It is difficult to imagine anything plainer than these words. No Army officer not on the retired list can hold any civil office; and then, to enforce the inhibition, it is provided that in “accepting or exercising the functions” of such office the commission is vacated. Now the Blue Book, which is our political almanac, has under the head of “Executive Mansion” a list of “secretaries” and “clerks,” beginning as follows: “Secretaries, General F. T. Dent, General Horace Porter, General O. E. Babcock,” when, in fact, there are no such officers authorized by law. Then follow the “Private Secretary,” “Assistant Private Secretary,” and “Executive Clerks,” authorized by law, but placed below those unauthorized. Nothing is said of being detailed for this purpose. They are openly called “Secretaries,” which is a title of office; and since it is at the Executive Mansion, it must be a civil office; and yet, in defiance of law, these Army officers continue to exercise its functions, and some of them enter the Senate with messages from the President. The apology that they are “detailed” for this service is vain; no authority can be shown for it. But how absurd to suppose that a rule against the exercise of a civil office can be evaded by a “detail”! If it may be done for three Army officers, why not for three dozen? Nay, more, if the civil office of Secretary at the Executive Mansion may be created without law, why not some other civil office? And what is to hinder the President from surrounding himself not only with secretaries, but with messengers, stewards, and personal attendants, even a body-guard, all detailed from the Army? Why may he not enlarge the military circle at the Executive Mansion indefinitely? If the President can be justified in his present course, there is no limit to his pretensions in open violation of the statute. Here the Blue Book testifies again; for it records the names of the “secretaries” in their proper places as Army officers,—thus presenting them as holding two incompatible offices.

I dismiss this transaction as another instance of Presidential pretension, which, in the interest of Republican Government, should be arrested.

UNREPUBLICAN SUBORDINATION OF THE WAR DEPARTMENT TO THE GENERAL-IN-CHIEF.

From the Executive Mansion pass now to the War Department, and there we witness the same Presidential pretensions by which law, usage, and correct principle are lost in the will of One Man. The supremacy of the civil power over the military is typified in the Secretary of War, a civilian, from whom Army officers receive orders. But this beautiful rule, with its lesson to the military of subordination, was suddenly set aside by our President, and the Secretary of War degraded to be a clerk. The 5th of March witnessed a most important order from the President, placing the Military Departments under officers of his choice,—purporting to be signed by the Assistant Adjutant-General by command of the General of the Army, but actually ignoring the Secretary of War.[134] Three days later, March 8th, witnessed another order professing to proceed from the President, whereby in express terms the War Department was subordinated to the General-in-Chief, being William T. Sherman, who at the time was promoted to that command. Here are the words:

This act of revolution, exalting the military power above the civil, showed instant fruits in an order of the General, who, upon assuming command, proceeded to place the several bureau officers of the War Department upon his military staff,[136] so that for the time there was a military dictatorship with the President at its head, not merely in spirit but in actual form. By-and-by John A. Rawlins, a civilian by education and a respecter of the Constitution, became Secretary of War, and, though bound to the President by personal ties, he said, “Check to the King.” By General Order, issued from the War Department March 26, 1869, and signed by the Secretary of War, the offensive order was rescinded, and it was enjoined that “all official business which by law or regulations requires the action of the President or Secretary of War will be submitted by the chiefs of staff corps, departments, and bureaus to the Secretary of War.”[137] Public report said that this restoration of the civil power to its rightful supremacy was not obtained without an intimation of resignation on the part of the Secretary.

THE SECRETARY OF THE NAVY BY DEPUTY.

Kindred in character was the unprecedented attempt to devolve the duties of the Navy Department upon a deputy, so that orders were to be signed “A. E. Borie, Secretary of the Navy, per D. D. Porter, Admiral,” as appears in the official journal of May 11, 1869,—or, according to another instance, “David D. Porter, Vice-Admiral, for the Secretary of the Navy.” The obvious object of this illegal arrangement was to enable the incumbent, who stood high on the list of gift-makers, to be Secretary without being troubled with the business of the office. Notoriously he was an invalid, unused to public business, who, according to his own confession, modestly pleaded that he could not apply himself to work more than an hour a day; but the President soothed his anxieties by promising a deputy who would do the work. And thus was this great department made a plaything; but public opinion and other counsels arrested the sport. Here I mention, that, when this incumbent left his important post, it is understood that he was allowed to nominate his successor.

PRESIDENTIAL PRETENSION AT THE INDIAN BUREAU.

