The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1875-02-17
The Resignatien OF Grant-Its Prac-
tieal Value.


The question of President Grants resig-
nation we mean to press earnestly, with little
hope that he who alone can answer 1t
afirmatively will now do so, until we
extort, as We did in the matter of Casarism,
at which so many jeered, a response from the
American people which shall make itself felt
Though the process Of conviction may be
dilatory we do not wholly despair of satisfy
ing the President himself that such q
step will be the best for him. We
should have no doubt of this, for
some generous instincts are still Sum-
berng in his soldier heart, if he were but
once free from the companionship, high and
low, which environs him and forms the in
trenchment which honest public opinion has
not yet stormed. 1t is very clear that among
the infrmities of President Grants once
noble nature is ON ambition to be something
or to do something entirely different from his
predecessors; to be spoken of now and written
of hereafter as having left the rut Of prece-
dent, however sacred, and hewed out
path for himself None but himself is
to be his parallel This is noticeable
in small things as well as great.
No President before ever appointed multitu-
dinous relations to lucrative Offices Washing
ton, that obsolete exemplar, refused to make
his nephew, whom he loved, and who was
worthy of his love. District Attorney at Alex
andra and this because he was his nephew.
What our incumbent of to-day has done and
continues to do we all know and need not re-
peat. No President before ever accepted
presents or paid visits or went junketing
about the country with class of privileged
pets No President before sought an increase
of salary. So is it in greater and graver
things. No one of his seventeen predeces-
sors ever dreamed of or suggested the ac-
QUESTION of, distant insular territory or
colony for the Alaska folly is hardly an ex-
cepton. The recently published diary Of
MIR. Adams, when Secretary of State, shows
that this very subject was considered in Mr.:
Monroe's administration and decided mega
lively, on the distinct ground of the want Of
constitutional capacity. This seemed to Pres
ident Grant the chief inducement to covet
st. Domingo, and not only to covet
which he thought subservient by means
which, desiring to be deferential, We
forbear to describe So with the third term
idea. He clutched at it the more greedily
because Of the adverse tradition, because
there had never been q third term President
before 1t was, we do him the justice to
believe, less the greed of Office, though that
no doubt was operative; less the uis inertia
which with some natures makes lucrative in
cumbency 80 sweet, than it was the ambition
to be what no President had ever been before.
1t is very odd to note how such ambitious
specialties Gf we may 30 term them) possess
cognate natures. The Presidents cherished
friend, Senator Cameron, showed this in his
desire to have his own son as his colleague.
Father and son had been Senators success
sively but never father and son simulta-
neously This was q more amiable motive
than the Presidents, but they are gener-
ically the same.
strength or the weakness of our Presidents
nature, the craving of this sort of distinction
the moral of it all, on this matter Of resigna-
ton, is obvious enough. Why not be the
only President who ever voluntarily resigned
OF, If imperial phrase be more agreeable, like
Diocletian and Charles ", "abdicated?'' It
would make q mark in history deeper and
brighter than success in any or all his other
ambitions could have done. It would be
picturesque and heroic-one of those great
deeds of self-abaegation on which the student
of our story will love to mediate The
record of it would be better than the familiar
narrative which schoolboys used to be made
to read out of doctor Robertson" of what
occurred in Brussels centuries ago. 1t would
be the conclusive answer to oil the calumnies,
as they would then seem to be, imputing to
him selfshness and mercenary impulses.
If these views-entirely personal-have any
force, so far as the Presidents fame is affected,
it diIninishes with every moment of delay.
Now is the accepted time. 1t would have
been better, or at least more graceful, before
the political revolution of last autumn but
better now than SIX or three months hence, with
an adverse House of Representatives, dam
aging investigations, possible impeachment,
of the initiation of which, be it remembered,
the House is the exclusive judge; the certain
loss of more State legislatures, the shrinkage
of friendly majority in the Senate. and q
Supreme Court OF his own creating turning its
cold shoulder Now, or before these things
actual or potential are realized, the President
has it in his power to act Then it may be,
we don't say it will be, too late, for better
late than never. A resignation now would
be new and marked feature in the working
of our constitutional system. 1t would be the
assertion or confession of new response
bility in our public servants-a responsibility
to popular opinion when manifested in 80 de-
cisive form as it was last fall. No Ministry