The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1875-03-06

! Now that Congress-the last republican
Congress before the expiration of President
Grants eight years-has adjourned without
weapons against the South, it would be wise
for him to avail himself of this pause in the
storm to take observations for ascertaining
his official latitude and longitude, and find
how far he has driited from his course amid
the bufetings of political waves and weather
He has not sailed by his original chart. The
fervent and patriotic aspiration with which
he closed his first letter OF acceptance became
popular motto in that political campaign;
but although it was then taken as promise,
it has not yet been fulfilled as prophecy.
But it is the wisest of all the recorded sayings
of General Grant; and. had his administration
been conducted in its spirit, he might have
been the most admired Of our Presidents
since Washington. He could have under
taken no nobler task than that of
pacifying and tranquillizing the country,
pouring balm into the still bleeding wounds
of the civil war, healing differences among
his countrymen and restoring the old bonds
of fraternal affection. had it been apparent
throughout his administration that this was
his sincere and settled aim, the most indulgent
judgment would have passed on the occa-
sional mistakes incident to his want of civil
experience, and he might have given con-
spicuous exemplifcation of that noble senti-
ment of Milton-'Peace hath her victories
no less renowned than war;"
1t is not yet too late for the President to
return to that wise and magnanimous policy
foreshadowed by his celebrated motto, but
not realized in practice. In fact it is the
ing his popularity. The failure Of the Force
bill and the House resolutions respecting
Louisiana and Arkansas have taken out of
his hands all means of success in q contrary
policy. Peace by the agency of the sword is
not in his power, and it only remains
for him to tranquillize the country by
magnanimity and the arts of Cancellation.
The policy recommended in that wild de-
spatch of Sheridan, the policy of treating the
Southern whites as ''banditti," and making
short work of their opposition by sheer mill
tary vlgor, is rendered impossible by the
defeat of the Force bill and the passage of the
Louisiana and Arkansas resolutions; and
since every other road is blocked we hope he
will OF last try the effect of kindness and
moral influence. Quiet and silent agencies
are, after all, the most powerful as well as tho
most salutary. The desolating effect of earth
quakes and convulsions of nature cannot be
compared with the gentle, genial influence of
the sun which releases ice-bound capacities of
vegetation and covers the world with verdure,
beauty and gladdening harvests. In the moral
and political world, as in the natural, the
most potent influences are the gentlest The
propagation of Christianity changed the face
Of the world The quiet growth of modern
commerce has enlisted great interests on
the side of peace and diminished the
temptations to desolating wars. Public
opinion has become more powerful than fleets
and armies The ballot box is substitute
for violent revolutions. The universal diffu-
sion of taste for Injuries subverted the
feudal system and the institutions of the
Middle Ages and changed hosts Of military
retainers into industrious artisans If, at the
close of our civil war, Congress had at once
confscation enabling the owners to give Sc
curity for loans of money from Northern cap
italists, the wheels of Southern industry
would have been set promptly in motion and
the general eagerness to recover lost wealth
would nave supplanted political discomfort.
The surest way to hush civil turmoil is by
giving the people objects of interest and occu-
10 fhaiv
withdraw it from political controversies.
Even modern despots understand this and
there is no stronger proof Of the sagacity of
the two Napoleons than their attempts to
occupy Frenchmen with the adornment Of
their capital and other works calculated to
draw off their attention from politics.
Unfortunately, the policy of President
Grant has tended to engross the Southern
mind with irritating questions which are a
legacy Ct the war. After great civil war
the wisest policy is one OF forgetfulness,
which turns attention to the future and
spreads mantle of oblivion over the past.
No man in the country had a clearer per-
ception of this vital truth than General Grant
had for the first two years after the surrender
of Lee. There is no part of his career on
which his countrymen look with greater pride
and admiration than his magnanmous bear
ing toward the conquered South while his
military laurels were yet fresh and if the
noble sentiments which then inspired him
had been steadily cherished in his political
administration he would have filed one CT
the purest and brightest pages in American
history. Those sentiments were equally
creditable to his head and his heart, and ne
still retained them when the glittering and Sc.
ductive prize of the Presidency was first
placed within his reach. His letter of accept
ance, in response to the Chicago nomination
in 1868, was conceived in the spirit