At the same time occurred the effort to absorb the Indian Bureau into the War Department, changing its character as part of the civil service. Congress had already repudiated such an attempt;[138] but the President, not disheartened by legislative failure, sought to accomplish it by manipulation and indirection. First elevating a member of his late staff to the head of the Bureau, he then, by a military order dated May 7, 1869,[139] proceeded to detail for the Indian service a long list of “officers left out of their regimental organizations by the consolidation of the infantry regiments,”—assuming to do this by authority of the Act of Congress of June 30, 1834, which, after declaring the number of Indian agents, and how they shall be appointed, provides that “it shall be competent for the President to require any military officer of the United States to execute the duties of Indian agent.”[140] Obviously this provision had reference to some exceptional exigency, and can be no authority for the general substitution of military officers, instead of civilians confirmed by the Senate and bound with sureties for the faithful discharge of their duties. And yet upward of sixty Army officers were in this way foisted into the Indian service. The Act of Congress of July 15, 1870, already quoted,[141] creating an incompatibility between military and civil service, was aimed partly at this abuse, and these officers ceased to be Indian agents. But this attempt is another illustration of Presidential pretension.

MILITARY INTERFERENCE AT ELECTIONS.

Then followed military interference in elections, and the repeated use of the military in aid of the revenue law under circumstances of doubtful legality, until at last General Halleck and General Sherman protested: the former in his report of October 24, 1870, saying, “I respectfully repeat the recommendation of my last Annual Report, that military officers should not interfere in local civil difficulties, unless called out in the manner provided by law;”[142] and the latter, in his Report of November 10, 1870, “I think the soldiers ought not to be expected to make individual arrests, or to do any act of violence, except in their organized capacity as a posse comitatus duly summoned by the United States marshal, and acting in his personal presence.”[143] And so this military pretension, invading civil affairs, was arrested.

PRESIDENTIAL PRETENSION AGAIN.

Meanwhile this same Presidential usurpation, subordinating all to himself, became palpable in another form. It was said of Gustavus Adolphus, that he drilled his Diet to vote at the word of command. Such at the outset seemed to be the Presidential policy with regard to Congress. We were to vote as he desired. He did not like the Tenure-of-Office Act, and during the first month of his administration his influence was felt in both branches of Congress to secure its repeal; all of which seemed more astonishing when it was considered that he entered upon his high trust with the ostentatious avowal that all laws would be faithfully executed, whether they met his approval or not, and that he should have no policy to enforce against the will of the people.[144] That beneficent statute, which he had upheld in the impeachment of President Johnson, was a limitation on the Presidential power of appointment, and he could not brook it. Here was plain interference with his great perquisite of office, and Congress must be coerced to repeal it. The House acted promptly and passed the desired bill. In the Senate there was delay and a protracted debate, during which the official journal announced: “The President, in conversation with a prominent Senator a few days since, declared that it was his intention not to send in any nominations of importance until definite action was taken by Congress upon the Tenure-of-Office Bill.”[145]

Here I venture to add, that a member of the Cabinet pressed me to withdraw my opposition to the repeal, saying that the President felt strongly upon it. I could not understand how a Republican President could consent to weaken the limitations upon the Executive, and so I said,—adding, that in my judgment he should rather reach forth his hands and ask to have them tied. Better always a government of law than of men.

PRESIDENTIAL INTERFERENCE IN LOCAL POLITICS.

In this tyrannical spirit, and in the assumption of his central imperialism, he has interfered with political questions and party movements in distant States, reaching into Missouri, and then into New York, to dictate how the people should vote, then manipulating Louisiana through a brother-in-law appointed Collector. With him a custom-house seems less a place for the collection of revenue than an engine of political influence, through which his dictatorship may be maintained.

Authentic testimony places this tyrannical abuse beyond question. New York is the scene, and Thomas Murphy, Collector, the Presidential lieutenant. Nobody doubts the intimacy between the President and the Collector, who are bound in friendship by other ties than those of seaside neighborhood. The Collector was determined to obtain the control of the Republican State Convention, and appealed to a patriot citizen for help, who replied, that in his judgment “it would be a delicate matter for office-holders to undertake to dictate to the associations in the different districts who should go from them to the State Convention, and still more delicate to attempt to control the judgments of men employed in the different departments as to the best men to represent them.” The brave Collector lieutenant of the President said, “that he should not hesitate to do it; that it was General Grant’s wish, and General Grant was the head of the Republican Party, and should be authority on this subject.”[146] Plainly, the Republican Party was his perquisite, and all Republicans were to do his bidding. From other testimony it appears that the President, according to the statement of his lieutenant, “wanted to be represented in the Convention,” being the Republican State Convention of New York,—“wanted to have his friends there in the Convention”; and the Presidential lieutenant, being none other than the famous Collector, offered to appoint four men in the custom-house for the witness, if he would secure the nomination of certain persons as delegates from his district, and he promised “that he would immediately send their names on to Washington and have them appointed.”[147] And so the Presidential dictatorship was administered. Offices in the custom-house were openly bartered for votes in the State Convention. Here was intolerable tyranny, with demoralization like that of the slave-market.

