Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1880-01-20
. Strong Indictment Of Grant. Grant
! lson Ism and GRANTEES. e.-4 81
[springneld (Mass.) Republican,

men to whom it seems extravagant t.
: treat Grants candidacy as menacing I
!, grave disaster. He may not be theil
|, first choice. But their regard for hin
4 land pride in him as our most illustrious
4 citizen revolts at the suggestion that his
8 candidacy involves any serious portent
of danger. He may not have been, say
they, q very wise President, but he is an
honest man and a good man. He is oil
a different and higher stamp from the
political tricksters, the Conklings and
Camerons and Tildens. His silent self.
!, control marks safer man than the flu
= ent and magnetic Blaine. He is honest
and he is strong; if we get such quail
ties in our President, we shall not do
, very badly. 1855 ,larits,s ats.j III;
,, But it is to be remembered than in an
: Ieight years. trial Grant did not give us
Ielther an honest or a strong administrar
,Jtt0nd The associates and agentst through
which he governed were gen orally men
. OF an inferior class. f-his Cabinet of
4 fcers some were grossly dishonest, 9TH
ers were ,extravagants to the verge of
corruption If not further, others were
notoriously incompetent. The most
courageous and successful reformers In
the cabinet, like Cox, Jewell and Bris
i tow, were driven out by the coldness or
friends The Indian ring, the Wash
lington ring. the whiskey rings, the rail
road rings, all manner of rings, flour
ished as they never did before or since
Some of them found favor and none of
them found serious impediment at the
| White House. The Presidents inti-
mate associates included such men as
Babcock and Casey and Shepherd. The
class of political leaders with whom
Grant is now favorably contrasted-the
Blaines and Conklings and Camerons-
are the very men with whom he was in
close alliance. and who are now all ready
to support him. The men like Sumner,
Wilson and Schurz were not in his con
fidence. Of large and statesmanlike
policy his administration gave almost
nothing. The conspicuous exception
was the arbitration with England; and
If small personal credit for that belongs
to Grant, credit does belong to him for |
keeping so good man as Mr. Fish in
the State Department But his own fa- !
vorite object in foreign affairs was not
arbitration, but annexation. Not the |
Joint commission, but San Domingo, |
was his personal contribution to our
foreign policy. At the South it
was the period of carpet bag govern
ments at their worst, and the worst |
of them found political support and |
personal countenance in the admin |
istration. All these failures and defects
were not matters of accident. They had
their source to considerable degree In |
Grants own. character. Grant is sol
dier; he has in him nothing of the
statesman. He has small understand
ing of and small sympathy with the
principles of American polity. His no.
ton of governments is to intrust its func-
tions to men whom he personally likes. |
And his personal liking is won by good
fellowship and subserviency rather than |
| by any higher qualities. Personally |
honest, he has yet moral obtuseness |
which allows parasites and knaves to |
win his liking and confidence. His was
in tha worst .sensa. q personal govern
ment. Not merely that he gave office |
to his relatives-the country could afford |
to handsomely pension the lot of them, |
If thai were all. The trouble was that |
he knew little and cared less for politi
cal ideas, principles, the vast frame
lished method, which make up the !
written and unwrtten constitution. Of
the science of constitutional govern |
ment. grandest and finest of all sciences,
Grant knows as little as an average |
chief justice knows of cavalry tactics
He has a soldiers obedience to the ex-
press mandate of written law. But the |
spirit of law Is not his spirit. He can
not be trusted as conservative, for he
does not understand the elements in our
political system which it is necessary to
conserve. Far less is he reformer; he
has neither the spirit nor the intelli-
gence of reform. He did not even sc
cure common honesty and decency of
| IL ,isfr k.v
voritism which guided him was not SEN
sitive to moral quality in its objects =
There is no evidence and no lik elihood
that he has changed. In ordinary times
a personal government largely tainted
by corruption; in troubled times, the
rough and ready methods of a soldier
that is what we have to expect from
Grant.
But the great danger in his candidacy
Is not mere repetition of the failures
of his previous administration. 1t is a
worse peril than that. 1t is decay of
intelligence and public spirit which the
deliberate reelection of such man
would evince. Republics have no more
dangerous enemy than a blind hero
worship. Weariness with the slow
methods of self government, impatient
recourse to a strong man who will save
that is the fatal step on which we enter
if we re elect Grant. We shall re elect
him, if we do at all, not because he un-
derstands the business of the presi
dency; he has mismanaged once it, and
will doubtless do so again. We shall re
elect him, If at all, because he is a great
man and because we are vaguely afraid
of dangers from which he will defend
US. But say that he is great man; is
his greatness of a kind that would make
it wise to appoint him chief justice OF
the United States? Hardly more does
it qualify him for President of the Unit
ed States. Say that there are dangers
in our future; are they to be met by
putting at the helm man unversed in
political science, accessible to dishonest
lcounsellors, a man who has failed in
two previous administrations? It is
fear and faithlessness that are moving to
Grants re election; bad advisers both
Fear of exaggerated dangers and faith
lessness in the people and the tried and
proved methods of a century. If a hos
tile army were menacing the country
then truly we should want Grant, but
not even then as President. We went
through our gigantic war under the
leadership of man whose every habit
and instinct were a civilians, as Grants
every habit and instinct are a soldiers,
Lincoln as President. Grant as General
under him; the soldier as sword in
the civilians hand-that was the COM
bination by which we triumphed in
war. But we are not at war; we do not
want to be; we are not likely to be-
unless, indeed, we choose President
whose sole glory is that of a soldier.
Our danger from violence is the vio-
lence provoked as q retort to fraud
Against both violence and fraud the
only safe appeal lies to the sovereign
will of the people orderly expressed
The Legislature, the courts. the ballot
boz these are our strong towers of de-
fence. If in time of prosperity and
peace we cannot get along without sol
dier President, when can we get along
without him? Why not indeed re elect
him to the end of his life? f
The pressing danger OF the time is
, political corruption. Grant was and
would be again the tool of corruption
] ists. The perpetual danger of re-