Class 
 
 Book_£l 
 
 GoBtigMW 
 
 , " 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 
 

 i 
 
ABOUT GRANT 
 
 A 
 
 T 
 
 JOHN L^SWIFT 
 
 J/A.4L 
 
 BOSTON 
 LEE AND SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS 
 
 NEW YORK 
 CHARLES T. DILLINGHAM 
 
 l88o 
 
CofT 
 
 Copyright, 1880, 
 By LEE AND SHEPARD. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
AN INTRODUCTORY WORD. 
 
 A life of Grant tells us, that, when a boy twelve years 
 of age, he was driving in Kentucky a pair of horses 
 attached to a light wagon in which were two young 
 women. In crossing White Oak Creek, the back-water 
 of the Ohio had so swollen the stream, that the party 
 found itself afloat in the middle of the flood. The 
 women became alarmed, and shouted vigorously for 
 assistance. 
 
 The boy, in perfect self-possession, said, " Keep quiet : 
 I'll take you through safe." 
 
 He did so ; and from that time on he was conspicuous 
 for coolness, judgment, and signal readiness in emer- 
 gency. 
 
 The first battle of significance fought in the great 
 American civil conflict, of sufficient importance to change 
 public opinion here and elsewhere, was won by him when 
 thirty-nine years of age. 
 
 This victory, following as it did a prolonged season of 
 almost uninterrupted disaster to our arms, introduced 
 to the world this principal hero of the war of the Rebel- 
 
 3 
 
4 AN INTRODUCTORY WORD. 
 
 lion, one of the very few who have rendered illustrious the 
 nineteenth century. 
 
 To show his important share in the momentous events 
 through which the nation has passed since 1861, and to 
 present some of the reasons why millions of the Ameri- 
 can citizens whose fidelity to the flag never faltered 
 regard him as the true leader in the grave emergency 
 depending on the election of 1880, this book is written 
 about Grant. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER 
 I. 
 
 II. 
 
 III. 
 
 IV. 
 V. 
 VI. 
 VII. 
 VIII. 
 IX. 
 X. 
 XL 
 XII. 
 XIII. 
 XIV. 
 XV. 
 XVI. 
 XVII. 
 XVIII. 
 XIX. 
 XX. 
 XXI. 
 XXII. 
 XXIII. 
 
 First Year of the War 
 
 The First Great Victory 
 
 The First Re-action . 
 
 Under a Cloud . 
 
 A Blow that told 
 
 What Vicksburg settled 
 
 Closing the Gaps 
 
 The Fire in the Rear 
 
 Union Ballots and Union Bullets 
 
 The Vanquished Chief 
 
 The Vanished Capital 
 
 Breaking Ranks . 
 
 First Attempt to " Clasp 
 
 Ad Interim Secretary . 
 
 The Changed Constitution 
 
 Grant's Hardest Battle 
 
 The Besotted Nation 
 
 The Old Fight in a New Form 
 
 The War Dollar 
 
 The Fiat Dollar 
 
 The Honest Dollar 
 
 Imperialism . 
 
 Grant Abroad . 
 
 PAGE 
 
 9 
 
 15 
 
 20 
 
 25 
 
 3 2 
 
 40 
 
 47 
 5 2 
 56 
 
 65 
 69 
 
 72 
 
 77 
 
 83 
 88 
 
 97 
 104 
 114 
 127 
 132 
 136 
 *45 
 J 53 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER pAGE 
 
 XXIV. His Welcome Home 163 
 
 XXV. The Peril of Solidity 173 
 
 XXVI. The Battle and the Battle-Ground . . 184 
 
 XXVII. The National Need, — "A Strong Man" . 192 
 
GRANT AND THE TURNING TIDE 
 OF WAR. 
 
" In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is 
 the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. 
 You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You 
 have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government; while I 
 have the most solemn one to ' preserve, protect, and defend it.' " — 
 Abraham Lincoln : First Inaugural. 
 
 " I don't know any thing about making speeches ; that is not in my 
 line : but we are forming a company in Galena, and mean to do what we 
 can for putting down the Rebellion. If any of you feel like enlisting, I 
 will give you all the information and help I can." — Grant's First Speech. 
 
ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 FIRST YEAR OF THE WAR. 
 
 "The fall of Sumter was the resurrection of 
 patriotism." The news came as "if a mighty 
 thunderbolt had been launched from the hand of 
 the Omnipotent " to startle the torpor of the re- 
 public. It banished the compromising tone which 
 had prevailed, and evoked a sense of responsibility 
 and manhood beyond the calculations of the most 
 sanguine patriot. Yet, from the hour that an 
 alien flag "flaunted" over this conquered fortress, 
 steadily, with a uniformity that tested the endur- 
 ance of the American people to the utmost, de- 
 feat by superior strategy, and constant mishap, 
 had attended every loyal military effort. The 
 seventy-five thousand men who with alacrity re- 
 sponded to the call of Abraham Lincoln to " re- 
 possess the forts, places, and property taken from 
 the Union by the rebels," like snow under a tropi- 
 
 9 
 
IO ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 cal sun had melted away in the hot blaze of civil 
 struggle, without a sign of final success. 
 
 The hasty and unjustifiable proclamation in 
 which France had joined with England in bestow- 
 ing recognition to armed bands of slave-owners 
 seeking to destroy a friendly government had 
 made again apparent the fact that the shopkeep- 
 ing instincts of Great Britain shaped her foreign 
 policy. To see a country that had boasted over 
 the liberation of its own slaves indirectly though 
 deliberately throw its moral weight on the side of 
 an attempt to found a nation on the right of one 
 race to own and enslave another, had, in the lan- 
 guage of Minister Adams, " made a most unfavor- 
 able impression upon right-minded statesmen and 
 philanthropic Christians everywhere." While this 
 abandonment of the principles of religion for the 
 precepts of commerce had shocked those who 
 looked to England for a higher example of justice 
 and duty, it also augmented the severe burdens of 
 the republic, and in some aspects was a more diffi- 
 cult question to adjust than to repair or overcome 
 the damage to our cause in the field. 
 
 In July, 1 86 1, occurred the battle of Bull Run, 
 with a result so lamentable to the national side, 
 that no American can turn back without pain to 
 the remembrance of that scene of holiday folly 
 which marked the morning of the fatal day, or 
 recall without a blush that sad sunset which saw 
 the mad, impetuous flight of the lately proud 
 American army. 
 
FIRST YEAR OF THE WAR. n 
 
 The bitterest moment, however, that Northern 
 hearts ever knew was not when they heard of 
 prisoners taken at Bull Run by the thousands, 
 and of the reprehensible conduct of incompetent 
 officers, or of the promiscuous race for the rear 
 between civilians who left their hampers behind 
 them and the soldiers who threw away their 
 knapsacks, or in the destruction of the first real 
 army that had been sent out with great hope ; but 
 when the chief traitor patronizingly implored the 
 rebel masses to pity the North, and "never be 
 haughty to the humble," then the iron entered 
 deep into the loyal soul. Though the army re- 
 treated at Bull Run, patriotism did not. Before 
 the end of July, in sight of our beaten army at 
 full run, it was voted through the national repre- 
 sentatives to fight on for the cause with more 
 men by hundreds of thousands, and more money 
 by hundreds of millions. 
 
 The death of Lyon and the prevalence of disas- 
 ter in Missouri ; dangerous complications in Ken- 
 tucky ; a most disheartening repulse at Ball's Bluff, 
 inflicting a national calamity in the loss of Baker, 
 an eminent statesman and brave soldier ; " The 
 Trent " affair, almost provoking foreign interfer- 
 ence ; repeated ill success at the front ; political 
 divisions at the North, beginning a baleful career 
 of disorder ; chaos in values ; the rise of the specu- 
 lative spirit ; the separation of the people into two 
 parties, — one trusting government with money, 
 the other denying the capacity of the government 
 
12 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 to fulfil its obligations ; credit trembling in the 
 balance ; heavy loans put on the market ; gold dis- 
 appearing ; the public pride smarting under the 
 domineering tone of the English Government in 
 its mercenary diplomacy ; vacant chairs around 
 loyal hearthstones and firesides ; insignia of 
 mourning everywhere in sight ; — all this, without 
 an instance of successful leadership or any vic- 
 tory to cheer the tried energy and resolution of 
 the Union element, or to compensate severe loss 
 of life and treasure, was the dismal record of the 
 first nine months of the Rebellion. 
 
