1868 News Clippings from the New York World

Library of Congress, Periodicals and Microfilms, The World, New York, Apr 1 - Aug 15, 1868,

June 1, 1868, "General Grant's Speech of Acceptance," p. 4 [ed]

The speech "is very brief, as was to have been expected; and it is as flat and as commonplace as it it short." Objects to sentence saying will have "no policy of my own to interfere against the will of the people."

"Such a servile utterance is a self-proclaimed satire on General Grant's intellect and his moral independence. He is told by General Hawley that he is expected to be the political thrall of the party that has nominated him, and he responds by saying that the expectation is well-founded, and that he will have no policy of his own The surrender of his mental independence is the price General Grant is willing to pay for an election to the Presidency. He avows his willingness to go into that office as a puppet, and let the Radicals pull the strings.

"This abject pledge probably affords a correct measure of General Grant's capacitv as a statesman. He does not propose to be 'a pillar of state,' but a weathercock to show which way the wind blows, veering as the popular breath changes and having no direction of its own. But the Presidency is no place for a man without ideas and destitute of a policy; who knows no rule of conduct but the servile one of doing as he is hid; and because it is bidden thinking it right the will of the people ought to prevail... but their deliberate, settled will as expressed in the Constitution ought to prevail over their fitful impulses on some fleeting occasion. The Constitution is their permanent mandate. If by the will of the people be meant the caprice of a transient majority, it is not at all binding on the President... Our Constitution is built on the broad basis of human rights; it recognizes the rights of the minority as being sacred to the will of the majority; and it makes the President their defender by clothing him with the veto power for their protection. But General Grant declares, in substance, that if he is elected President there will be no more vetoes; that he will never have a policy in opposition to the will of the majortiv; that when a majority tyrannize he will be its subservient and willing tool. We are proud to say that no candidate for President ever before debased himsself by such a servile abdication of all the sentiments that befit a patriot and a statesman "

NY World, June 15, 1868, p. 4, "General Grant as A Statesman," "...The Tribune, in lauding General Grant's avowal that he had no policy, thought it meritorious. The theory on which the Tribune approved it was, that the President is merely an executive officer, who has no voice in making laws and no duty but to enforce them, and accordingly that to a President who does not mean to encroach upon the functions of Congress, a policy is a useless encumbrance. According to this theory, we are not to seek in a President a head to think, but only a hand to execute. The Tribune's view... is so far correct as it recognizes the absence in General Grant of all statesmanlike qualification and admits that it is only on the theory that such qualifications are not necessary that he is a suitable candidate "Attempts [of the NYTimes] to make General Grant a statesman resemble the long sought mystery of the old alchemists by which the baser metals were to be transmuted into gold "He lacks the aptitudes and is destitute of the knowledge possessed by men fitted to make a great figure in political life. "In our actual Government as the Constitution has mapped it, there is scope for the first order of talents in the President. He has the intiatlve, and if he be really able and great he may exert a controlling influence, in all questions of foreign and domestic policy As a matter of fact, the history of our country has been made by our Presidents "The power of our Presidents is so great that the whole interest of our politics has always centred in our Presidential elections. This power does not consist wholly, nor mainly, in their right to take the initiative in legislation by recommending measures to Congress, but in their power to successfully resist legislation unleRs it be supported by full two-thirds of both Houses of Congress... Add to this the influence of the Federal patronage... mak[ing] the legislative weight of the President more than equal to that of two-thirds of Congress. So much power is not safely trusted in any hands but that of an experienced statesman... so conscious does he [Grant] seem of his deficiency, that he aspires no higher than to be the subservient tool of Congress. If our former Presidents had been such personified negations, how very different would have been the history of the country!"

NY World, July 31, 1868, p.4 "Horatio Seymour A Statesman," [ed] "The notion of the Cincinnait Commercial that Governor Seymour is an adept in managing a canvass and in the arts of a small politician, will excite a smile here in New York where he is known. Such petty intrigues are the resource of an office- seeker; but Governor Seymour has never sought office; offices have always sought him. He does not belong to the order of men who need office to give them consideration. The chief advantage of high office is the opportunities it affords for influencing public opinion -- the grand lever by which the political world is moved in free contries. Mr. Seymour's abilities, eloquence and standing give him this advantage independently of public station. By such a man the routine duties of office may be reasonably shunned, except when the public voice demands the sacrifice of his Prrsonal ease for the general good."