The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1876-03-16
Is It a Personal Government :

ought the freSlQcnG Ol Cue OHilS'
States to be the servant or the master o.
the nation? Ale the powers of govern
ment intrusted to him to be exercised fol
the general use and good, or are they
conferred upon him as reward for pre-
vious services and to be used by him fol
his own pleasure and the advantage Of
his fayorites? Is the Presidency q trust
or is it prize which he who wins it may
rightly regard and use as a piece of per
sonal property?
These questions, says the New York
Herald, asked at any time in our history
beforethe accession of General Grant
would have been absurd; but they arc SC
no longer, for it is demonstrable that not
even the third Napoleon was more pos.
sessed than he of the idea that the gov.
ernment is for his personal use and pleas
ure. Let us see:
1. One of his very first acts as Presi-
dent showed a singular contempt for law
and regard for his own will or desire
alone. He nominated Mr.. A. T. Stewart
to be Secretary of the Treasury. Mr.
Stewart, undoubtedly a capable man,
could not disengage himself from his
vast commercial interests, and law
which had stood for almost three-qnarters
of a century on our statute books, and
whose wisdom was unuuestiOned, forbade
his taking the Office under the circum-
stances. What happened? General
Grant coolly asked Congress to repeal
the act. 1t refused, as was its duty, and
the President sulked.
2. Next Grant drove General Cox out
of the Cabinet because he refused to APP
point corrupt and inefficient friends OF
the President to Office in the Indian Bu-
reau and elsewhere, in violation of civil
service rules and honest government.
8. He drove Joseph Wilson, the honest
Land Commissioner, into retirement be-
c. use he decided Missouri land claim
of the Dent family adversely to their in
terest.
4. He appointed poker-playing Con.
gresham as Minister to England, and
Kept him there until he was threatened
with arrest, public disgrace and scandal,
in spite of his notorious connection with
the Emma mine fraud.
5. He attempted, against the will of
Congress and the country, to annex St.
Domingo, and sent out his own private
agent, General Babcock, to negotiate a
treaty in violation of the constitution
and he was so contemptuous toward the
laws that he actually sent to the Senate a
secret agreement made and signed with
Baez by this unauthorized private agent,
under pretence that it was treaty; and
only withdrew it when the Senate private
ly informed him that the constitution re-
quired treaties to be made and signed by
agents publicly nominated and confirmed
by the Senate.
6. To consummate the annexation, in
which he had involved himself with a
number of men notoriously engaged in a
land speculation, he kept vessels of war
on the coast of the island at great ex-
pense to support the usurper Baez, and
levied war on the Haytian Republic, in
violation of the constitution, which re-
serves the power of declaring and making
war to Congress.
7. He caused the expulsion of Charles
Sumner from the craftsmanship of the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a
post which he had held for many years
and in which his services to the country
were of peculiar Importance, because ne
would not support the st. Domingo
scheme.
8. he afterward tried to bribe Sumner
to acquiescence in the St. Domingo plot
by the offer of the mission to England.
This was when he saw that against Sum-
ner's opposition the St. Domingo treaty
must fail.
9. He appointed his brother-in-law,
Cramer, to high diplomatic position,
although this person had already shown
himself notoriously unfit while holding
an obscure consulship.
10. He appointed another brother-in-
law, Casey, to be Collector of New Or
leans, and there maintains him, in spite
of his proved incapacity and corruption
and his open violations of law.
II. When public opinion, outraged be-
yond endurance at Casey's misconduct,
demanded his removal, he apparently
submitted by requiring and ostensibly ac-
cepting Casey's resignation, "to take
effect on the appointment of his sue
cessor;;" but he has never appointed a
successor, and thus Casey remains Collec-
tor in spite of the public demand for his
removal.
12 He removed a collector of internal
revenue at Chicago because this officer
refused to join Orville Grant, the Presi-
dents brother, in a whiskey fraud.
13. Later, in violation of law, he gave
to this same brother Orville the monopo-
ly of trading with certain tribes of In
dians, an&caused the exclusion of other
traders, certified to be respectable men.
This is the first time in our history when
Presidents brother has become an In
dian trader, or has received monopoly,
contrary to an express law, from his
brother.
IA. He gave the federal appointments
in the city of New York to a ward poll
tician, said tc be connected with the
Tammany Ring, but who was his own in
innate.
Is. He appointed and long kept in the
important office of Attorney General OF
the United States man openly charged
with frauds, known to be Ignorant of law,
unfit by character and requirements tor
the place, but notoriously a subservient
tool of his own.
16. He tried to promote this incapable
Attorney General to the Chief Justice
ship of the Supreme Court, a public
scandal which was prevented only with
the utmost difficulty.
II. He took away the custody of gov
ernment funds from the solid house OF
the Barings, who had held it since the
foundation of the government, and in.
trusted the public moneys to Clews 4
Habicht, as reward for notorious parti.
san services and in spite of warnings that
this house was not trustworthy or of good
standing. The firm has since become
bankrupt, but the public does not yet
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