of England.
Nugent says of him: 'His shrewdness in judging of men was
employed only to enable him to found his influence upon their
weaknesses and vices; so that, when opposed to men of capacity,
or thwarted by what remained of public virtue in the country,
he found himself in conflict with weapons of which he knew
not the use; and his counsels were dangerous, and his administration
unprosperous. His only wisdom was the craft with which he
managed weak or bad men, and his only virtue the courage with
which he overawed timid ones.' Such counsellors, fatal to a
monarch, are full of peril to a republic. Such men can only
prosper in times of public corruption.

"General Butler has done, unless he has egregiously imposed
upon us, two things well. He out-blackguarded a New York
mob in 1864, and with a United States army at his back, he
kept down a rebel city in 1862. Massachusetts is not likely
soon to stand in need of either of these processes. But he
never has accomplished anything else of much importance when
his point could not be carried by sheer blustering. The history
of all his other attempts may be comprised in three words--
_Swagger, quarrel, failure._

"Other men have aspired before now to the office of Governor
of Massachusetts. It is an honorable ambition. They were
content to leave their claims to be set forth by others, and
were glad to waive them if by so doing they could promote
the harmony of the party. This man seeks nothing but his
own selfish ends, utterly regardless of the wishes, the welfare,
or the harmony of the great party to which he professes to
belong. The people of Massachusetts have sometimes elected
to this high office men who in some particulars are not deserving
of respect. But the people respected them, and chose them
because they deemed them worthy, and the persons so chosen
endeavored to deserve the public confidence. This man, if
he is chosen at all, is to be chosen without having the respect
of the men to whom he looks for support. It would be harder
to find a leading supporter of General Butler who will say
that he deems him honest, truthful, disinterested, or incapable
of using power to gratify both his ambition and his revenge.
The men whom General Butler will beat are the men whom he
persuades to support him."

The morning after his defeat in the State Convention each
of the principal morning papers in Boston headed its account
of the Convention with the words,