But New York is not the only scene of this outrage. The Presidential pretension extends everywhere; nor is it easy to measure the arrogance of corruption or the honest indignation it quickens into life.

PRESIDENTIAL CONTRIVANCE AGAINST SAN DOMINGO.

These Presidential pretensions, in all their variety, personal and military, with reckless indifference to law, naturally ripened in the contrivance, nursed in hot-house secrecy, against the peace of the island of San Domingo: I say deliberately, against the peace of that island, for under the guise of annexing a portion there was menace to the Black Republic of Hayti. This whole business, absolutely indefensible from beginning to end, being wrong at every point, is the special and most characteristic product of the Administration, into which it infused and projected itself more than into anything else. In this multiform disobedience we behold our President. Already I have referred to this contrivance as marking an epoch in Presidential pretensions. It is my duty now to show its true character as a warning against its author.

A few weeks only after beginning his career as a civilian, and while occupied with military usurpations and the perquisites of office, he was tempted by overtures of Dominican plotters, headed by the usurper Baez and the speculator Cazneau: the first an adventurer, conspirator, and trickster, described by one who knows him well as “the worst man living of whom he has any personal knowledge”;[148] and the second, one of our own countrymen, long resident on the island, known as disloyal throughout the war, and entirely kindred in character to Baez. Listening to these prompters, and without one word in Congress or in the press suggesting annexion of the island or any part of it, the President began his contrivance; and here we see abuse in every form and at every step, absolutely without precedent in our history.

The agent in this transaction was Orville E. Babcock, a young officer figuring in the Blue Book of the time as one of the unauthorized “secretaries” at the Executive Mansion, and also as a major of engineers. His published instructions, under date of July 13, 1869, were simply to make inquiries; but the plot appears in a communication of the same date from the Secretary of the Navy, directed to the Seminole, a war-ship, with an armament of one eleven-inch gun and four thirty-two pounders, “to give him the moral support of its guns”; and this was followed by a telegraphic instruction to Key West for another war-ship “to proceed without a moment’s delay to San Domingo City, to be placed at the disposal of General Babcock while on that coast.”[149] With such “moral support” the emissary of the President obtained from the usurper Baez that famous Protocol stipulating the annexion of Dominica to the United States in consideration of $1,500,000, which the young officer, fresh from the Executive Mansion, professed to execute as “Aide-de-Camp to his Excellency General Ulysses S. Grant, President of the United States,”—as if, instead of Chief Magistrate of a Republic, the President were a military chieftain with his foot in the stirrup, surrounded by a military staff. The same instrument contained the unblushing stipulation, that “his Excellency General Grant, President of the United States, promises, privately, to use all his influence, in order that the idea of annexing the Dominican Republic to the United States may acquire such a degree of popularity among members of Congress as will be necessary for its accomplishment”:[150] which is simply that the President shall become a lobbyist to bring about the annexion by Congress. Such was the strange beginning, illegal, unconstitutional, and offensive in every particular, but showing the Presidential character.

On his return to Washington, the young officer, who had assumed to be “Aide-de-Camp to his Excellency General Ulysses S. Grant,” and had bound the President to become a lobbyist for a wretched scheme, instead of being disowned and reprimanded, was sent back to the usurper with instructions to negotiate two treaties,—one for the annexion of the half-island of Dominica, and the other for the lease of the Bay of Samana.[151] By the Constitution of the United States “ambassadors and other public ministers” are appointed by the President by and with the advice and consent of the Senate; but our Aide-de-Camp had no such commission. Presidential prerogative empowered him. Nor was naval force wanting. With three war-ships at his disposal,[152] he concluded negotiations with Baez and obtained the two treaties. Naturally force was needed to keep the usurper in power while he sold his country, and naturally such a transaction required a Presidential Aide-de-Camp unknown to Constitution or Law, rather than a civilian duly appointed according to both.

PRESIDENTIAL VIOLATIONS OF CONSTITUTIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL LAW.

