The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1875-06-08
REVERDY JOHNSON ON GRAN rs
LETTER,


LETTER.
On Wednesday last Reverdy johnson, tn
veteran Democratic representative and Sen
ator, Commissioner and Attorney General
. who will be eighty years old before Grant
, successor is elected, but who is hale and
hearty, vigorous and elastic in the frosty, bu
kindly, last year of his four score, wrote for tn
editor of the New York Herald letter, so val
ned that it was inserted with all the emphasi
of double leads in the Herald of the 4th June
His theme was the strange letter written b.
the President after the Pennsylvania Repub
licans had pronounced against third term
We have said our "say" upon the singular
document, and have conscienciously tried t.
give its true Interpretation. Our columns arr
too crowded to revert often and at length to
the same theme
In our topics for editorial comment we art
obliged to omit many topics altogether, anG
to treat others with but brief mention, wher
the many-sided and many-colored theme
would require column after column of re.
marks, calculation and criticism. So we are
obliged to treat Grants letter. Although
fully sensible that the historian of anothe,
century will not find surplus line in which
to mention it, the letter is still important to
US in the current epoch. If Grant should be
candidate in spite of the declarations OF
Pennsylvania and Ohio, his letter will be
much quoted and commented on, not with
out ridicule. In any case it will be for some
years political curiosity.
Reverdy johnson is eminently capable Of
interpreting the letter Of the President
With public career which embraces half q
century, with ifetime's familiarity with
public affairs in several exalted positions,
with thorough knowledge Of the public
men of this country from the administration
of Madison to the last elected member of
Congress, he knows as well as any American
statesman the force, bearing and effect of
innovations. We may look upon him as the
embodiment Of American ideas and as one
who knows and feels what is American, and
constitutional and sound and safe, or, in
word, what is democratic.
Mr.. johnson passes over the impertinent
and irrelative portions of Grants letter, and
comments upon the third term. He says:
What the President says is this, that there
is nothing in the Constitution to prohibit it,
and that it can only come before the people
by proposition to amend the Constitution.
The precedents, no matter how long estab-
ished, and no matter what may have been
the character of the men by whom they were
aof od infa nd on, nff
unsurpassed ability, and no matter how
universal has been their sanction by
the people, these precedents should, in |
the Presidents view, have no influence |
upon the people now or hereafter, or upon |
the determination of him who may have oc- |
cupied the Office for two terms. For he tells |
us that ait may happen in the future history |
of the country land this may be the case
during the balance of his present term) that |
to change an Executive because he has been
eight years in Office will prove unfortunate.
the people are at liberty to elect to q third
term; but until the time of President Grant
not only did no one of his predecessors, who
bad held the Office for two terms, give the
most distant hint that he wished or would
accept the Office again, but, as far as I am
advised, no individual citizen or journalist
ever proposed or suggested it.
After denying that in such country as ours
ong and uninterrupted usage can be safely
and referring to the nonuser of
he British sovereign's prerogative Of veto
ince 1892, as one of the effects of custom,
10 says:
The idea of the President that the safety of
he country may demand the reelection of
resident for third term, in my opinion is
q idle conceit, having no other support but ,
be most egregious vanity. OF this vanity he
imself seems p partake, since he says that
e "would not accept q nomination if it were q
sndered, unless it should come under such q
as to make it an imperative :
, accept is an imperative one? It can I
My be the man himself May he not we'll
include that nomination by convention is n
inclusive as to the duty? The safety Of the
,untry he may really think requires his con- :
nuance in Office, and that his own opinion t
pom the point if he has one, is established q
: the action of the convention, and by this n
'ocess of reasoning he may be reelected for \:
many terms as life is spared him. think
may, with perfect justice, be said that if r
q convention which framed the Constitution "
ID anticipated the enormous extent of the a,
6cial patronage which in time would neces-
rily be vested in the President, that they p
Duld have limited the official term to six or CT
yht years and have rendered the incumbent b
eligible. .,
Mr.. johnson thinks that if Grant was NOM !,
ated he would not receive the electoral vote y
q single State, and that Pennsylvania 70
claration will be concurred in "by an i'm h,
snse majority in every State in the Union" W
remarks in conclusion:
The President, indeed, SO far as he is per- 4,
nally concerned, seems to regard it as a "
IRE matter of dollars and cents; and it may
rhaps be legitimately inferred that if the
AIRY which he now receives should be Sc m
red to him as q retiring pension he would tn
IDLY leave the Office at the end of his pre- or,
It term aud return to that home ''where D