The New York herald., 1875-12-31
President Grants Appeal 90 Foreign


Powers.
General Grant is man of remarkable
tenncity of purpose, and this is the quality
which made him so eminently useful when
he was in command of our armies in the
civil war. In that momentous period the
supreme power of judging and deciding did
not belong to him, but to the source of his
instructions at Washington. In his subordi-
nate capacity as the military executive of
policy dictated to him from Washington his
strong tenacity of purpose was invaluable
But in his present high Office which clothes
him with the power to decide as well as to
execute, it has only led to persistent blum
dering. President Grants greatest quality
is, like fire, "a good servant, but bad mas
ter" The stubborn infexibility of his ma
ture is n source of folly and mischief when
released from the guidance Of superior
minds it is like gallant horse without an
intelligent rider.
When President Grant was q very young
man he served as lieutenant in the brilliant
Mexican war, which was a succession of re-
nowned victories. He was then at an age
when indelible impressions are made on
strong character, and the liveliest of all his
recollections are connected with events
which awakened his youthful enthusiasm
and filled his imagination with ineffaceable
images. His first impulses Of patriotism,
his earliest visions of glory, cana to him
while he was sailing for Vera Cruz on the
waters of the Gulf, with a youthful exalta-
ton of feeling which invested those regions
with an atmosphere of romance. The fas-
cinating spell which that juvenile experience
exerted on his mind colored his whole sub
sequent character. As soon as our civil war
was ended he burned to lead an army to
Mexico to dethrone and drive out the En-
peror Macmillan. After he became Presi-
dent his thoughts were still turned in
southerly direction by aspirations to
make name in connection with some splen-
did achievement in that quarter of the world.
His Santo Domingo project was dear to his
heart, and there is nothing he was ever COM
PEELED to relinquish which cost him so much
feeling In spite of the condemnation of
Congress and the people his affections still
cling to that scheme, and, had he not been
overruled by his Cabinet, he would have in
troduced defence of it in his recent an
nual Message. Being foiled in Santo Do
mingo he turned his thoughts toward Cuba,
still wishing to make his administration
memorable by some important step in the
West Indies. Throughout his early man.
hood he was democrat, and his soul was
suffused with the then prevalent democratic
sentiment of manifest destiny" or the alb
sorption of all territory south Of us into the
Great Republic. The tenacity of those early
impressions may account for, although it
cannot excuse, the infexible desire of the
President to distinguish his administration
by some great stroke of policy in that part of
the world.
Having been thwarted in his Santo Do
mingo scheme by the opposition of Congress
and the country, and finding that he was
likely to encounter similar opposition in
his designs upon Cuba, he has had recourse
to diplomatic coup to smooth down the OBJ
staces. He has seemed to fancy that by get
ting the Endorsement of European Powers
who have no interest in the question he can
flank the public sentiment of his own coun-
try. But he could have done nothing 50 CAL
culated to deepen the repugnance Of the
American people, who scorn and repudiate
the idea Of European interference in the af-
fairs Of the Western Hemisphere. His ap-
peal to foreign Powers to indorse his Cuban
policy instead Of aiding it, is sure to damage
American people. The participation and ap-
provai Of Europe would force our citizens to
denounce and reject it.