On other occasions it has been my solemn duty to expose the outrages which attended this hateful business, where at each step we are brought face to face with Presidential pretension: first, in the open seizure of the war powers of the Government, as if he were already Cæsar, forcibly intervening in Dominica and menacing war to Hayti, all of which is proved by the official reports of the State Department and Navy Department, being nothing less than war by kingly prerogative, in defiance of that distinctive principle of Republican Government, first embodied in our Constitution, which places the war powers under the safeguard of the legislative branch, making any attempt by the President “to declare war” an undoubted usurpation. But our President, like Gallio, cares for none of these things. The open violation of the Constitution was naturally followed by a barefaced disregard of that equality of nations which is the first principle of International Law, as the equality of men is the first principle of the Declaration of Independence; and this sacred rule was set aside in order to insult and menace Hayti, doing unto the Black Republic what we would not have that Republic do unto us, nor what we would have done to any white power. To these eminent and most painful Presidential pretensions, the first adverse to the Constitution and the second adverse to International Law, add the imprisonment of an American citizen in Dominica by the Presidential confederate, Baez, for fear of his hostility to the treaty, if he were allowed to reach New York,—all of which was known to his subordinates, Babcock and Cazneau, and doubtless to himself. What was the liberty of an American citizen compared with the Presidential prerogative? To one who had defied the Constitution, on which depends the liberty of all, and then defied International Law, on which depends the peace of the world, a single citizen immured in a distant dungeon was of small moment. But this is only an illustration. Add now the lawless occupation of the Bay of Samana for many months after the lapse of the treaty, keeping the national flag flying there, and assuming a territorial sovereignty which did not exist. Then add the protracted support of Baez in his usurped power, to the extent of placing the national flag at his disposal, and girdling the island with our ships of war, all at immense cost, and to the neglect of other service where the Navy was needed.

This strange succession of acts, which, if established for a precedent, would overturn Constitution and Law, was followed by another class of Presidential manifestations: first, an unseemly importunity of Senators during the pendency of the treaty, visiting the Capitol as a lobbyist, and summoning them to his presence in squads, in obvious pursuance of the stipulation made by his Aide-de-Camp and never disowned by him,—being intervention in the Senate, reinforced by all the influence of the appointing power, whether by reward or menace, all of which was as unconstitutional in character as that warlike intervention on the island; and then, after debate in the Senate, when the treaty was lost on solemn vote, we were called to witness his self-willed effrontery in prosecuting the fatal error, returning to the charge in his Annual Message at the ensuing session, insisting upon his contrivance as nothing less than the means by which “our large debt abroad is ultimately to be extinguished,” and gravely charging the Senate with “folly” in rejecting the treaty,—and yet, while making this astounding charge against a coördinate branch of Government, and claiming such astounding profits, he blundered geographically in describing the prize.[153]

All this diversified performance, with its various eccentricity of effort, failed. The report of able commissioners transported to the island in an expensive war-ship ended in nothing. The American people rose against the undertaking and insisted upon its abandonment. By a message charged with Parthian shafts the President at length announced that he would proceed no further in this business.[154] His senatorial partisans, being a majority of the Chamber, after denouncing those who had exposed the business, arrested the discussion. In obedience to irrepressible sentiments, and according to the logic of my life, I felt it my duty to speak; but the President would not forgive me, and his peculiar representatives found me disloyal to the party which I had served so long and helped to found. Then was devotion to the President made the shibboleth of party.

WHERE WAS THE GRAND INQUEST OF THE NATION?

Such is a summary of the San Domingo business in its characteristic features. But here are transgressions in every form,—open violation of the Constitution in more than one essential requirement; open violation of International Law in more than one of its most beautiful principles; flagrant insult to the Black Republic, with menace of war; complicity with the wrongful imprisonment of an American citizen; lawless assumption of territorial sovereignty in a foreign jurisdiction; employment of the national navy to sustain a usurper,—being all acts of substance, maintained by an agent calling himself “Aide-de-Camp to Ulysses S. Grant, President of the United States,” and stipulating that his chief should play the lobbyist to help the contrivance through Congress, then urged by private appeals to Senators, and the influence of the appointing power tyrannically employed by the Presidential lobbyist, and finally urged anew in an Annual Message, where undisguised insult to the Senate vies with absurdity in declaring prospective profits and with geographical ignorance. Such, in brief, is this multiform disobedience, where every particular is of such aggravation as to merit the most solemn judgment. Why the grand inquest of the nation, which brought Andrew Johnson to the bar of the Senate, should have slept on this conglomerate misdemeanor, every part of which was offensive beyond any technical offence charged against his predecessor, while it had a background of nepotism, gift-taking with official compensation, and various Presidential pretensions beyond all precedent,—all this will be one of the riddles of American history, to be explained only by the extent to which the One-Man Power had succeeded in subjugating the Government.

