Knoxville Whig and chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1875-1882, 1875-07-07
GRANT NOT THE ONLY PRESI
DENT WHO LEFT THE
CAPITAL.

Some of the prosiest and least
interesting Democratic papers, in the
absence of anything else to say, are
again belaboring the President. be-
cause he ventures to step outside of
the White House, and take q few
weeks recreation. Nine out of ten of
the editors who write about him, be-
lieve that jefferson and Adams and
jackson, together with all other Presi-
dents who have been pointed to as
models, never went outside of the
corporate limits of Washington during
their incumbency in Office. The New
York Herald, oe a recent date, con-
tains an editorial intended to en-.
tighten these dark minds. 1t says:
president Grants assailants obstruct
their influence when they arraign him for
parts Of his conduct which are proper and
justifable, like his absence from Washing
ton during the hot weather of summer
Such indiscriminate malignity is self-defeat-
ing, since it tends to undermine confidence
in those who adopt so interruptions a
method of warfare. 1t was the constant
practice of our earlier Presidents to be alb
sent from the seat of government for a con-
siderable part of the year. We will mention
jefferson first, not because he began the
practice, but because he was the first Presi-
dent inaugurated after the removal of the
government to Washington and because the
law which Grant is accused of violating was
in force throughout the two terms of his
Presidency. Now, Jefferson regularly spent
about two months of every year while he
was President at Monticello, as anybody
may see by looking into the volumes of his
correspondence and noticing the place at
which his letters are dated in the summer
practice in Il letter addressed to Madison
from Monticello, September l, 1907, ex-
planning why he had interrupted the daily
post between his home and Washington.
"The principal reason" he says, "was to
avoid giving ground for clamor. The gen.
eral idea is that those who receive annual
compensations should be constantly at their
posts. Our constituents might not in the
first moment consider, first, that we all have
property to take care of which we can not
abandon for temporary salaries; second,
that We have health to take care Of which
can not be preserved at Washington third,
that while at our separate homes our public
duties are fully executed, and at much
greater personal labor than while we are
together, when a short conference saves a
long letter" (Jefferson's Works, vol 5, p.
1871 A letter to the Secretary of War a
few days before august 2S) shows how the
heads of departments were scattered 81
send this letter open to the Secretary of
State, with desire that with the documents
| it be forwarded to the Secretary of the
Navy at Baltimore, the Attorney General
at Wilmington, the Secretary of the Treas
ury at New York, and finally to yourself"
"The example of Jefferson should satisfy
Democrats that Grant has not violated the
law, for the law on this point has not been
changed since the beginning Of the century
Our Democratic friends are barking up
the wrong tree" this time"
1t will be borne in mind that when
Jefferson was at Monticello then, he
was very much farther from the Cap.
ital than President Grant is now at
Long Branch. He has constant com.
munication by telegraph and ut short
notice may start and arrive at Wash.
ington in a few hours. JefTerson's
communication was by mail, and he
could only travel by stage coach OIL
by private conveyance.
But he talks about the temporary
salary" Of the President. If there
were such hot-headed, extremely vir
tuous patriots living at that day as
the great Robert Bonner, we imagine
they turned furiously upon the sage
Of Monticello and denounced him fol
being mercenary and ungrateful.
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