American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1872-06-15
SENATOR SUMNER ON THE AID
MINISTRATION.

In the United States Senate on the 31st
| ult, Senator Sumner paid his respects to
President Grant in lengthy speech, in
which he gave a scathing review of the
personal and political record of that high
| official. We subjoin a synopsis of Mr..
Summers remarks:
| After some preliminary remarks, Mr.. Sum
ner proceeded to detail the rise and progress
| of the Republican party, and his connection
with it, party necessary and permanent,
and always on the ascending plane. But,
| alas! how changed. Once principle in
| scribed on its victorious banners, and not a
name only. 1t is not difficult to Indicate
| when the disastrous change, eXalting the
| will of one man above all else, became man
| ifest. Already it had begun to show itself
in personal pretensiOns. When the Prcsi-
dent elected by the Republican party prccipi-
tated upon the country an ill-considered and
| i'll omened scheme for the annexation of a
portion of San Domingo, in pursuance of a
| treaty negotiated by one of his own house
hold, it was pressed for months by every
means and appliances of power Reluctant
Senators We're subdued for its support.
While treading under foot the Constitution in
one of its most distinctive republican prin-
ciples, the President seized the war power
of the nation, instituted foreign interven-
ton, and capped the climax of usurpation
by menace of violence to the black Repub-
lie of Hayti, thus adding manifest outrage
of international law to manifest outrage OF
the Constitution.
Mr. Sumner would gladly leave this matter
to the judgment already recorded, were it
not put in issue again by the extraordinary
efforts radiating on every line of office to
place its author for the second term in the
Presidential chair; and since silence gives
consent, all these efforts are his efforts. The
extent of this personal pressure and subor-
dination of party to the will of the individu-
al compels us to consider his pretentions.
These, too, are an issue: "On what meat
doth this, our Caesar, feed, that he should
assume SO much?" No honor or victory in
the world can justify disobedience to the
Constitution and to the law, nor can it af-
ford the least apology for any personal i'm
munty, privilege, or license in the Presiden-
tial Office. The President must turn into
the King before it can be said of him that
che can do no wrong.'' lie is responsible
always President He is the foremost
servant of the law, bound to obey its
slightest mandate. As the elect of the peo-
pie, he owes not only the example of willing
obedience, but also of fidelity and industry in
the discharge of his conspicuous Office, with
an abrogation of self, seeking nothing for
SELF but everything for the country. And
now, as we regard the career of this can
it accords with this simple requirement.
Bring it to the touchstone and it falls. Not
only are Constitution and law disregarded,
but the Presidential office is treated as little
more than plaything and reconsideration
not the former the latter. The details are
ample, showing how from the beginning
this exalted trust has dropped to be a
personal indulgence, where palace cars,
fast horses, and seaside loiterings figure
more than the duties; how personal
aims and objects have been more prom
inent than public interests; how the office of
President has been used to advance his own
family on scale of ncpotism dwarting every
thing of the kind in our history, and hardly
equaled in corrupt Governments, where this
abuse has prevailed How, in the same spir
it, office has been conferred upon those from
fbY,c
making the country repay his personal obi
cations; how personal devotion to himself,
rather than the public or party service, has
been made the standard of favor; how the
vast appointing power conferred by the Con-
stitution, for the general welfare, has been
employed at his Will, to promote his schemes,
to reward his friends, to punish his oppo-
nents and to advance his election to second
term; how all these assumptions have ma
tured in personal government, semi military
in character, and breathing military spirit,
being 4 species of Cesarism or personalism,
abhorrent to republican institutions, where
subservience to the President is supreme
law; how, in maintaining this subservience,
he has operated by system of combina-
tions, having their orbits about him, SO that,
like the planet Saturn, he is surrounded
by rings Nor does the similtude end
here, for his rings, like those of the
planets, are held IN position by the satellites
how this utterly unrepublican Caesarism has
mastered the Republican party, and dictated
Senate Chamber itself, while vindictive
spirit visits good Republicans who cannot
submit how the President himself, uncOn
cious that the President has no right to quar-
rel with anybody, insists upon quarreling
until he has become the great Presidential
qurrellcr, with more quarrels than all other
Presidents together, and all begun and CON
tinued by himself how his personal follow
ers back him in quarrel, insult those he in
suits, and, then, not departing from his
spirit, cry out with Shakespeare, eve will
have rings, and things, and fine array )" and
finally, how the chosen head of the Republic
is known chiefly for Presidential pretensiOns
utterly indefensiblc in character, derogatory
to the country, and full of evil influence,
making personal objects primary pursuit,
so that, instead of a benefcent presence, he
is n bad example, through whom republican
institutions suffer and the people learn
wrong. Would that these things could be
forgotten but since, through ofiicious
friends, the President insists upon second
will vindcate them. 1t is easy to that
Ciesarism, even in Europe, is ut a discount
that personal government has been beaten
in that ancient field, and that Caesar with a
Senate at his heels" is not a fit model for
our Republic. King George I'LL, of Eng
land, so peculiar for obstinacy and narrow
ness, had rctainers in Parliament who went
under the name of the Kings Friends"
Nothing can be allowed here to justify the
inquiry, Have we Il King George among us!'
or that other question, 'sTIave we
party in the Senate of the Kings
friends?' Personal government is auto
cratic and in direct conflict with re
publican government. government of
laws and not of men is the object of a
republican government. Nay, more; it is
the distinctive essence without which it be-
comes tyranny; therefore, personal govern
mcnt, in all its forms, and especially when it
seeks to sway the action of any other branch,
Or overturn its constitutional negative, is
hostile to the first principles of republican
and an unquestionable outrage.
That our President has offended in this way,
is unhappily too apparent. The President is
a civilian. To comprehend the personal
government that has been installed over us,
we must know its author. His picture is the
necessary frontispiece; not as "a soldier, it is
TO be borne in mind; but as civilian. To
appreciate his peculiar character a civilian,
it is important to know his triumphs a
soldier, for one is the natural complement of
the other. The successful soldier is rarely
changed to the successful civilian. There
seems incompatbility between the two,
modified by the extent to which the one has
been allowed to exclude the other. Always
a soldier, one cannot late in life become a
statesman. One always civilian, cannot
late in life become soldier In modern
Europe few soldiers have been more con
spicuous than Gustavus Adolphus and Fred
erick. sometimes called the Great; but we
learn that both failed ANONYMOUSLY in their
domestic policy, and showed themselves as
in the arts of peace as they
We're sagacious in the arts of war. The jndg-
Inent of Marlborough is more pointed. While
portraying him the Greatest con
fights Victor of Blenhcim and
Mr. Buckle, in his History of
describes him as Il man not only
of the most idle and frivolous pursuits but SO
ignorant that his deficiency made
him the ridicule of his contemporaries, while
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