The Portland daily press., 1871-03-31

The Modern Tiberius.
THE PRESIDENT COMPARED WITH THE
WORST OF THE CEsARs.
The following extract from Washington
dispatch to the Chicago Post will show how |
unduly excited Mr.. Sumner has become |
in his warfare on the President:
How many intelligent Americans are there,
not blinded by absurd partisan passion, who |
believed Ulysses s. Grant, President of the
United States, to be a man of dishonest char.
acter, and OF using his position to enrich
himself by bad means? How many are there
who, remembering that during the war he al
most alone, OF all our leading Generals, was
scrupulously exact not to unnecessarily
override the civil law or the personal rights
OF any one, now believe him to be self.willed
tyrant, capable of wantOnly violating inter-
national laws, and wickedly bullying a poor
| and defenseless people? Who believes the
President to be man of dsgraceful charac-
| ter or one so ignorant as to be fittingly char
acterized as a 'collossus of incapacity and ig-
| norance," which comprehensive formula is
| the common expression of the Hon. Charles
Sumner, when conversing about the Pres-
/ dent? This sort of expression is not a new
| or sudden one. 1t has been in use for long
| time past.
But the Senator's estimate of our chief
magistrates character does not stop with this.
| He goes much further and uses language and
denunciatiOns which almost Justly reasona-
Bile person in believing that passion has un-
seated treason, and reigns in that splendid
brain instead of his lawful sovereign. As an
example of this rule of unreasonable temper,
let me narrate fact. Recently on visit to
this city OF distinguished citizen of Massa-
chusetts, who was Mr.. Summers guest, sever
al gentlemen called at the Senator's residence
to see his and their friend. To more than
one he used the expression have before cited
that OF denouncing Grant as "Collossus
of incapacity." One gentleman took occa-
sion, being compelled by the Senator's
hoping that he sympathized with him (the
Senator) in his San Domingo policy, to
state in moderate manner that he did not
so spmpathize, but that that the President
was unfairly criticised. On this, Mr.. Sumner
broke out in raging manner, denouncing the
President for almost every possible wrong, f.
nally winding up by declaring that he was
"worse than Tiberius." His attention was
called to the character ofthe wretch to whom
the President was compared, but the Senator
repeated it. Bass
ANoD1oUs COMPARISON.
There may be some curious enough, as was
your correspondent, to refresh their memo
ries with an examination OF the record of I'll
l bcIluS NcTO, UuITU Vi luc Nc6SdTS WHO OQC6
ruled over Rome. If we have the prototype
OF Tiberius at the hea d of our government
what queer set of people, and an ignorant
, one, too, we must be- l have lying before
me "The Lives of the First Twelve Caesars
, | Translated from the Latin of G.. SeutOniu
Tranqullus," etc., by Alexander Thomson
NJ. D.; London. 1746. 1 find Tibefius de
scribed as member of the Claud:i patriciar
family, born at Rome, "in the sixteenth OF The
/ dc Of ,hor xyl,o A..
was second time Consul" His infancy anG
youth was spent in turmoil and travel
Nothing marked his early manhood except
being divorsed from his first wife and marry
ing the daughter of Caesar Augustus, with
whom he could not live happily, and was soon
separated. Tiberius murdered his mother
divorced his wives, assassinated the son of his
Renefactor, Augustus; held grandson and
daughter confined in chains for years, slew
chil len by the scores, outraged women, in
vented the most atrocious lortures. And
this is the wretch to whom Mr.. Sumner com
pa1es tue President. II any likes to see how
earning can poison character, and slandt b(
barbed under the utterance of an histOrica
reference, let me refresh the estimate of Mr.
Summers fairness by this excerpt from the
tree pages of "Seutonius" as decoriouslv rem.
dered by DR.. Thomson: l-..
"Human nature recoils with horror at the
cruelties OF this execrable tyrant, who, Iav-
ing first imbrued bis hands in the blood OF his
own relations" that is surely not crime to
be imputed to U. S. Grant, as, according 10
Mr.. Summers usual charges his offepse hath
much more personally kind aspect-CoR. I
"proceedtd to exercise them upon the public
with indiscrminate fury. Neither age nor
sex afforded any exemption from his insatia-
BILE thirst of blood. Through the
whole of his life Tiberius seems to have con-
Quoted himself with a uniform repugnance to
nature. Affable on few occasions, but in
general ayerse to society, he INDUCED, from
his earliest years, moroseness of disposition
which counterfeited the appearance of aus.
tere virtue; and in the decline of life, when
it is common to reform from juvenile indis-
cretiOns, he launched forth into excuses of a
kind the most unnatural and most detestable.
l have quoted this Characterization at
length, that the manner in which Mr.. Sum-
ner habitually speaks OF the President NAV
be understood. This perhaps is the worst
comparison have heard of his making, but
there are scores of authenticated anecdotes in
circulation of minor, but still gross denuncia-
tlons. Mr.. Sumner is a profound classical
scholar, might almost say. The gentleman
to whom this was said is one also. He re-
minded the Senator of the character he was
using, but the comparison being repeated
makes Mr.. Summers idea of the President
simply atrocious, nay, infamous, in its enor
nifty. Is it any wonder that bad blood exists
Does any one suppose that it is possible to
do state business, bublic or private, with
mar who indulges in such rancorous criti
cisms?