New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1874-10-07

STATE POLITICS IND A THIRD TERN.
1t is not incredible that there be honest and
well meaning citizens who accept as conclusive
the assertions of several unauthorized organs
that President Grant has no idea of re-
nomination, and that the talk about third
term is, as one of them puts it, call assump-
" ton and presumption" . There is something
very plausible in the manner of their presenta-
ton of the case, and it may be that unthink-
ing people are taking it for granted that
"there's nothing in it," for the simple reason
that it is pOOh-poOhed by the organs which
naturally would advocate it if the Presidents
heart were set on it. 1t is not denied, of
course, that there are persons holding office
who for the sake of retaining their offices, are
willing to risk Overturning all the traditions
of the republic and notwithstanding its charac-
ter but the organs argue that the influence OF
this small class is altogether insignificant, and
that it would not be dignifed on
the part of great and successful
party to treat seriously such an absurd
proposition. To the citizen who shrinks from
the contemplation Of the possibility of third
term for Grant, and especially to the
Republican, proud of his party and its re-
cord, who cannot bear the thought of its be-
ing so turned from it's high mission to the
uses of office holding, self-seeking, and per-
sonal ambitions. such view of the case is
very reassuring. Perhaps it is not strange
that it is accepted with little or no examina-
ton of facts OF questioning OF conclusions.
Not to make any such well-disposed persons
unhappy, or to disturb the placidity of their
lives, but simply to give them a clearer un-
&C he afta 30
the two or three considerations in it which
lead thinking men to doubt the sincerity of
the organs and to believe that there is much
more in the third term talk than they would
have US believe. We call attention in the
first place to the admission of the correctness
of The TRIBUNE's pOsitiOn-fOrtifed by cOpious
citations from authorities-that Presidential
third term would be contrary not only to all
presidents, but to the spirit of our institu-
tons and the ideas of the founders of the
Government. This admission is implied in
the treatment which the third term organs
have given this view of the matter; shutting
it out of the casev entirely, OF refer
ring to it as hunting up of records of
"the administrations of Washington and
Jefferson and Madison and Adams and
jackson, telling us what they thought and
"what they did not think, garbling their pri-
"vate letters and State papers, reminding us
"of what they call the precedents and the
"traditions-as if in this busy, busting age
1--WE must bend and mold ourselves to suit
"the hasty and perhaps i-cOnsidered notions
of men and parties who lived nearly three
| quarters of q century ago (which is the
language of The Washington Republican. The
tentative way in which the subject is ap-
preached, the disposition to sound public
opinion, to 60 slowly, to take no
risks of administering sudden shock
to public sentiment, to gain time
for sapping and mining and zigzag-
cling toward tall these are admissions that
delicate handling is required, and that the
men who are in the conspiracy are 30 much
in earnest that they take no chances for incur
ring defeat through rashness. The sensitive
ness which is manifested at the discussion is
another indication that there is something
imperiled by it in which they have an in
terest. The organ from which we have
quoted, which is near the President and
supposed to have unusual sources of inspira-
ton, and which was among the first to put
out "feelers" upon the subject, calls particular
attention to the fact that lit is the opposition
press and not the press friendly to General
Grant that is keeping up the third term eI-
"ctementn 1.-THE Republican papers," it con-
tinues, "or. as they are more frequently called,
the Grant organs are all or nearly all silent
"upOn the subject, except when they are
forced into the controversy by their
contemporaries. In this they only imi-
"tate tho example Of tho President him