 The beginning of the year 1862 saw treason 
 elated with its conquests, — the South full of hope, 
 and animated with military renown ; while loyalty, 
 with no inspiration of military success, struggled 
 against a ceaseless flood-tide of misfortune. 
 
 The battle of Belmont was fought by Grant as 
 brigadier-general of volunteers in November, 1861. 
 At the time the country thought the affair a failure, 
 and Grant was regarded with distrust, although 
 the success of the movement was complete and 
 in accordance with his plan. It protected an 
 operation of our army that the enemy designed to 
 check, and changed the latter's campaign in Mis- 
 souri from aggressive to defensive ; but the main 
 value of this movement was in its development of 
 the character and qualities of the coming chief 
 of our armies. The perfect management of his 
 command, the individual coolness and observance 
 of the situation which make retreat equal to vie- 
 
FIRST YEAR OF THE WAR. 
 
 13 
 
 tory, the gift of laconic expression, — a rare char- 
 acteristic of the rarest soldiers, — the display of 
 an inflexible will united with a discreet judgment, 
 were the revelations of the contest at Belmont. 
 
 A striking feature of the character of Gen. 
 Grant is reserved power. Where circumstances 
 are the least favorable and the most involved, he 
 is then the clearest in purpose and the strongest 
 in resolve. This contingent of internal strength 
 in the midst of external difficulty never has de- 
 serted him. At Belmont he was in an exceeding- 
 ly precarious position. He had fought skilfully, 
 and had forced in the rebels and broken up their 
 camp, but was in no condition for, and had no in- 
 tention of, holding the ground. The re-enforced 
 enemy massed upon him. " We are surrounded 
 and lost," said one of his alarmed staff. " No," 
 said Grant, " we have whipped them once : we can 
 whip them again. We cut in : we must cut out." 
 At Pittsburg Landing, as his lines were slowly 
 but surely being driven back, every step made 
 scarlet with heroic blood, Grant was asked what 
 arrangements had been made for retreat. " I have 
 not given up the idea yet of whipping them," was 
 the answer. He held on, and whipped them ; and 
 these pithy sayings passed into the language of 
 the camp. With regularity that seems at times 
 the consequence of special design, the grave mili- 
 tary and civil responsibilities devolved upon him 
 have presented at their commencement the unfail- 
 ing emergency of disadvantage and uncertainty, 
 
14 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 to end, by his foresight and indomitable persisten- 
 cy, both in personal and national triumph. It was 
 when the country had been so strained for months 
 that it seemed almost at the point of exhaustion, 
 when the patience of Europe concerning the block- 
 ade had been pushed to the extreme, and the 
 prominent inquiry at home and abroad was, "When 
 is this to end ? what evidence is there of conquer- 
 ing such a foe ? where are the Northern victo- 
 ries ? " that the tide of doubt and disaster was 
 turned in favor of our national forces, never to 
 change its current till the last vestige of insurrec- 
 tion had been swept away. 
 
THE FIRST GREAT VICTORY. 15 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE FIRST GREAT VICTORY. 
 
 Many will remember well the anxiety of those 
 waiting for the news on the gloomy night of that 
 Sunday when the report came of the taking of 
 Fort Donelson. The day had been unusually de- 
 pressing, even for that era of suspense and long- 
 ing. Suddenly the operator's face shone as he 
 heard the click of the telegraph. He read the 
 despatch aloud : " Fort Donelson captured with 
 the entire force ! " Cheers went up from those 
 who heard this announcement ; for the long cata- 
 logue of Union defeats had reached its limit. How 
 the tidings flew ! People shouted it on the cars 
 and in the streets. Door-bells were rung, and to 
 the question, — 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 " Grant has captured Fort Donelson," was the 
 answer. 
 
 "Any prisoners ? " 
 
 " Seventeen thousand six hundred and twenty- 
 three." 
 
 "Glorious! That wipes out Bull Run. Any 
 thing else ? " 
 
 " Seventeen heavy guns, forty-eight field-pieces, 
 
1 6 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 twenty thousand small arms, three thousand horses, 
 flags, and military stores." 
 
