The New York herald., 1876-01-23
The American Guniver.

TOR special consideration next Tuesday -
ARTICLE XvI.-No person who has held or may here
after hold the office Of President shall again be
eligible TO said Office.
Mr.. Frye, of Maine, in behalf of the minor
ity of the committee, has obtained leave to
report in print a substitute proposition. 1t
is rumored that this will be substantially in
the sense of that article of the constitution
of the Confederate States which limited any
incumbent of the Presidential Office to a
single term of six years but, in advance of
seeing its actual language, it is useless to
discuss it alphabetically
Congress, therefore, is on the point of en-
gaging formally in the debate which has agi-
tated the country for the last two years. 1t re-
cognizes finally, the imperative importance
ofthe question which the HERALD was the first
TO discern and to discuss. 1t confesses, late and
reluctantly, but all the more emphatically for
the lateness and the reluctance, that in spite
of the subterfuges which have been essayed
to ignore it, it is and long has been the most
vital political question before the people. 1t
realizes that Providence, in its divine design
to set up our Republic as a model for the
| government of nations, does not omit from
the first century of our existence the test of
our capacity to circumvent the ambition of a
President any more than it did those other
terrible tests of the abolition of slavery, the
civil war and the impeachment trial
If Congress had moved in the matter two
years ago, when the HERALD sounded the
alarm, it might easily have been possible to
exclude President Grant from continuance
L IL. 44l. l..
such means as Mr.. Knott proposes; but it is
now too late. While Congress and the States
have been sleeping the President has quietly
sown tares. While scoffers at the danger
have been decrying the alarm the machinery
| for the denomination has been oiled and put
into running order, ready to start
at the slightest motion of the
gineers finger. The third term" eues-
ton has become a question for negotiation
between the people on one side and President
Grant on the other side, in the nature of
compromise and for this very serious con-
dition of affairs those selfsuficient souls,
and they alone, are responsible, who re-
preached us with hoisting false signal light
when we were vigilantly kindling the beacon
on the watch tower of liberty. The network
which encompasses the land and centres in
the White House is woven with admirable
skill and strength. It's strands run from post
Office to post Office and from custom house
to custom house. The body polite is bound
as firmly in its meshes as Gulliver was by
the Liliputians, and the resource of Gulli-
yer is the only resource for us-a compro-
mise with the Emperor of Liliput-since he
has not the magnanimity otherwise to set us
free.
Our own proposition of a constitutional
amendment which shall extend President
Grants term of Office to the 4th of March,
1879, fix the Presidential term thereafter at
six years, and prohibit any reelection, is a
compromise which is practicable to-day,
just as Mr.. Knott's proposition was
two years ago 1t will cease to be
so on the l4th of June, the day fixed for the
Republican National Convention. The in
terval is brief, and every weeks delay dimin-
ishes its practicability and increases the
likelihood of o desperate political struggle
between the unorganized people on the one
hand and the thoroughly organized Office
holders on the other. History records too
many instances of the downfall of numer-
Gus undisciplined militia before q small
army of veteran soldiers, and these military
lessons have been carefully pondered by
military President, who holds them as good
for the warfare of politics as for the strife of
blood and iron. 1t is within his power and,
doubtless, within his disposition, to defeat
ob onret,4,t,Nr,oI ont Nv
Knott's, either by commanding its rejection
by the Senate, or, if it should pass Congress,
by postponing its adoption by the States.
Besides there is an irreconcilable difference
of opinion among the opponents of third
term as to the expediency of prohibiting a
second term if the President is to be elected
for only four years.
Since neither President Grants own sense
of patriotic duty nor the sad entreaties of
the few remaining statesmen of his party in
duce him to deliver the country from the
embarrassment of his ambition to retain
office, no policy is statesmanlike that does
not offer him a boon which he will not dare
to reject, or the rejection of which will
shock even a popular conscience that has
crown callous under the executive abuses of
the last fifteen years. The HERALD's propo-
sition to extend his present term of Office for
two years is such boon. 1t is addressed to
the people at a time when there is no great
concentration of opinion upon any person as
o rival candidate. 1t recognizes in dutiful
manner the public services which General
Grant rendered to his country on the field of
battle, and President Grant afterward rem
dered in his veto Of tho InAation bill. 1t
smooths his descent from the pinnacle of
power to the foot-worn pavement Of private
life. 1t gives him time to set his official
house in order before he leaves it forever to
complete the rewarding Of his friends and
| ihn mn, ishr,, ont Of his nr,nr,in. -. .-.-l ,.