New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1872-04-16
Some Of President Grants N1istakes.
IRrovn he Cbica Trihuno1

Some Of President Grants N1istakee.A
From the Chicago Tribune.1
The du1lesteyed are beginning to see and
rising into national movement unsurpassed
in importance since the Chicago convention
Of 1860. The prestige of numbers ana OF
we'll known names combines with the en-
thusiasm which always accompanies q re-
formatorv and aggressive policy to give UNI
versal interest to the developing movement
Of the Liberal Republicans. The Repuol'
cans who oppose it or stand neutral are gen.
orally in9uiring rather than oHJecting.
administration which they think aptly char
acterized by the New York Independent a
year 400 as "too good to be bad and too
had to be good" should arouse such deep
and general dissatisfaction. What great
mistakes, they ask, has President Grant
made which indicate that his reelection
would be inexpedient! To this it
might be- answered that President is
presumed to retire at the end of his
term, unless some good reason exists
for making him an exception to the rule.
But in the present case the indications that
q new selection will be made by the people
next November arise from two abundant
and positive causes, viz: First, President
Grants mistakes in craftsmanship. amount
ing to q painful lack of that primary requi-
site; and, secondly, the forward movement
or tide of political progress, which, in the
space. of four years, since Grants last
nomination, has buried the issues on which
he was elected, and brought forward new
ones. upon " hich only the liberal wing of
the Republican party is prepared to act.
The Presidents mistakes may be summed
up in the kindest phrase, and without one
word of personal reproach, under the fol-
lowing heads, which, taken together, ac-
count for the Cincinnati convention.
l. His disregard of the just elaine of
Republican leaders Of wisdom and judgment
to be consulted as such in the selection Of
his Cabinet and of the chief diplomatic and
civil appointments. "A party. unlike an
army, acknowledges no one sole leader. Its
own president forfeits his leadership if he
fails to cooperate and harmonic with his
party. In selecting his Cabinet without
consultation even with Republicans who
stood SO near to him as Rawlins and Wash
burne, he pursued a military. and not a
statesmanlike policy. In excluding from
the Cabinet every first-class statesman who
might have been named for it, and IN ap-
pointing its members exclusively with a
view to secure men who had been useful to
himself, he again followed a military, not a
statesmanlike policy. At that time. the
seemed to tire country to fit them for the
constitutional advisers of the President
would have been Sumner, Wilson, or Bout
well, of Massachusetts,; Fessenden, OF
Maine; Greeley, Fenton, George w. Curtis,
or COnkling, of New York; Curtin, of
Pennsylvania; Sherman, of Ohio; Judge
Trnmbull. or General Palmer, of Illinois;
and the like. None of these were named,
though the urgent demand of Congressman
l. A. ~, inv ,,vrt
of Boutwell,, who, though narrow and ig-
nQrant of finance as speciality, has still
been the only Cabinet officer who has had
any positive influence whatever. 1t is safe
to say that, had the Cabinet been strong
one, and he followed its cOunsels, general
amnesty would have been accomplished,
and the harmony of the Southern people
with the nation restored; no San Domingo
job or sale Of arms to France would have
been heard of: no Motleys, or Jussens, or
Grinnells would have been removed TO
punish recal citrant Senator's; and no neces-
sity would have arisen for any whipping of
otfice-holders in the effort to renominate
Grant. But General who had never held
civil office made a profound mistake
when he rejected all statesmen from lis
Cabinet.
g The San Domingo blunder comes next.
1t was chiefly important for the lack OF
craftsmanship which inspired the Presi-
dent to regard every one who opposed it AS
his personal enemy, and, by furnishing him
as such, to make him at last an enemy i'll
all sincerity and bitterness. No President
who had had experience in civil lite would
have committed this blunder. 1t was the
spirit of an obstinate soldier, not Of states
man.
3. About $4,000 out of the $4,000 appoint
nd hic
subOrdinates were given to family friends
and relatives. Some of them are doubtless
improper and lndecorous, but we never
have thought this error Of the President
one Of great magnitude. 1t was out of
taste, and, in connection with other things,
showed that the President looked upon the
Presidency as perquisite rather than a
trust; but the people would have found lit
lie fault with the Caseys, and Shapes, and
Hudsons, and Cramers if other troubles had
not come at the same time.
T. The creation of military ring, or
Kitchen Cabinet, under the caves OF the
White House. with branch in the New
York CustomhOuse, managed by Murphy,
and atfording sustenance to Leet and Stock
ing, as presidential pets, with ingalls, al
ways little way in the distance; is not so
harmless fact. 1t is hard for President
to he damned by his friends, to whose i'm
portunities he yielded, with the intent to
relieve their impecuniosity and make every
body happy around him. The motives of
the chief magistrate, were, doubtless,
merely generous; but the money which he
gave being that of the New York mer-
chants, and being in the nature of an addi-
tional tax on commerce not found in any
act of Congress-, the affair AMOUNTS to a
stencil. Every person who desires General
Grants denomination must regret that he
still carries Leet and Stocking as compla-
Gently as though he thought the burden a
light one.
5. The use of the appointing and femov-
ing power to eoerce Congress and the
people into asserting to any and all his
previous bluDders without objection, is
the most unwise and unstatesmanlike of
the Presidents mistakes. Motley, a bril-
liant historian and accomplished diplomat,
removed to punish Sumner; Grinnell, a re-
putable and able collector of customs, re-
moved to punish Greeley; score of officers
in Missouri removed to punish Carl Schurz:
and the whole batch of Southern appoint
ments held IN te1yOfem to coerce the carpet
bag Senators to depose Sumner, show where
in the spirit of despotism is fatal to true
craftsmanship. No government could re-
main free whose legislators did not resent
and punish such dictatiOn.
g. A few of our Presidents, like Tyler and
Andrew johnson, have maintained Kit
chen Cabinet of Priyy Councillors, whose
names were never sent to the Senate for
confirmation. and have consulted them, in
back stairs way. upon those leading points
OF domestic policy which the constitution
assumes should be decided by the Cabinet.
But the experiment has never vet sue
ceeded: When our President had made up
Cabinet solely out of the circle of his
drawing-room friends, and with. reference
to enjoyment rather than craftsmanship, it
seems superhuous to run "wbeel within
this wheel" whose spokes should be Nor
ton, Cameron, Porter and Murphy. Per