Year: 1873

with Third Term to General
Grant.


In the fifth month from the Inauguration of
President of the United States for o second
term, if under the ordinary conditions of q
state of peace heretofore controlling the
| question of the succession, the discussion of
this subject would be but q waste of ammunition
on the empty air. Nay, under the existing
extraordinary condition of our political par
ties and of the political issues of the day, the
question of the next Presidency, wholly de-
pendent upon the course Of intervening
events, would be as pro6tless o theme tor
| speculation as the probable yield and value of
our Southern cotton crop Of 1874, but for the
instrumentalties, the ways, tho means and
temptations which point to General Grant as
the republican candidate for 1875 1t is the
probability of this alarming innovation, this
| rude unsettling of our established White
House limit, which brings at this unusual
time the Presidential succession before the
American people, and upon this pre-
lininary issue we have an embarrassment
which cannot be too soon considered and
adjusted


We are admonishsd by prominent admin
istration journal (the Rochester DemocraO
that the people will hesitate long before Offer
ing any man, even one who has earned so
much consideration at their hands as General
Grant, third term, and that he will be moro
scrupulous to accept than they to proffer; that
the sustere example of Washington cannot be
lightly disregarded; that nothing but some
dangerous crisis should induce this nation TO
choose even its greatest man Chief Magistrate
for third term; that such an example would
be pernicious; that there is, however no dan
ger in reference to General Grant; that n
held the Office; that he carries no mark of
the grasping usurper, but bears himself simply
as q man who has worthily performed great
work and is content to rest upon his laurels;
that, in short, he is one of those men who are
satisfied with saving their country, and would
rather rest after the task than begin new
struggle to take away our liberties. These
are encouraging words; but accepting all these
assurances OF safety and all these guarantees in
behalf Of our amiable and modest President,
they do not satisfy lis, because they DO not re-
move the danger. The danger is not with
him, but with the great party and all its
powerful appendages Of which he is the recog-
nized head and most popular and acceptable
leader.


| The austere examples of Washington are
losing their original force They are bscom-
ing too slow for the busy, bustling, demoral-
lied, money-making age we live in. Henry
Clay would rather be right than be President
but the old inquiry, els it right2" in the
moral code of our political parties, has been
superseded by the new legend, ''Will it pay"
In this matter the demoralizations resulting
from our late civil war, we sometimes fear
have entaied upon us heavier burden than our
national debt. Principles ore nothing in this
day with our Presidentmaking politicians
apart from their selfish interests. A move
ment which will not pay they will not support;
q movement which promises good dividends
they will push to q conclusion regardless of
principles. Will it pay the republican party
to relieve General Grant upon the expiration
of his present term in the nomination of
another man for the succession? That is the
question. The answer, too, is at hand in the
very silence of the republican journals touch
ing the probable standard bearer of their
party in 1876. Not one of them has cand-
date to suggest not one of them feels itself
at liberty emphatically to declare that Gen.
eral Grant is out of the field or to consider the
door as closed against him from the examples
of Washington, jefferson, Madison, Monroe
and Jackson. Whether it is from the fear of
unreasonable rivalries and divisions in the
party camp or from apprehensions OF losing
caste among "the powers that be-" the
republican press is singularly reticent
upon this question of third term to General


Grant


The republican party is embodied in the
administration, and in the patronage and in the
.. . financial interests and power of the admins
tration there is combination of political


forces which appear to be irresistible. In this
view the political power possessed by any pre-
ceding President was but a bagatelle CON-
pared with that of General Grant Down to
q time so late as the administration of John
Quincy Adams the current expenditures of
the government were but some thirteen mil.
lions year Down TO a period so late as the
administration OF Buchanan the patronage
and the favors of the President had hardly an
appreciable weight in the councils of the party
looking to the succession. Favors distributed
were as nothing to favors denied by the
President, or to favors expected from a
change in the White House. Pierce, from an
unsatisfactory disposition of the New York
Custom House, as much, perhaps, as from the
bad odor of his Kansas-Nebraska bill, though
an active candidate for second term, was cut
off with one. Polk, aspiring for second term
with all his patronage of the Mexican war,