INDIGNITY TO THE AFRICAN RACE.

Let me confess, Sir, that, while at each stage I have felt this tyranny most keenly, and never doubted that it ought to be arrested by impeachment, my feelings have been most stirred by the outrage to Hayti, which, besides being a wrong to the Black Republic, was an insult to the colored race, not only abroad, but here at home. How a Chief Magistrate with four millions of colored fellow-citizens could have done this thing passes comprehension. Did he suppose it would not be known? Did he imagine it could be hushed in official pigeonholes? Or was he insensible to the true character of his own conduct? The facts are indisputable. For more than two generations Hayti had been independent, entitled under International Law to equality among nations, and since Emancipation in our country commended to us as an example of self-government, being the first in the history of the African race and the promise of the future. And yet our President, in his effort to secure that Naboth’s Vineyard on which he had set his eyes, not content with maintaining the usurper Baez in power, occupying the harbors of Dominica with war-ships, sent other war-ships, being none other than our most powerful monitor, the Dictator, with the frigate Severn as consort, and with yet other monitors in their train, to strike at the independence of the Black Republic, and to menace it with war. Do I err in any way, am I not entirely right, when I say that here was unpardonable outrage to the African race? As one who for years has stood by the side of this much-oppressed people, sympathizing always in their woes and struggling for them, I felt the blow which the President dealt, and it became the more intolerable from the heartless attempts to defend it. Alas, that our President should be willing to wield the giant strength of the Great Republic in trampling upon the representative government of the African race! Alas, that he did not see the infinite debt of friendship, kindness, and protection due to that people, so that instead of monitors and war-ships, breathing violence, he had sent a messenger of peace and good-will!

This outrage was followed by an incident in which the same sentiments were revealed. Frederick Douglass, remarkable for his intelligence as for his eloquence, and always agreeable in personal relations, whose only offence is a skin not entirely Caucasian, was selected by the President to accompany the Commissioners to San Domingo,—and yet on his return, and almost within sight of the Executive Mansion, he was repelled from the common table of the mail-steamer on the Potomac, where his companions were already seated; and thus through him was the African race insulted and their equal rights denied. But the President, whose commission he had borne, neither did nor said anything to right this wrong, and a few days later, when entertaining the Commissioners at the Executive Mansion, actually forgot the colored orator whose services he had sought.[155] But this indignity is in unison with the rest. After insulting the Black Republic, it is easy to see how natural it was to treat with insensibility the representative of the African race.

ALL THESE THINGS IN ISSUE NOW.

Here I stay this painful catalogue in its various heads, beginning with nepotism and gift-taking with repayment by office, and ending in the contrivance against San Domingo with indignity to the African race,—not because it is complete, but because it is enough. With sorrow unspeakable have I made this exposure of pretensions, which, for the sake of republican institutions, every good citizen should wish expunged from history; but I had no alternative. The President himself insists upon putting them in issue; he will not allow them to be forgotten. As a candidate for reëlection he invites judgment, while partisans acting in his behalf make it absolutely necessary by the brutality of their assault on faithful Republicans unwilling to see their party, like the Presidential office, a personal perquisite. If his partisans are exacting, vindictive, and unjust, they act only in harmony with his nature, too truly represented in them. There is not a ring, whether military or senatorial, that does not derive its distinctive character from himself. Therefore, what they do and what they say must be considered as done and said by the chieftain they serve. And here is a new manifestation of that sovereign egotism which no taciturnity can cover up, and a new motive for inquiry into its pernicious influence.

THE GREAT PRESIDENTIAL QUARRELLER.

Any presentment of the President would be imperfect which did not show how this ungovernable personality breaks forth in quarrel, making him the great Presidential quarreller of our history. As in nepotism, gift-taking with repayment by office, and Presidential pretensions generally, here again he is foremost, having quarrelled not only more than any other President, but more than all others together, from George Washington to himself. His own Cabinet, the Senate, the House of Representatives, the diplomatic service, and the civil service generally, all have their victims, nearly every one of whom, besides serving the Republican Party, had helped to make him President. Nor have Army officers, his companions in the field, or even his generous patrons, been exempt. To him a quarrel is not only a constant necessity, but a perquisite of office. To nurse a quarrel, like tending a horse, is in his list of Presidential duties. How idle must he be, should the words of Shakespeare be fulfilled, “This day all quarrels die”![156] To him may be applied those other words of Shakespeare, “As quarrellous as the weasel.”[157]

