American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1872-07-13
receive Foreign Ambassadors, and assert

|
the dignity and authority of the Republic
in speeches; therefore, Greeley ought moi
to be elected. This is the logic of Presi
dent Grants friends; nay, it is the logic
| of President Grant himself; he is the
originator of it. In that remarkable let
| ter of acceptance of the Philadelphia
nomination, in which he attempted to
show why he should be reelected over all
other men in the world, he said: "My past
experience may guide me in avoiding mis-
takes, inevitable with nOvices in all pro
fessions and occupations.
| The fault of this argument is that ii
proves too much. 1t is entirely in favor
of the happy individual who may be the
''present incumbent;" it leaves no liberty
of choice to the people. 1t seems to mean:
Once a President, always President
Besides, 1t suggests very ugly question
which it fails to answer. President Grant
is mortal; he cannot live forever. at is
appointed to all men once to die, and we
have no record of an exception to this in
exorable rule in favor of the present oc
cupant of the White House. Some day OF
other we shall be called upon to lay all
that is left of him under that all receiving
sod where repOse the remains OF his Illus
trious predecessors. What then? With
no present incumbent" to re-elect, what
shall we do? Fall back on ''novices, y
like Greeley, of course. Would it not be
well, then, to begin this at once, so that
the possibly sudden demise of Grant may
not throw the Presidential office into dis
orders
But, in all seriousness, this assumption
of Grants superiority to Greeley, or to
any one of five thousand persons who
might be named, in Presidential qualifica-
tions, is downright nonsense. Even with
his boosted four years experience in the
office, Grant is not as well qualified for
it's duties as Horace Greeley. He is more
ignorant of these duties, this day, than
Greeley The very first qualification a Pres
ident needs, is a knowledge of the laws
which he is sworn to administer; the
next in order to this, is an obedience to
those laws. President Grant has proved
that he does not possess in a considerable
degree the first, and that he is seriously
deficient in the second. His very first
conspicuous official act after being in
stalled in Office three years ago was to ap-
point to the Treasury Department a man
whom a law of his country forbade to be
Secretary of the Treasury; and when his
attention was called to the difficulty, in
stead of changing his appointment to suit
the law, he asked Congress to change the
law to suit his appointment! He wanted
a wise and excellent law, passed three
quarters of a century ago by the fathers
of the Republic, repealed for the benefit
of single individual Horace Greeley,
'novice" though he be, would never do
such thing as that. No one of the six
teen "novices" who have preceded HIM
in the Presidency ever did such thing
and that President Grant, in doing it,
showed a stubborn wish to subordinate
the laws of his country to his personal
friendship is a strong reason why he
1t 60 hn do INIT
We admit that Grant has exhibited some
other peculiar qualifications that Horace
Greeley does not possess. Mr. Greeley is
poor Judge of horses; he has no
partially for Long Branch; he is
not given to the habit of neglecting
his duties, in the pursuit of his pleasures;
he would not attempt to drive such jobs
as the San Domingo annexation through
the Senate with the goad of hasty author
ity, in defiance of the opposition of the
people he would not send his Attorney
General to North Carolina to defeat a new
constitution by threats of Federal inter
ference he would not use Calling bat
teries and infantry in Louisiana to decide
the action of party meeting. MIR. Gree
ley is SO ignorant as not to know that a
President has authority to do these
things; but he is all the better for this
lack of knowledge, and we cannot see
that Grant is any better Tor imagining
that he possesses such authority when he
really does not possess it. In the attri-
butes of devotion to his country, obedi-
ence to it's laws, and admiration of its
free institutions, Mr.. Greeley is certainly
not inferior to Grant in methodical
habits of business and capacity for labor,
he has the advantage over him; and in
general knowledge of public affairs, laws
and precedents, he is far superior to
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