The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1876-01-07

lie is tenacious friend and the adventures
who surround him promote their interests by
encouraging his hopes. He has been often
solicited TO disavow such an ambition I'M
( equivocally, and never has done so without
limitations and reservations which emas-
culated the disavowal
1t is also an unpleasant fact, but not the
less fact, that President Grant holds a
mortgage on the solid Southern vote in the
Republican National Convention and can
foreclose on it at his pleasure. He needs
only to secure besides the delegates of few
Northern States to have the nomination at
his mercy The members of the Republican
National Committee, who are to meet in
Washington next Tuesday to fix the time
and place for the Convention, will not fail,
upon mutual consultation, to understand the
situation, if they do not perceive it already.
These being the facts that the President
/ desires third term and has a third nomi-
nation in his power-what is to prevent him
from seeking third election Nothing but
a clear conviction that he would fail before
| the people, and such conviction, it is PLAIN
\ to see, he is very far from entertaining. lie
! is Scotchman in name, in descent, In char
acter-a man of few ideas, firm will and ten
tative disposition. The general sentiment
of the people against third term does not
discourage him. for he reasons that popular
sentiment is tickle. Nor does the resolve of
the House of Representatives, for he be-
lieves that it was introduced, pressed and
passed for merely partisan motives, personal
or political Nor do the opinions of promi-
nent republican politicians outside of the
circle of his favorites for he never has &C
cepted their estimate of their own value he
has administered the government for seven
! years, compelling without soliciting their
support, and he feels none of the paternal
affection for the republican party which was
| displayed by the late Vice President
| The truth is that President Grant is and
long has been testing the spirit of the
country in various ways at his leisure, in
quiring quietly and curiously all the while
whether one question after another which he
losses out for popular discussion will serve
his purpose of an absorbing public issue for
his reelection The past and the future of
the republican party are nothing to him
apart from his own interests. They never
have been anything since 1872, when he said
in his second inaugural address that he &C
cepted his second election as q personal vim
dication. He would impress one policy on
the party as readily as another, SO that only
it would serve himself the needful turn.
Two years ago he tossed out the currency
question and tested the feeling of the
moneyed classes by his veto of April %,
1874 Perhaps he was unconsciously in
duced to that test by his procliyity, fire.
quently manifested, to affiliate with men of
mere wealth, without regard to their in
tellectual or social rank. Last year in
the Des Moines speech, and again in his
Message to Congress, he tossed out the relg-
ious bigotry question and tested the feeling
of the Protestant sects. Perhaps he was I'M
consciously induced to that test by his
Scotch blood. Buckle specifies the alliance
of the crown with the clergy as the dis
tinguishing feature of Scotch politics for
many centuries. Neither of these two tests
giving altogether satisfactory results, it is
evident that he is meditating a third and
probably final test with reference to our for
eign relations.
President Grant will choose his own time
to toss this third and last test out but it
is surely coming He is not man to be
leased, coaxed or intimidated into prema-
ture movement He was commissioned
Lieutenant General of our armies on March
| l, 1864, but it was the 4th of May before his
troops crossed the Rapidan on their way
! into the Wilderness. He sat down in front of
Petersburg in the middle of June, 1864, but
the spring of 1865 was well advanced before
| Lees surrender He held under familiar
household debate, as early as the winter of
\ lS6G-67, the subject of his first nomination
to the Presidency, but the winter of the
next year had passed before he put on record
a word which would bind him to accept it.
The same self-sustaining and resolute
quality of character which thus enables
President Grant to bide his time for all his
movements, military or political, renders
those movements generally impetuous ire
sistibe and overwhelming. 1t is high time
for the country to awake to this fact with
reference to the movement in our foreign
affairs, which is imminent As it probably is
the last chance which the President will have
to force new issue for this years political
campaign we may be sure that he does not
mean to slur his work.
The impending crisis, therefore, is seri-
GUS one, and needs TO be met seriously.
/ There is but one straightforward way to meet
/ it. and that way is for Congress and the
States promptly to take up this third term
question and deal with it by constitutional
legislation. Let Congress squarely recog-
nize the fact that we have at the head of the
nation man in the prime of life. four years
younger to-day than George Washington was