Evidently our President has never read the Eleventh Commandment: “A President of the United States shall never quarrel.” At least he lives in perpetual violation of it, listening to stories from horse-cars, gobbling the gossip of his military ring, discoursing on imaginary griefs, and nursing an unjust anger. The elect of forty millions of people has no right to quarrel with anybody. His position is too exalted. He cannot do it without offence to the requirements of patriotism, without a shock to the decencies of life, without a jar to the harmony of the universe. If lesson were needed for his conduct, he might find it in that king of France who on ascending the throne made haste to declare that he did not remember injuries received as Dauphin.[158] Perhaps a better model still would be Tancred, the acknowledged type of the perfect Christian knight, who “disdained to speak ill of whoever it might be, even when ill had been spoken of himself.”[159] Our soldier President could not err in following this knightly example. If this were too much, then at least might we hope that he would consent to limit the sphere of his quarrelsome operations so that the public service might not be disturbed. Of this be assured,—in every quarrel he is the offender, according to the fact, as according to every reasonable presumption; especially is he responsible for its continuance. The President can always choose his relations with any citizen. But he chooses discord. With the arrogance of arms he resents any impediment in his path,—as when, in the spring of 1870, without allusion to himself, I felt it my duty to oppose his San Domingo contrivance. The verse of Juvenal, as translated by Dryden, describes his conduct:—

Another scholarly translator gives to this description of the Presidential quarrel another form, which is also applicable:—

If the latter verse is not entirely true in my case, something must be pardoned to that Liberty in which I was born.

Men take their places in history according to their deeds. The flattery of life is then superseded by the truthful record, and rulers do not escape judgment. Louis the Tenth of France has the designation of Le Hutin, or “The Quarreller,” by which he is known in the long line of French kings. And so in the long line of American Chief-Magistrates has our President vindicated for himself the same title. He must wear it. The French monarch was younger than our President; but there are other points in his life which are not without parallel. According to a contemporary chronicle, he was “well disposed, but not very attentive to the needs of the kingdom”;[162] and then again it was his rare fortune to sign one of the greatest ordinances of French history, declaring that “according to the Law of Nature every one must be born free”;[163] but the Quarreller was in no respect author of this illustrious act, and was moved to its adoption by considerations of personal advantage. It will be for impartial History to determine if our Quarreller, who treated his great office as a personal perquisite, and all his life long was against that Enfranchisement to which he put his name, does not fall into the same category.

DUTY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.

And now the question of Duty is distinctly presented to the Republican Party. I like that word. It is at the mandate of Duty that we must act. Do the Presidential pretensions merit the sanction of the party? Can Republicans, without departing from all obligations, whether of party or patriotism, recognize our ambitious Cæsar as a proper representative? Can we take the fearful responsibility of his prolonged empire? I put these questions solemnly, as a member of the Republican Party, with all the earnestness of a life devoted to the triumph of this party, but which I served always with the conviction that I gave up nothing that was meant for country or mankind. With me, the party was country and mankind; but with the adoption of all these Presidential pretensions the party loses its distinctive character and drops from its sphere. Its creed ceases to be Republicanism and becomes Grantism; its members cease to be Republicans and become Grant-men. It is no longer a political party, but a personal party. For myself, I say openly, I am no man’s man, nor do I belong to any personal party.

ONE TERM FOR PRESIDENT.

The attempt to change the character of the Republican Party begins by assault on the principle of One Term for President. Therefore must our support of this requirement be made manifest; and here we have the testimony of our President, and what is stronger, his example, showing the necessity of such limitation. Authentic report attests that before his nomination he declared that “the liberties of the country cannot be maintained without a One-Term Amendment of the Constitution.” At this time Mr. Wade was pressing this very Amendment. Then after his nomination, and while his election was pending, the organ of the Republican Party at Washington, where he resided, commended him constantly as faithful to the principle. The “Morning Chronicle” of June 3, 1868, after the canvass had commenced, proclaimed of the candidate,—

Then again, July 14th, the same organ insisted,—

Considering that these pledges were made by an organ of the party, and in his very presence, they may be accepted as proceeding from him. His name must be added to the list with Andrew Jackson, William Henry Harrison, Henry Clay, and Benjamin F. Wade, all of whom are enrolled against the reëligibility of a President.

