defeat two
years ago has effectually destroyed his
prospects for another nomination.
But Gen. Lane, our candidate, is the
embodiment of the spirit of PROGRESS.
We showed his predilections in that direction
some weeks ago. True we did
not follow him to Mexico during the campaign
against that semi-barbarous nation;
neither did we allude to his vote on
the repeal of the Missouri compromise,
nor trace his history in Indiana; but we
showed that less than two years ago he
was making an effort to buy a female slave
in Lawrence, and we followed him down
only two and one-half years, when we
found him making conservative speeches,
tickling the ears of pro-slavery men, inducing
them to vote for him, and in another
month we found him asserting in a
convention at Leavenworth, that "he belonged
to the Abolition wing of the Free
State party." Such progress has rarely
been made by any of our statesmen. Belonging
to the Young America school
of politics, and with the efficient aid of
"ye letter writers" in Kansas, and knowing
that we can count upon their entire
vote when the issue comes before the
country, we have determined that his
name shall head our columns for the time
being, unless circumstances are such as
to render it very possible that he stands
no chance of being elected.
We propose to each of our readers
three cheers, yes, three times three, for our
candidate for the Presidency. We shall
expect all the Republican journals, and a
majority of the Democratic, with the
N. Y. Herald in the lead, to run up the
name of our nominee at once, at the head
of their respective columns. We wish
them, however, to understand that the
Herald of Freedom designs to be the organ
of the forthcoming administration,
and that it will drop its independent character
as soon as President Lane shall be
inaugurated into office.