Year: 1874

General Grant apparently, and his personal
and official supporters and henchmen cer-
tainly, have satisfied themselves that this Re-
public in its present form is failure They
are convinced that our regularly recurring
elections are an evil and an injury, and that
the material prosperity of the people is sacri-
feed in the uncertainties and excitements of
the political conflict and they suggest o
wonderful panacea, under the operation of
which we shall softly subside into stormless
condition, into an unrufied tranquility and q
perpetual peace, in which we shall enjoy q


golden age of commerce, industry and specu-


lation, and in which everybody shall be i'm


mediately healthy, presently wealthy and
finally wise. All this is to be secured by the


personal remedy-by ''taking good man


when you can get him." by abandoning forth


with our quadrennial renewal of the Execu-


tive and imposing the heavy duties Of that


Office permanently ON General Grant, who is


willing to add the acceptance of this burden


to his other sacrifices and services in behalf of


the country.


1t is very true that they do not distinctly


propose all this. They are not 80 maladroit.


They can comprehend how awkward it would


be to alarm the susceptibilities of people
failures in our system, has not yet given up


the Republic They follow the polite prece-


dent of those governments which, wanting
to borrow forty millions, feed the mar
ket with little issue Of five
millions. They propose, therefore, only a
first STEP Instead of permanency
they propose four years more. But they
count that if they get four years more oil the
rest will be easy; for they regard as the most
formidable obstacle in their way the const-
tutional precedent established by George
Washington of the limitation of the Executive
breakwater. Not written in the constitution,
it has perhaps greater sanctity, a more
sacred force, than any line in that instru-
ment for while the written constitution is
the result of the labors Of the wisest of the
groups of patriots from every State, that
great point of constitutional usage is the
direct legacy of the great man who towers
head and shoulders above them all in the
patriotic devotion and unselfshness as well as
in the success of the services that established
our Independence and freedom. Hamilton,
Madison, Norris Franklin and the rest were
the joint authors of our great charter; but
this one provision was Washington's own,
and it is entitled as such to pre-eminent re-
spect With the moral influence of that ex-
ample overcome by the election of General
Grant for four years more the advocates of
personal authority will see their way easy as
they fancy, to the establishment Of '.Mar-
shalate'' in the United States; for another
four years will be given less reluctantly than
the third and the people finally will become
80 used to the recurrence of the demand that it +
will scarcely be necessary even to observe the |
proper to the occasion of new
term; and the people, deluged in the delights
of prosperity, like Homer's hero in Circes
island, will take no note of the coming and
going of the political seasons Such seems
to be the political theory of the men, perhaps
half million in number, who crowd around
the President But there are more than five
hundred thousand persons in this country;
and the other thirty-eight millions may claim
that their views also have certain value and
they may dislike to have serious changes
made without their consent ALI these have
not the reasons which Grants friends have to
hate elections. They are not equally sure
that it is our constitutional system that is to
blame for the many evils in our government
md ~ yotohf ho IN {bov
that General Grant is good enough Execu-
tive to have all the law and the prophets cast
aside in order to secure his services perma-
nenty.


As to the attitude of various divisions of the
odd millions outside of the administration
circles there is much speculation, and there is
likely to be more as the game continues.
Within the lines of the republican party the
great panacea for all our troubles does not ap-
pear to be received with extreme favor. There
is no enthusiasm about it. 1t may be that the
republicans generally do not believe that the
view of our political condition which is
taken in administration circles is correct, and
consequently do not assent that 80 extreme
remedy is necessary. Or it may be that other
republicans want to be Presidents themselves,
and 30 pretend not to believe that the third
term is necessary for our national salvation.
But Grant, though he always preferred to
move by the left flank, can move by the right
if such a course seems forced upon him by the
topography and the position of the enemy.
He has had the ground in that direction re-
connoitred, and we know the result. Mosby
will support him for as many terms as he
wants. So will Toombs, of Georgia. So will
every desperate rebel in the Southern States
who feels that be has no country to lose, and
who would assist with savage joy any act
likely to destroy this Republic. If man
must go over the abyss there is final