The Portland daily press., 1874-10-06
Il HE PRESS.
TUESDAY MORNING, OCT. 6, 1874
The Third Term Conspiracy.

IUESDAf MOhNlNG, OUT. q, 1874
The Third Term Conspiracy.
There is certainly conspiracy to make
Gen. Grant third time President. We
make the statement in this bold form for the
express purpose OF giving our Bangor friends
and other censoriou, critics an opportunity to
detach it from the remainder of the article
and parade it as an evidence that the PRESS is
given over to hardness of heart and reprobate
mind. 1t is always pleasure to afford persons
who are disposed to improve the opportunity
the means of displaying their deep penetra-
ton, their infinite sagacity, their fairness and,
above all. their dauntless loyalty. 1t does
them great deal of good, and does us no
harm whatever. So we say once more that
there is movement on foot which seems to
us to tend in the direction of third term.
1t is not the occasional alleged declaration
of Gen. Grants friends, or the starting of
third term organs, or the assertions of the
Democratic press, that excite our dismal ap-
prchensions. 1t is the acts of the Democrats
themselves. 1t is they who are conspiring to
extend The presidential term to a round doz-
en- years. And they must take care or they
will accomplish it. There is no hazard in
predicting that if the conspirators continue
their profigate career eighteen months lon
ger they will as good as insure Gen. Grant
against paying house rent for several years to
come.
There is only one thing which can prolong
II
of March 1877, and that is the rise of a well
grounded feeling apprehension in the minds
of the American people. In mild summer
weather it matters not so much who is at the
helm; but when the storms of winter begin to
howl and life itself is at stake, people natur-
ally turn for security to the man whose trust
worthy courage aud prudence have more than
once carried them safely through deadly per-
lis. Now in this matter of the presidency,
Gen. Grant has strongly impressed the people,
especially since the beginning of his
second term, with the idea that he is pre-
emnently safe ruler. Such prudence
with so much irmness, such selfpoise with
so little ostentation, such statesmanlike wis
dom in the use of executive power with such
marked reluctance to stretch it hairs
breadth beyond the bounds of unquestioned
legality, have rarely been united in one per-
son. In time of distress or danger there is
probably no other man in the country whose
character would furnish such security against
the perils of ineficiency, on the one hand,
and of unprincipled ambition and the tyran-
nical exercise ofpower, ON the other.
The Democracy of the South, abetted in
some measure by their Northern allies,
seem to have entered into league to force
these considerations upon the minds of all
thoughtful men,. They insist upon revivng
old issues and putting in peril the most vital
principles thought to be established by the
war. There is hardly a family in the North
but has invested something of either treasure
or blood in the enterprise of making the
Soutn an organic part of this Union and CIV
ing to all citizens within its limits the ben
eft of institutions truly democratic. And if
now the late confederates suppose that all
this investment is to be allo we'd to count for
nothing because OF little residuary malice
or justified prejudice on their part
if they suppose that the relations of
master and slave, under new names,
are to be re-established by fraud or violence,
without an energetic remonstrance from the
North, they are more mistaken than they
were in 1861. They may succeed in re-elect-
ing Gen. Grant, but they can never succeed
in reassumng monopoly Of political and
civil rights, and making their part of the
pfrvo Ea fLo
citizens of the North. The Potomac and the
Ohio must never again separate the soldiers
of 1865 from a foreign country, where their
lives and property are at the mercy at law
less and savage mob.
The means which the ex-rebels are using
to secure Grants reelection are certainly
most deplorable, and the sooner the conspir-
acy is abandoned the better it will be for the
Whole country. If it be not abandoned, it is
likely TO accomplish what no use of official
patronage, no management of expert politl-
clans and no manipulation of caucuses can
bring about. The President himself, as we
have the best possible grounds for belief has
neither the purpose nor the inclination to
bear the honors and the cares of the great Of
flee after the expiration Of his present term,
at which time he will have passed sixteen
consecutive years with the constant and op-
pressive burden of vast public responsibilities
upon him, aud will be ready for rest. The
traditional limitation of the presidential term
to eight years is respected by the American
people, but SO is President Lincoln's warning
not to swap horses while crossing river. If
the river be safely crossed they are not only
willing but anxious to make an exchange