 " Hurrah for Grant ! " was on every loyal tongue. 
 And the next morning the people read in detail 
 that Grant, after taking Fort Henry prior to his 
 great victory at Donelson, had been instructed to 
 be very cautious in his advance ; to use the con- 
 trabands with pick and shovel in fortifying his 
 position; and to feel his way with the "spade" 
 with precaution. The people read that Grant, not 
 relishing fighting with the spade behind breast- 
 works, and chafing under the delay, annoyance, and 
 restraint of red tape, determined to " move on the 
 enemy's works." They read that Fort Donelson 
 had been made by the Confederacy the " strongest 
 place in that theatre of operation." Every thing 
 that military skill and engineering could do for it 
 had been done. To repel attack, the natural posi- 
 tion was formidable, and all the appliances of the 
 science of war had been added. The people read 
 that Grant closed in upon this stronghold on the 
 1 2th of February, 1862. They read that on the 
 next day an attack by the Union gunboats had 
 proved a total failure, and a premature assault on 
 the right had been repulsed ; that on the 14th, 
 after a counsel of war by the rebel chiefs, a most 
 desperate attempt was made to dislodge the 
 national forces, and force a way out into the open 
 country. So probable was the success of this 
 movement at high noon of the 14th, that Pillow 
 sent the message, " On the honor of a soldier, the 
 
THE FIRST GREAT VICTORY. 17 
 
 day is ours." Of this almost accomplished ad- 
 verse demonstration, Grant knew nothing until 
 nine o'clock of the day it took place. . By request 
 of Admiral Foote, he had been in consultation 
 with that wounded officer at the gunboats, some 
 distance from his own headquarters. The inter- 
 view over with Foote, on his return he was in- 
 formed of the rebel sortie, and he immediately 
 gave orders to attack the rebel right. Meeting 
 the troops already engaged, Grant, as the story 
 read, found them in much disorder and badly 
 broken up. Riding over the field of action, he 
 saw the knapsacks of the enemy's dead packed with 
 several days' rations. With that insight into the 
 minutest details which belongs to instinctively 
 military natures, he deciphered the rebel intention. 
 " They are trying to escape. Armies don't come 
 out to fight with three days' provisions. Which- 
 ever party makes the attack will win the day, and 
 the rebels will have to move quickly to beat me," 
 said Grant. The command was given to the en- 
 couraged troops " to advance along the whole line." 
 Foote was telegraphed to "to steam up, and to make 
 pretence of renewing attack." The ground and 
 guns lost in the morning were recaptured, and the 
 enemy was forced back. And, with tears of joy fill- 
 ing their loyal eyes, the people read of the closing 
 charge, in the late afternoon, that ploughed through 
 the abattis, scaled the heights, and burst upon the 
 whole rebel line with a force that " nothing human 
 could resist," securing a Union victory which the 
 
1 8 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 generalship of Grant and the bravery of his men 
 had wrested from a nearly irrevocable defeat. And 
 as the story concluded with the record of the rebel 
 chieftains passing the night swapping the dignity 
 and honor of their command, — Floyd resigning to 
 Pillow, and Pillow giving up to Buckner, who stood 
 his ground while the outranking generals slid 
 away under the cover of darkness, with a brigade 
 as escort, and two steamboats as means of deliv- 
 ery ; and as the ringing words of Grant in answer 
 to the condition of surrender, which have become 
 a proverb with the nation, finished this full chapter 
 of glory, — the people by the millions, who thus 
 read, hailed with joy the man and the movement 
 which after so many weary months had given a 
 victory so overwhelming and important that it 
 became the harbinger of ultimate triumph for the 
 republic. It was a victory of such dimensions as 
 to attract world-wide consideration ; and it settled 
 in the American mind the fact, that a new man 
 was on the stage, and a new era had begun. 
 Flags waved from every house ; hymns were 
 chanted in every church ; and guns boomed from 
 deck and fort in commemoration of the event. 
 Press united with pulpit to swell the chorus of 
 praise. The despatch from Boston to Grant — 
 "That the furore of jubilation was never equalled 
 in the memory of living men" — expressed the 
 universal popular sentiment. The lightning that 
 informed Lincoln of the capture of Donelson bore 
 back the next instant to its conqueror a commis- 
 
THE FIRST GREAT VICTORY. 19 
 
 sion as major-general of volunteers, showing the 
 correctness of Grant's own words addressed to his 
 soldiers : " The men who fought that battle will 
 live in the memory of a grateful people." 
 
