The Daily clarion., 1880-03-05
Grant as . Conservative.

II is strange, but true, that under
this heading, the New York Tribune,
one of the Republican newspapers
which oppose the nomination of Gen.
Grant, has reproduced the following
passages from his record to show that
in the event of his election for another
term, his course towards the South
will not be what the stalwarts of his
party might desire. The first extract
is taken from his report to President
johnson in 1865, when he was instruct
ed to make tour ofinspection through
the Southern States, and report the re-
suit. He said:
am satisfied that the mass of thinking
men of the South accept the present situa-
ton ofaffairs in good faith. The questions
which have heretofore divided the senti-
hments of the people ofthe two sections
they regard as having been set
tied forever by the highest tribunal-arms.
There is such universal ac-
quiesence in the authority ofthe General
Government that the
mere presence of a military force, without
regard to numbers, is sufficient to maintain
order My observations
lead me to the conclusion that the citizens
of the Southern States are anxious to return
to self-government within the Union as
soon IA possible: that
they are in earnest in wishing to do what
they think is required by the Government.
This was written when Gen. Grant
was simple-minded soldier, untaught
in the methods of the cunning and un-
scrupulous demagogue. When he be-
came President, and fell into the hands
of agitators and corruptionists, he went
back upon his own evidence, and by his
treatment of the South evinced his un-
willingness to stand by his declaration.
But here is something more to the
point. It is his latest official action
his famous letter to Packard, the usurp-
ing Governor of Louisiana, refusing to-
support him in his pretensions to the
governorship of that State with the
United States army. 1t is this position
of President Grant, which, according TO
the late Senator Morton, rendered the
situation for fraudulent President
Hayes, inevitable" in dealing with the
South. Gen. Grant, he said, had set
the example Of discontinuing the policy
of armed interference with her affairs,
and Hayes had no other alternative but
to follow it. The language of
General Grant shows that his
had been formed
"by the force of public opinion not
from his own sense of right, nor his OBJ
legations to refrain from doing what was
not authorized by the constitution he
had sworn to support. 1t will be easy
for him to discover another change in
"public opinion if he should be elected
for third term, from which calamity
may the sober, second thought of the
country, and the will Of the good Lord
deliver us:
EXECUTIVE MANSION, +
WASHINGTON, March l, 1877. : |;
To Governor S. B. Packard, New Orleans
La:
In answer to your dispatch of this date
he President directs me to say that he feels
t his duty to state frankly that he does not
,elieve public opinion will longer support
he maintenance of State Government in
louisiana by the use of the military, and
hat he must concur in the manifest feel
ng. The troops will hereafter, as in the
asst, protect life and property from mob
iolence when the State authorities fail,
ut, under the remaining days of his official
fe, they will not be used to establish or
ull down either claimant for the control of