But his example as President is more than his testimony in showing the necessity of this limitation. Andrew Jackson did not hesitate to say that it was required in order to place the President “beyond the reach of any improper influences,” and “uncommitted to any other course than the strict line of constitutional duty.”[164] William Henry Harrison followed in declaring that with the adoption of this principle “the incumbent would devote all his time to the public interest, and there would be no cause to misrule the country.”[165] Henry Clay was satisfied, after much observation and reflection, “that too much of the time, the thoughts, and the exertions of the incumbent are occupied during his first term in securing his reëlection.”[166] Benjamin F. Wade, after denouncing the reëligibility of the President, said: “There are defects in the Constitution, and this is among the most glaring.”[167]

And now our President by his example, besides his testimony, vindicates all these authorities. He makes us see how all that has been predicted of Presidents seeking reëlection is fulfilled: how this desire dominates official conduct; how naturally the resources of the Government are employed to serve a personal purpose; how the national interests are subordinate to individual advancement; how all questions, foreign or domestic, whether of treaties or laws, are handled with a view to electoral votes; how the appointing power lends itself to a selfish will, acting now by the temptation of office and then by the menace of removal; and, since every office-holder and every office-seeker has a brevet commission in the predominant political party, how the President, desiring reëlection, becomes the active head of three coöperating armies,—the army of office-holders, eighty thousand strong, the larger army of office-seekers, and the army of the political party, the whole constituting a consolidated power which no candidate can possess without peril to his country. Of these vast coöperating armies the President is commander-in-chief and generalissimo. Through these he holds in submission even Representatives and Senators, and makes the country his vassal with a condition not unlike that of martial law, where the disobedient are shot, while the various rings help secure the prize. That this is not too strong appears from testimony before a Senate Committee, where a Presidential lieutenant boldly denounced an eminent New York citizen, who was a prominent candidate for Governor, as “obnoxious to General Grant,”—and then, with an effrontery like the Presidential pretension, announced that “President Grant was the representative and head of the Republican Party, and all good Republicans should support him in all his measures and appointments, and any one who did not do it should be crushed out.”[168] Such things teach how wise were those statesmen who would not subject the President to the temptation or even the suspicion of using his vast powers in promoting personal ends.

Unquestionably the One-Man Power has increased latterly beyond example,—owing partly to the greater facilities of intercourse, especially by telegraph, so that the whole country is easily reached,—partly to improvements in organization, by which distant places are brought into unity,—and partly through the protracted prevalence of the military spirit created by the war. There was a time in English history when the House of Commons, on the motion of the famous lawyer Mr. Dunning, adopted the resolution, “That the influence of the Crown has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished.”[169] The same declaration is needed with regard to the President; and the very words of the Parliamentary patriot may be repeated. In his memorable speech, Mr. Dunning, after saying that he did not rest “upon proof idle to require,” declared that the question “must be decided by the consciences of those who as a jury were called upon to determine what was or was not within their own knowledge.”[170] It was on ground of notoriety cognizable to all that he acted. And precisely on this ground, but also with specific proofs, do I insist that the influence of the President has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished. But in this excellent work, well worthy the best efforts of all, nothing is more important than the limitation to one term.

There is a demand for reform in the civil service, and the President formally adopts this demand; but he neglects the first step, which depends only on himself. From this we may judge his little earnestness in the cause. Beyond all question Civil-Service Reform must begin by a limitation of the President to one term, so that the temptation to use the appointing power for personal ends may disappear from our system, and this great disturbing force cease to exist. If the President is sincere for reform, it will be easy for him to set the example by declaring again his adhesion to the One-Term principle. But even if he fails, we must do our duty.

Therefore, in opposing the prolonged power of the present incumbent, I begin by insisting, that, for the good of the country, and without reference to any personal failure, no President should be a candidate for reëlection; and it is our duty now to set an example worthy of republican institutions. In the name of the One-Term principle, once recognized by him, and which needs no other evidence of its necessity than his own Presidency, I protest against his attempt to obtain another lease of power. But this protest is on the threshold.

HIS UNFITNESS FOR THE PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE.

I protest against him as radically unfit for the Presidential office, being essentially military in nature, without experience in civil life, without aptitude for civil duties, and without knowledge of republican institutions,—all of which is perfectly apparent, unless we are ready to assume that the matters and things set forth to-day are of no account, and then, in further support of the candidate, boldly declare that nepotism in a President is nothing, that gift-taking with repayment in official patronage is nothing, that violation of the Constitution and of International and Municipal Law is nothing, that indignity to the African race is nothing, that quarrel with political associates is nothing, and that all his Presidential pretensions in their motley aggregation, being a new Cæsarism or personal government, are nothing. But if these are all nothing, then is the Republican Party nothing, nor is there any safeguard for Republican Institutions.