2 Q ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE FIRST RE-ACTION. 
 
 This blow was felt not only with force upon the 
 fortunes of the Confederacy, but had no small 
 share in shaping diplomatic action abroad. The 
 humiliation of the South was reflected in the state- 
 ment of Forrest, a Southern general : " Grant 
 landed with a petty force of fifteen thousand men 
 in the very centre of a force of nearly forty-five 
 thousand having the interior lines for concentra- 
 tion and command, by railway at that, and was 
 able to take two heavy fortifications in detail, and 
 place Jwrs de combat nearly fifteen thousand of the 
 enemy." The effect of this remarkable victory 
 upon the North was incalculable. The bravery of 
 that section had long been demonstrated. The 
 willingness to give life and treasure for the flag 
 had never been in dispute from the start. The 
 growing question was, " Is all this sacrifice of any 
 account ? or are we pouring out our life-blood and 
 our treasure in vain ? " In a single day a victory 
 worthy of the most brilliant tactician gave an 
 answer that assured our destiny. Europe was 
 compelled to forbear from wholesale depreciation 
 of the Northern campaign, and to study the con- 
 
THE FIRST RE- ACTION. 21 
 
 sequences of the conquest of Donelson. Inspir- 
 ing the loyal portion with a sense of unbounded 
 cheer; staggering the enemy in his council as 
 well as his camp; furnishing the speech of the 
 common people with new terms of expression that 
 became a vernacular of victory, — this grand tri- 
 umph brought the captor into such prominence, 
 that men began to ask, " Has the appointed deliv- 
 erer come ? " From the sea to the frontier every 
 loyal household breathed with more freedom as 
 it felt the tide at last had turned, and was now 
 setting resistlessly forward to the supremacy of 
 the nation over its deadly assailants. 
 
 With this notable re-action of public sentiment 
 towards the Union cause, the formidable emer- 
 gency of protracted discouragement was success- 
 fully encountered. 
 
GRANT AND THE SEVERED CON- 
 FEDERACY. 
 
" We have collected an immense siege-park. All the world is expecting 
 us to begin, and up to this moment the guns are standing idle. It has 
 certainly damaged us with the neutral powers. The effect of the success of 
 
 Sedan has been lessened quite enormously in consequence." — Bismarck. 
 
 \ 
 
 " It was such as Montchenu who made the chief cause of the Revolution. 
 Before it such a man as Bertrand, who is worth an army of Montchenus, 
 could not be a sons-lieutenant while vieux enfans like him would be gen- 
 erals. God help the nation that is governed by such ! In my time most of 
 the generals of whose deeds France is so proud sprung from that very 
 class of plebeians so much despised by him." — Napoleon. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 UNDER A CLOUD. 
 
 His plans of battle, methods of operation, style 
 of communication with superiors and departments 
 to which he was obliged to report, the personal 
 characteristics all so much applauded now, were 
 matters of serious objection and denunciation at 
 the beginning of Grant's career. 
 
 " I am going to attack Fort Donelson to-mor- 
 row." 
 
 " Do you know how strong it is ?" 
 
 " Not exactly. But I think I can take it. At 
 all events I can try." 
 
 This sounds well as we scan the words ; but at 
 the time it was held to be unmilitary, and poor 
 tactics. 
 
 " Where shall I find you ? " 
 
 " Probably at headquarters. If you don't, come 
 to the front wherever you hear the heaviest firing." 
 
 We thrill with patriotic response as we read 
 that answer to-day ; but, when uttered, it was pro- 
 nounced claptrap and bravado. 
 
 " You are up early, general ! " 
 
 "Yes: I got up at two o'clock, and have been 
 
 2 5 
 
26 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 working ever since, trying to study out the plans 
 of old Pap Price." 
 
