Franklin Repository

We give elsewhere in to-day's paper the proceedings of the Democratic County Convention which met here on Monday of last week, and nominated a ticket. The Chambersburg patriots bore off every nomination for offices of honor and profit, and the rural districts were left to gather up the odds and ends at the tale end of the ticket. The town has the nominees for Senator, Assembly, Sheriff, and District Attorney--the entire oyster, and the shell goes to their Democratic brethren of the county persuasion. For people who like such tickets, they are, we presume, just the kind that such people like, and if the Democracy is content, we shan't complain. Considering that Chambersburg, where all the honors are crowded, will give from two hundred and fifty to three hundred against the entire list, the compliment to the Concords, Letterkennys, Quincys, &c., which are to give the majorities, can be fully appreciated.

The nomination of C. M. Duncan for Senator was a grave political blunder, looking alike to the immediate and ultimate interests of the party, and to the momentous interests of the border people in case the Democratic nominations should be ratified by the people. Mr. Duncan is young, inexperienced, and without claims to the position other than as a mere partizan of the most ultra school. He secured his nomination solely by untiring effort, and against the manifest wishes of the party; but as he had the field to himself until ten days before the Convention, while Mr. Sharpe made no personal exertions at any time to procure delegates, the result is not surprising. In the North Ward, where both reside, a fair contest was had for the delegates, and Sharpe defeated Duncan by two to one, and yet Duncan is made the nominee against the overwhelming protest of his own ward and immediate neighbors. There are men who would have declined a further contest after such a verdict from his own immediate constituents; but Mr. Duncan is of the bolder class and does not become appalled at little conventionalities of that sort. Politically speaking we should not complain of the nomination of Mr. Duncan, as it will chill the ardor of many of the best men in the party, who feel that the wishes of the Democracy were deliberately defied by the Convention.

Mr. M'Lellan was nominated for Assembly without the formality of a ballot--the party taking to the new convert with the tenderest evidences of affection. He made a speech accepting the nomination, in which he expressly disclaimed any partizan purpose, and stated that the interests of the plundered border only compelled him to accept. Whether his manifest reluctance related to the company he was in, or the position for which he was nominated, we are not advised; but inasmuch as he announced his purpose to support President Johnson's policy, we infer that he meant to make his own platform in advance within the folds of his new circle of associates. Many years of intimate personal and professional association with Mr. McLellan could not but make us testify to his blameless character, and his unusual candor and integrity as a politician; and we are anxious to see whether he will advocate the destructive measures of the Democratic party, and if so, how he will undertake to do it. He may prove how far a man may lean toward the wrong and yet escape it, or he may demonstrate how a fair man may be mastered by the wrong and scarcely know it. We part regretfully with him in our political struggles, but our paths of duty diverge and the issues at stake rise above all personal considerations in the pending conflict.

Mr. Stenger is re-nominated for District Attorney, and, with Duncan, will be the master spirit of the contest. He won his commission three years ago, in defiance of the army vote which defeated him, and the constitution did not then confer the right of suffrage upon our soldiers; but now there will be a fair poll and a full vote, of soldiers and citizens, and his competitor is one of our most gallant veterans who is morally certain to conduct the prosecutions of the county, during the next three years. The rest of the ticket is of little moment. The election of Cap. Doebler for Sheriff is conceded on all hands and Mr. Boyd won a barren honor without a serious contest. The resolutions reaffirm the Democartic State platform and demand restitution for military damages.