Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1869-04-01
Grants UnfrlendIy Friends.
WaShburne's SklllfuI Manlpula-
ton OF the President.
A Man and His Master,
The Division In the Republican
:. Party and Its Causes.

any special concern with aught bu
its public aspects. But as affair
to-day stand, no man can com
pletely understand its public aspect
without a pretty full knowledge O
private relations. The resentment
kindled by the New York Custom
house appointments, which are deel
and bitter; the wraths engendere(
by the fiery fight over the tenure-of
office law, and President Grants
pretence to certain Senator'S that the
presence of that law On the statute
book prevents him from making re-
mOvals more rapidly, all have con.
Cured to establish an exasperated
row on that sacred body of Con-
/ gressmen who had grown into the
habit of governing the country.
They foam at the mouth when no
Democrat is by to ask after their
healths. They curse Grant and all
his kin, and, what is more remark
able, they are so enraged as to be
losing something of discretion in
the way they conduct their game
against him Those men, however,
will recover themselves and play it
out to the last card in 1872.
Grant exhibits such an utter alb
sence of all faculty to properly or
correctly estimate the character of
public men, that these men proclaim
it upon the housetops and there is
nobody to contradict them. They
indeed are not appreciated, but that
is not all, nobody else is who des
serves to be, and those very men
who one month ago were telling me
on the corners of these streets that
Grants luck in his army subordin-
ates would show itself in civil life as
a capacity to discern the cast and
disposition of politicians, confess to
me that he has not so much dis
cernment as a toad. They say that
if there be one man whose whole na-
ture he ought to have known and
protected himself against it was
Washburne. Results have demon
strated in that instance not only
that Grant is dull as a beetle, but
for some reason is neTyeless and i'm
beetle in the presence of Washburne.
The psychology of it might possibly
be explained by the history of it,
but this should betray confidence
were | to disclose.
1t now appears that in the orig
inal plan of the cabinet, Fessenden
was to have been Secretary of State ;
but when that came to Wash
burne's ears, he dictated the substi-
tuition of himself. Grant now as
serts that the arrangement only
covered a nomination to the Senate,
and that Washburne was never
even to qualify for the office But
once confirmed, Washburne de-
manded his commission, which the
abject President gave. Then, as
Premier, Washburne began to par
eel out the offices. Approaching
the pecuniary greed of Grant, the
Secretary of State rapidly found
eligible places for the Grants and
Dents, to the remotest generation,
and thus narcotised his victim,
while the chief appointments at
home and abroad were distributed
about in the interest Of the. Wash
burne family. Thus Gibbs, Sickles,
Ford, and a hundre& others, were
made secure of Grants promise.
At last public opinion, assisted
possibly by some slight and gentle
surgery ON the part of the World,
began to force its way through the
Presidents Uranium, he made an
effort to throw off the shackles, but
Washburne soon brought the former
to a realizing sense of his depend
ence. AT last, however, public opin.
ion began to tell upon Washburne
himself. He saw that the country
was jeering at him as the head of
the Department of State-him an
ignoramus in international law, and
incapable to define the mere geOg
raphy of Europe The jeering has
tened his determination to leave the
earlier than he had at
first intended, and set off at once
for Paris, provided he could first
bully Grant into the needed com
initials for controlling the distribu-
ton of offices.
The Stewart fiascO, the message |
thereon that was rejected by the
Senate, the contempt of his friends,
aud the derision of his enemies, had
brought President Grant to his mar
An arrogant, and some
say insolent, recital by Washburne
of the labors and trials "individ- |
ually'' of him who had inspired and
upheld Grants career from the
tannery to the White House, and
by influence over the administration
of Lincoln had destroyed, or caused
to be destroyed, one by one, all the
commanders of the Army of the Po-
tomac, and by hurrying on the re-
serves during the terrible and need
less slaughter of the Wilderness had
made possible for Grant what oths
erwise would have been an impossi-
bility-this recital, say, had the
effect of a loaded revolver at the
head of an unarmed man.
Grant broke down. His answer
was, Anything, anything you ask,
Washburne, provided you leave the
country at once. :"
Thence came a lot of promises
extorted with purpose, on Wash
burne's part, to make himself sort
of American vicegerent in Europe,
and his friends supreme at home in
the Treasury Department. From
this came Grants backing away
from A. L. Stewart.
The President now sees how like
a whipped spaniel he has behaved,
and seeks to lay down the cross,
but Washburne is relentless. And
here comes in one explanation of
Grants playing fast and loose with
the tenure of-office law. His real
motive is to have an excuse for not
sending just now to the Senate the
appointments promised to Wash
burne. If some cabinet officer
would stand between Grant and