The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1872-02-03
The Reconstruction of General Grant-The
Witches Afound tho Caldr0n.


What a time the political witches are having
around their caldron "Bubble, bubble-toil
and troubled" The air is filed with their
incantations, Witch Wilkes and Witch Sum-
ner and their haggard and impatient follow
ers keeping up shrill chorus and destroy
ing the public peace. If we hearken to their
chants there was never so base, 80 wretched,
so false President as Grant; and if we gave
any heed to their heated fancies we should feel
that the country was on the eve of new revo-
luton, that Grant was to be whirled out OF his
seat and we were to have new millennium,
with Sumner In the Cabinet and Wilkes in Office,
and Greeley the observed of all observers in
the stately halls of Buckingham Palace. All this
time the country is quiet and patient, thinking
Its own quizzical thoughts about the mad, pranc-
| ing witches, while the silent Ulysses calmly
smokes his Presidential cigar and attends to
the nations welfare, and cares no more for
the mob that denounces him than If they were
troupe of minstrels making a clatter at the
kitchen door and resolved not to move under
a shilling.
| The misfortune with these men is that they
do not reason calmly, but take counsel of their
own vanity. If every public man were hon
ored according to his estimate of himself we
should probably have twenty thousand Presi-
dents. This whole anti-Grant movement is a
clamor. 1t lacks purpose, shape, consecutive
| thought, substance. 1t rises before us like
| the mist from Niagara. We see the mist and
hear the noise, but there is nothing that we
can grasp. When we ask what has Grant
done that he should be dshonored, we
hear lamentations about relatives and broth
ers-in-law and presents and brides and cor
ruptions in the Custom House. Even Mr.
Greeley, who should be above such rhetoric,
and makes daily proclamation of his honesty
and fairness, has permitted himself to join in
this chorus. We answer that nothing has
been urged against Grant that does not
upon reason and analysis prove to be
vulgar scandal. Take the latest charge
this about the Custom House. Does Mr..
Greeley or Mr.. Wilkes or Mr.. Sumner
believe for a moment that the President is a
silent partner in the general order business, or
that he has made one dollar out Of his Office not
directed by law, or that he has connived at
any violation of law Would Mr.. Greeley,
were he called upon to deliver lecture upon
Grant, as he has been lecturing upon Lincoln,
discuss the Presidents character as he and his
friends now discuss it? On the contrary
were General Grant dead and the subject
of Mr.. Greeley's lyceum observations,
his career would be judged calmly,
a;~1r opI IN
coin was living, and, as is the case with
Grant, the candidate of many men for renom-
| inaton to the Presidency, Mr.. Greeley dis
cussed him as something between a mounte-
bank and a horse jockey, and was earnestly
opposed to his denomination. That was polit-
ical criticism. When Lincoln died Mr.. Greeley
wrote a lecture, in which he treated the late
| President with kindness and honor. That was
historical criticism. Now we ask why do not
| our politicians be fair and treat all of our pub
lie men-whether living or dead-with histor-
ical juSice? Why should every canvass for
the Presidency be little more than carnival
of slander-of permitted, unrebuked defama-
ton? Why cannot these men who claim to
be teachers and leaders rise above the murky
atmosphere of partzanship and be just? For
we believe that whether a man is living or
dead, candidate for Office or a private citi-
zen, he deserves cold, calm justice. In award
ing this to President Grant we find ourselves
confronted by this group of uneasy witches in
wild hurly burly. We look at the military
career of General Grant, and we see certain
marked political events. He has paid so many
millions of our debt; he has kept the peace
in spite of all kinds of Cuban and Spanish
temptations; he has solved the angry and
threatening Alabama question; he has given
justice to the Indians and protection to the
freedman in the South, and he has borne him.
self in his high place with dignity, simplicity,
unostentation, as an American gentleman
charged with high trusts and discharging
them in the most direct and satisfactory
manner
General Grant certainly has been as salts
factory a President as Washington, or JEFF
fferson, or Jackson or Lincoln. The country
proposes to honor him as these other states
men were honored. The witches break
out into clamor of denuncation and cry
out their tavern scandals, which nobody
believes, and they do not believe themselves.
One or two Of the graver ones say further -.
''We do not suggest General Grant for re-
election, because we are in favor of the princi-
pie of one term for Presidential candidates. "
This is q principle, is it? Let us grant
that. Why, then, force this principle upon the
country at time when its advocacy is an act
Of injustice to Grant? This 'principle' did
not prevent Ar. Greeley, Mr.. Wilkes, Mr..
Sumner, and, in fact, the whole tribe Of