The Plymouth weekly Democrat. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1860-1869, 1869-08-26
The Washington l." Regency"

Lie VISIBLE tOH hCSthNts
IT is not a pleasant spectacle at time
like this to witness at..whatEpains the Chief
Magistrate is to take as little part in the
duties of the Executive office as heipOs-
sibly can contrive. when military satraps
like Candy, in Virginia, are threatening to
upset a State Government, just created by
the people there, with Federal officials like
Marshal Barlow, here, opposing State
judicial process with Federal guns, it
scarcely becomes the President to be act
ing as if he had abdicated his office, and
was quite Indifferent as to what outrages
the bad, or weak Cor foolish men around or
about him put upon the people.
In this way, it comes to pass, that his
Secretary of the Treasury, Mr.. Boutwell,,
PLAYS fast and loose with the Wall street
stock iObbers and gold gamblers. The
merchants and business men complain
but the President, who ought to have
some influence over his Chancellor of the
Excheauer, neither hears nor heeds even
if he understands.
ssAgain, this same Mr.. Boutwell,, with
other members of the Cabinet, are guilty
of the scandal of direct interference in
State elections (as in Tcnne&ee),-but
General Grant looks on, and says nothing
even if he knew what to say. lie
permits his minister" to do rs they see
fit-no matter how wrong, or how wicked,
the doing may be.
Revolutions have been preciptated, ere
now. by much less unwiSe messages than
that which the President is said to have
sent to Marshal Barlow yesterday to keep
his prisoner-that is, to set at naught the
action of the local civil authority at all
hazards" True, we have not among us,
as vet, that inflammable popular feeling
that drove the BOurbons out of Madrid,
the other dav-and which years before,
compelled the Orleanist Citizen King TO
decamp from Paris i'll hurry-but, it seems
to us, we have men among us, who are
doing all they can, one way and another,
to create some such feeling. Radicallsm,
and Radicals, when thus left Ivy itself, UNI
checked, run, us ifby an unerring instinct,
into revolution.
If Gen. Grant had not been in so great
hurry to 90 to the watering places, yes
terdav, it would have made him wiser
man, we suspect, had he tarricd III New
York to see how dangerously his subOrdi-
mates are running the Federal Government
"machine," and how full of peril To the
peace of the community would have been
a verbal order, even from Grant person
ally, to resist the process of our Courts, by
his bayOnets, lat all hazards He IS
President of the United States we know
bnt we know also, he is sworn to execute
the laws, and not to resist them. We
know, too, that he is the servant of the
people, and not their master The more
we think it over, the more impressed are
we with the narrOwness OF the escape we
have had from a serious cOnilict-the effect
fallt on
of the Union to the other.
The trouble with Grant is-as we have
said, he leaves pretty much all govern
ment, and all the details of government,
to the weak and sometimes foolish men
around and about him. He has no con-
trolling mind He seems to have as little
taste as aptitude for civil administration
and hence his satraps and subOrdinateS,
left to themselves, are constantly involv-
ing him i'm complications which must not
only compromise his popularity with the
people, but shake their confidence in him,
as a safe man to be at the helm of State.
In all kindness, we would advise the
President to try and be President in fact,
and not IN name. Let him trust less to
the Regency which his Cabinet members
seem to be engineering at Washington, to
save him the trouble of attending to his
own proper duties-fOr though Re
gency' may be well enough as feeler to-
wards the coming Empire" we do not
think any considerable number Of our
people, just yet, are prepared to put up
with it. We do not know whether the
Generals love of the turf and kindred
pastimes leaves him any time for the study
of history or nOt-but if so, he will find
that nearly all the Chief Magistrates who
have been suddenly expelled from place
during the last two hundred years, owed
their expulsion, first, to their own neglect
of public duty, and second, to trusting
too much to Cabinet underlings and other
subordinates of the Regency" or the
Crown."-Neao York Express, Aug,tst ii.