New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1873-08-09

MEANS we suppose, that Grant Is 10 DE aouoou
and slandered to such an extent that the
party will be obliged to renominate and re-
elect him as a certificate of confidence IN. MN ;
and still another says "the party will noml-
" nate and elect him if it peases" and ask
"no odds" of anybody.
Some truth and some nonsense In all tnis'
Gen. Grant may or may not be duii' coiu-
blooded Caesar. He personally has given no
signs of it yet whatever may be the plans OIL
other people for him. He is pretty much the
same as when he was elected last year,
with the same love of ease ana
raoose. the same distaste for pubic
bnsiness and the same readiness to accept
,ybat comes. We do not believe he is danger
orc man in any such sense as he has some
times been represented. He is not con-
spirator OF plotter. Whether OF not MS no-
tions of government and his methods OF adj
ministration are of evil influence and example,
and calculated to establish unwholesome anu
dangerous habits of political thought and con-
duct. is quite another question, which need not
now be discussed. But the fear, IT there be
any. of his personal ambition leading him to
attempt the;role of Caesar is, we believe, ground
less Indeed it is well enough to remember
that the danger to free government IS not
likely to arise from the ambition of individu-
ais so much as from the slow growth of per-
nicious systems and the development OF mis-
chievou, aad short-sighted policies.
1t is by no means certain that President
Grant will not be renominated for third
term, though it is supremacy silly to undertake
to forecast so remote an event. One has only
L. nj ohounaa N thp standing
of prominent politicians during the last nine
months to be convinced of the uncertainty OF
political regulations and the futility of con-
lecture as to the probabilities of conventions
and campaigns three years away. 1t takes
short time in the rapid whirling of our kaleid-
oscope to turn everything upside down and
bring out new and startling combinations.
Had the developments of the last session
of the last Congress been brought to light
one year ago the Presidential election would
very likely have resulted differently what
changes, perhaps equally unexpected ana
strange, the next three years have in store for
us, 1t is impossible to guess. Ii we might
Judge from present indications, we should say
NOT only that President Grants denomination
is far from impossible, but that it is not en-
tlrelY out OIL U0c range VI POooip''iNS '"N ~
will be the best nomination practicable for
the party, and perhaps for the country. lie
was nominated last year not because OF his
special fitness or his success III administration,
or as the nonsense of the campaign ran, on
account of his great services in the war,
for which he had not been fully paid. 1t
was simply because no one of the aspirants
for the succession felt strong enough then to
make a fight for it, and they preferred to give
Grant four years more, in which time each
hoped to strengthen himself sufficiently to 90
into the next convention with hopeful back
ing. There has been something of fatality
among statesmen since then. The list OF as
pirants has been somewhat thinned by Credit
Mobier exposures and back-pay follies. The
conditions now are pretty much the same as
those which last year forced the denomination
at Philadelphia, but no one knows how long
they will continue. Meantime it is to be OBJ
served that while there is great show of vir-
tue over the back-pay business in indignant
resolutions of State conventions and warm
denunciations by party organs on all sides, there
is marked tenderness toward the President,
who is the chief sinner in the matter. No one
denounces him, by resolution or otherwise.
We apprehend no danger from CGsarism
Our peril is not, we repeat, from any one
mans ambition. 1t comes rather from the
disposition to enthrone the Caucus and make
the party supreme. That done and the party
ruled, as is possible, by gang of unprinci-
pied demagOgues and we shall have not
perhaps Cesarism but something infinitely
worse.