APOLOGIES FOR THE PRESIDENT.

Two apologies I hear. The first is that he means well, and errs from want of knowledge. This is not much. It was said of Louis the Quarreller, that he meant well; nor is there a slate head-stone in any village burial-ground that does not record as much of the humble lodger beneath. Something more is needed for a President. Nor can we afford to perpetuate power in a ruler who errs so much from ignorance. Charity for the past I concede, but no investiture for the future.

The other apology is, that his Presidency has been successful. How? When? Where? Not to him can be attributed that general prosperity which is the natural outgrowth of our people and country; for his contribution is not traced in the abounding result. Our golden fields, productive mines, busy industry, diversified commerce, owe nothing to him. Show, then, his success. Is it in the finances? The national debt has been reduced, but not to so large an amount as by Andrew Johnson in the same space of time. Little merit is due to either, for each employed the means allowed by Congress. To the American people is this reduction due, and not to any President. And while our President in this respect is no better than his predecessor, he can claim no merit for any systematic effort to reduce taxation or restore specie payments. Perhaps, then, it is in foreign relations that he claims the laurels he is to wear. Knowing something of these from careful study and years of practical acquaintance, I am bound to say that never before has their management been so wanting in ability and so absolutely without character. With so much pretension and so little knowledge, how could it be otherwise? Here the President touches nothing which he does not muddle. In every direction is muddle,—muddle with Spain, muddle with Cuba, muddle with the Black Republic, muddle with distant Corea, muddle with Venezuela, muddle with Russia, muddle with England,—on all sides one diversified muddle. If there is not muddle with Germany and France, it must be from their forbearance. To this condition are we reduced. When before in our history have we reached any such bathos as that to which we have been carried in our questions with England? Are these the laurels for a Presidential candidate?

But where else shall we look for them? Are they found on the Indian frontier? Let the cry of massacre and blood from that distant region answer. Are they in reform of the civil service? But here the initial point is the limitation of the President to one term, so that he may be placed above temptation; yet this he opposes. Evidently he is no true reformer. Are these laurels found in the administration of the Departments? Let the discreditable sale of arms to France in violation of neutral duties and of municipal statute be the answer; and let the custom-houses of New York and New Orleans, with their tales of favoritism and of nepotism, and with their prostitution as agencies, mercenary and political, echo back the answer; while senatorial committees, organized contrary to a cardinal principle of Parliamentary Law as a cover to these scandals, testify also. And again, let the War Department recall the disappearance of important archives bearing on an important event of the war, so that empty boxes remain like a coffin without a corpse. Where, then, are the laurels? At last I find them, fresh and brilliant, in the harmony which the President has preserved among Republicans. Harmony, do I say? This should have been his congenial task; nor would any aid or homage of mine have been wanting. But instead he has organized discord, operating through a succession of rings, and for laurels we find only weeds and thistles.

But I hear that he is successful in the States once in rebellion. Strange that this should be said while we are harrowed by the reports of Ku-Klux outrages. Here, as in paying the national debt, Congress has been the effective power. Even the last extraordinary measure became necessary, in my judgment, to supplement his little efficiency. Had the President put into the protection of the colored people at the South half the effort and earnest will with which he maintained his San Domingo contrivance, the murderous Ku-Klux would have been driven from the field and peace assured. Nor has he ever exhibited to the colored people any true sympathy. His conduct to Frederick Douglass on his return from San Domingo is an illustration; and so also was his answer to the committee of colored fellow-citizens seeking his countenance for the pending measure of Civil Rights. Some thought him indifferent; others found him insulting. Then came his recent letter to the great meeting at Washington, May 9, 1872, called to assert these rights, where he could say nothing more than this: “I beg to assure you, however, that I sympathize most cordially in any effort to secure for all our people, of whatever race, nativity, or color, the exercise of those rights to which every citizen should be entitled.”[171] Of course everybody is in favor of “the rights to which every citizen should be entitled.” But what are these rights? And this meaningless juggle of words, entirely worthy of the days of Slavery, is all that is vouchsafed by a Republican President for the equal rights of his colored fellow-citizens.

I dismiss the apologies with the conclusion, that in the matters to which they invite attention his Presidency is an enormous failure.

THE PRESIDENT AS CANDIDATE.

Looking at his daily life as it becomes known through the press or conversation, his chief employment seems the dispensation of patronage, unless society is an employment. For this he is visited daily by Senators and Representatives bringing distant constituents. The Executive Mansion has become that famous “Treasury trough” described so well by an early Congressional orator:—