As it Were: Sunset Cox had a way with words as newspaper owner
Ed Lentz
Samuel Sullivan Cox was a man of extraordinary abilities.
Cox lived in Ohio during its formative years and through a bloody Civil War before moving to New York City later in life and ably represented his part of town in Congress.
Along the way he made enemies and friends as a classic conservative War Democrat who deplored the Civil War but supported the Union.
Today a statue of him stands in Tomkins Park in the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City.
But that is not why he is remembered as one of the most significant figures in American journalism.
The outlook for the re-nomination and re-election of President Abraham Lincoln does not appear promising.
The nearly three-year-old Civil War continues to rage and many Northerners shake their heads in disbelief as their sons continue to die by the thousands each month on Southern battlefields. They doubt Republican Lincoln’s ability to bring hostilities to a peaceful close.
Most leaders in the Republican Party now say that the party is not strong enough alone to re-nominate Lincoln so they form a Union Party with Republicans and War Democrats who support the president and his war policies. The party will have its presidential convention in June in Baltimore.