The New York herald., 1876-03-08


gress, and personal government is impossi-
BILE without the completely of Congress, or at
least of the Senate. II was not till Presi-
dent Grant came in that the enormously in
creased patronage of the government
could be made an engine of per-
and depressed by the responsibilities of a
doubtful struggle, like President Lincoln !;
he was not thwarted by the malignant oppo-
sition of hostile Congress. like President
Johnson he had accepted the Presidency,
not as a public trust. but as a reward for
gift, but only an ability to estimate motives
under circumstances of peculiar temptation
to enable the HERALD to foresee the mon
strous strides toward personal government of
which it warned the country in its early ar
ticles against C@sarism. 1t was not so much
our purpose to inculpate General Grant as TO
expose the dangerous tendencies inherent in
the new era of our politics, which would
have created Caesar if they had not found
one. President Grant is the mere creature
of circumstances, and personal government
has so fatally overshot the mark by his blind
tolerance of corruption that it only remains
to oppose the system of which accidental
circumstances made him the representative.
Any average republican President would
probably pursue the same course, although
he might practise more caution in the
appointment of relatives and cronies
and take more pains to guard his ad-
ministrstion against exposures. President
Grants heedlessness has been an advantage,
because it has enabled the country to dis
cover the hideous deformities of the personal
government system, and has crippled the
influence of General Grant in the approach
ing Presidential election. But the system
is not destroyed because General Grant
has fallen into discredit. If he should have
a republican successor that successor would
be exposed to the same temptations and
would be supported by the same allies in
both houses of Congress.
1t is not merely Grant, it is Morton and
Sherman and Conkling and Frelinghuysen
and Cameron and the other republican lead
ers that are responsible for the system of
personal government which has debauched
our politics. Every one of these leaders has
had his own separate share of the patron
age and has been bribed to support
the bad nominations of the President
by his consent to nominate their favorites on
the understanding that they would make no
opposition to his personal favorites. The
federal appointments and patronage are
managed on a system of give and take, which
subverts the intention of the constitution
that the President should make all nomna-
tions on his own responsibility, and that the
Senate should confirm or reject them with
out regard to any other consideration than
their fitness. The appointments are really
managed in pursuance of q bargain
that the President should be permitted
to put his pets and favorites in Office, ire
spective of their qualifications, in exchange
for his complaisance in nominating the pets
and favorites of leading republican Senator'S
The federal patronage is treated as q huge
political placer, to be apportioned out and di-
vided between the President and the repub-
ican Senators, on q corrupt system which
makes each member of the pool the sole
judge as to whom he will put in Office The
republican Senators are as blamable as Grant
for this scandalous state of things, and the
HERALD will be no party to making him
scapegoat for the political sins of his repub-
lican confederates. We have no hostility to
individuals, but we desire to see the whole
corrupt system plucked up by the roots.