The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1874-04-09
President Grant and South Carolina.

President Grant and South Carolina.
The details of the extraordinary behavior Of
President Grant when he was visited on Satur-
day last by a respectable delegation of the
citizens of South Carolina are simply humilia-
ting, not only to the deluded persons who
voted for him in 1872 but to the whole country
of which he is to-day the representative head
This delegation was commended to his particu-
| lar consideration and courtesy by the leading
member of his own Cabinet. Ignorant as he
VIGOROUSLY is of most of the matters which it
| behooves President of the United States to
know, he has visited the South and he must
have been perfectly familiar with the fact that
the persons whom he was receiving were men
of character standing and good repute in the
community to which they belong. Had he not
believed them to be so, indeed, he would have
been trihing unwarrantably with the dignity
of his office in receiving them at all. Inditfer-
ent as he notoriously is to most of those mat
ters about which it behooves President OF the
United States to concern himself, he is certain
| ly aware that the actual condition of the COM
mnonvealth of South Carolina is disgrace and
danger to our whole republican system of
government By no one has that condition
been more forcibly set forth than by Jealous
member of the Presidents own political party,
Mr.. Pike of Maine, formerly United States
Envoy to the Hague, whose book on the "Pros-
trate State" has been published for now some
months and extensively commented on in the
press of all parts of the country. That the
President reads the newspapers carefully 1s
evident enough from the simple fact that in
replying to this very delegation he dwelt with
infinite emphasis on the unpleasant way in
which he himself is habitually treated, as he
said, in the columns of New York morning
journal. The language of the petition pre-
sented to him by this delegation was no strong
er than-it was not so strong as-the language
of Mr.. Pixies book in its exposition of the in-
tolerable wrongs and outrages against which
the delegation was petitioned to protest. Pres
ident Grant then had every reason for listening
with respectful interest to the representations
which the delegation came to make to him. 1t
is impossible to imag inc anything more proper
to Danish from the mind of an ordinarily in-
telirent and ordinarily upright man in the
high position of President Grant every thought
connected with himself and his personal feel
ings than the appearance before him of such a
! body of his fellow-citizens on such an errand.
Yet so far was this effect from being pro-
duced upon President Grant that the only
topic in regard to which he expressed the
slightest concern was an alleged personal at
tack made upon himself during the recent
session of the convention by which this dele
CATION was appointed. The attack was de-
scribed by himself as scurrilous and false.
The person who made it was not a member
! of the committee before him. That it must
have been repudiated and dsowned utterly
by the convention which appointed the Com
mittee was evident from the simple fact of the
presence of the Committee in the Executive
Mansion. Not to see this was to offer every
individual member of the Committee a gross
personal insult, an insult as much more scan
dalous than the attack Of which President
Grant complained as the position ofa President
of the United States receiving the represen-
tatives of an American State in the American
CAPITAL is higher and more responsible than
the position of an obscure member of a local
convention discussing local questions IN a
heated debate.
The history of the Executive office in this
country has not been wholly untarnished hith-
erto by words and acts unbecoming its impor-
tance and its dignity. But nothing like this
has smirched its record before. The personal
of incidents which friendly biographer, or a
biocrapher merely consderate of the honor and
renown of the great republic to whose highest
trusts, both civil and military, President Grant
has been called, will desire to dwell upon as
briefly and as lightly as may be. The abest
foreign writer who has yet essayed the It task ask
British army, has found himself constrained to
allude to portions of that career as painful"
and Americans must admit the courtesy which
has thus dismissed them. But when we con-
slider circumstances of this new offence against
the proprieties of life, an offence committed not
by an obscure military subaltern in remote
corner of great country, but by the public dig.
nitary of the nation in its very capital, we are
constrained to feel that the only palliation of it
which the most partial and tolerant of his fel-
low-citizens can suggest must be sought, where
the excuse of that earlier discredit was found,
in influences which it is a fresh and poignant
national disgrace to be obliged to believe still
potent enough to deprive the Chief Magistrate
United States of that o se1esRis5 @ ob Th19s
and tpf for U the So5u country which he
York World