The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1872-01-17
Tho Presidential succession-General Grant
aud His Difficulties.

of General Grant to the Presidency in 1872,
the increasing difficulties of his administration,
at home and abroad, promise, at least, a very
interesting and exciting Presidential contest.
In General Grants present position there is
much to remind us Of the party feuds and
hostile factions which cropped out against
General Jackson and against Abraham Lincoln
as candidates for second term. Jackson, in
1882, was confronted by the national repub-
lican party of that day. which subsequently
took the name of the whig party; and by the
absurd anti Masonic party Gin the organization
of which, over what was pretended to be the
dead body of recanting Mason, named
Morgan, Thurlow Weed, of this State, was a
very active agents. and by the South Carolina
nullfers, under the lead of Calhoun, who had
quarrelled with and broken off from Jackson
Thus there were, in 1882, four parties in the
feld but they could not shake the popularity
of Jackson, as was shown in the electoral vote
which came out-For Jackson (democrat)
| 2l9; for Clay Irrational republican, 40; for
Writ (anti-Mason), z; for Floyd 0he Calhoun
vote of South Carolina), IL. Nevertheless,
after the election it was stoutly commended
that if those opposition elements could have
been united upon single ticket they might
have defeated Jackson, looking at his slender
popular majorities in many Of the States; but
as these discordant hostile factions could not
be combined they FILTERED their strength away
in their divisions.
| In the case of Lincoln, as in the case Of
| To- nj an IN
his reelection among what we may call the
political aristocracy of the country, including
the aristocracy of his own party. The homely
manners and backwoods simplicity of the
honest rail-splitter like the rough, frontier
training and plain directness of purpose
which characterized Jackson, were offensive
to the political aristocracy of all parties and
we find the same objections from the same
high and mighty classes applied to the plain
and unpretending General Grant. And yet
we have seen, from the time of General Jack
son down to this day, that the great body of
the American people are apt to prefer Presi-
dent from their own ranks to the grandest and
Hottest political giant. Hence, while such
great statesmen as Clay, Webster and CAL
houn, with all their efforts, failed to reach
the White House, such men, from the ranks
of the people, as Jackson, Harrison, Taylor,
Polk, Pierce, Lincoln and Grant, have been
triumphantly elected. The very objections,
therefore, that are pleaded most earnestly
| against General Grant, touching his common
habits and manners of life, and ways of
thought and action, and his ignorance of
books and precedents, and of refined states
manship and diplomacy, are really his strong
est recommendations with the masses of the
people, because he is of them and for them,
and because they sympathize with him as their
representative against those pretentious poll
teal nabobs who affect to look down upon the
unlettered masses with pity or contempt.
| In this view of the subject, therefore, that
which his adversaries represent as the special
weakness of General Grant is the secret of his
strength; for here he stands to the people in
the same light as Jackson, Harrison, Taylor
and Lincoln, and that is as a man from he
! body of the people and with no pretensons to
stand above them. But when we come to the
spoils and plumber we find that the difficulties
! of the President as q candidate for reelection
have increased since the time of Jackson with
his patronage. In every appointment of any
consequence from five to five hundred men
are disappointed, and some boilers in each
case are the consequence. So, resulting, in
the first place, more or less from division of
the spoils, Virginia, Georgia, Tennessee,
| Texas and Missouri have been lost to the adj
1au tiva obI
which threatens q general riot in New Or
leans, Louisiana, too, may be counted as lost.
| Next, our Custom House quarrel, Fenton
against Conkling, resulting in the present
| Custom House investigation, may cause the
loss of New York to General Grant, although
recovered to him, according to MIR. Greeley,
| by shrewd employment Of the spoils OF the
Custom House last fall.
| In addition to the States lost by the ad-
ministraton through factiOus quarrels over the
spols, Sumner threatens break in Massa-
chusetts, Fenton and Greeley and their fol-
lowers threaten all sorts of troubles at
ALBANY. Cox and his clique are bent upon
mischief in Ohio, and Trumbull in Illinois,
while Carl Schurz is operating everywhere
for his new departure with new party. AT
the same time the two democratic Senators
on our Custom House Investigating Com
mittee, Messrs. Bayard and Casserly, are
working like beavers to make up case Of
corruption which will neutralize the awful dis
closures of Tammany Hall through the
length and breadth of the land, and with some
prospect Of success. One would think, too
with all the opposition elements and floating
materially We haye pointed out, that if thu
democrats in Congress, or Democratic Con