 We see in this incident the peculiarities of a 
 watchful soldier ; but, before Grant's fame was 
 assured, such conversation was held to be very 
 undignified, coarse, and inexcusable. Rumors of 
 incapacity, suspicions as to unquestioned loyalty, 
 damaging insinuations both as to habits and am- 
 bitious designs, were not unfrequent before the 
 battle of Pittsburg Landing. A crushing blow 
 was intended to be made by the Confederacy at 
 this place to annihilate Grant in his unintrenched 
 position, and was commenced by the Confederate 
 generals with every prospect of success. 
 
 Adopting the "forty centuries" air with which 
 Napoleon addressed his soldiers at the Pyramids, 
 Beauregard said the night before the encounter at 
 Pittsburg Landing, "Yonder is the camp of the 
 enemy. There we sleep to-morrow night." The 
 secrecy of the Confederate attack had been so well 
 kept, that our army was virtually caught napping. 
 History has it that the first rebel shots surprised 
 many at breakfast, some in partial dress, some 
 with equipments in disorder, but found none ex- 
 pecting an engagement. Grant began to study 
 the nature of the movement of the enemy from 
 the firing, rather than to give way to his evident 
 surprise. Making all preparations to hurry re-en- 
 forcements forward, he ordered the ground to be 
 held if possible till succor should come. The 
 position of our army was excellent, but without 
 
UNDER A CLOUD. 27 
 
 other than natural defences. Sherman had the 
 key of the position, and was clinging to it with 
 the grip of death, when Grant came up to consult 
 with him. 
 
 "I fear we shall run out of ammunition," said 
 Sherman. " Oh," said Grant, " I have provided for 
 that ! " But, though the ammunition was provided 
 for, the first day, with a persistency of ill fortune 
 that became proverbial, was a defeat ; and Beaure- 
 gard with his rebels did sleep in the loyal camp 
 07ie night. The fighting had been dogged in its 
 resistance and deadly in its results on both sides. 
 
 Victory seemed so sure for the rebels, that word 
 was sent, "We have this morning attacked the 
 enemy in a strong position in front of Pittsburg, 
 and after a severe battle of ten hours, thanks to 
 Almighty God, gained a complete victory, driving 
 the enemy from every position." With Grant it 
 is always the " home stretch " that tells. As at 
 Donelson, the rebel jubilation was premature. 
 " We must fire the first gun to-morrow morning : 
 the advantage will be with the attacking party," 
 was the order of Grant for the second day's fight 
 at Pittsburg. At dawn the guns began to crack. 
 During the day two hesitating regiments were per- 
 sonally rallied and led into action by Grant. The 
 fighting was fiercely stubborn; the generalship 
 in action masterly. Re-enforcements coming in 
 to settle the issue, the Confederates were driven 
 back, the ground was fully recovered, and the rebel 
 designs entirely frustrated. It was a narrow escape 
 
28 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 from what threatened to be an extermination of 
 our army in that locality. Though it did not con- 
 clude with the capture of so much of the enemy 
 as to utterly cripple him, yet it altered the whole 
 phase of the campaign in that section, and was a 
 greater victory than was conceded at the moment. 1 
 Because unintrenched, Grant was bitterly as- 
 sailed in military circles. Said Turenne, "When a 
 man has committed no faults in war, he could only 
 have been engaged in it a short time." So far as 
 military science, through its books and precedents 
 taught, the battles of Donelson and Pittsburg, as 
 battles, were at fault in many particulars. That 
 of Donelson was big with risks. To boldly under- 
 take an assault upon a strong natural fortification 
 that was aided by great military preparation, with 
 less troops to attack than there were inside for 
 defence, was in violation of every example and ad- 
 vice in war. The battle was fought because Grant 
 believed the Confederate officers in command were 
 
 1 Nothing in the literature of war could be more ridiculous than Beau- 
 regard's letter, sent by flag of truce, asking permission to bury the Confed- 
 erate dead at this battle : "At the close of the conflict yesterday, my 
 forces being so exhausted by the extraordinary length of time during which 
 they were engaged with yours on that and the previous day, and it being 
 apparent that you had received and were still receiving re-enforcements, I 
 felt it was my duty to withdraw my troops from the immediate scene of 
 conflict .' " Another specimen of rebel war gasconade is the following from 
 the same source : " Soldiers of Shiloh and Elkton, we are about to meet 
 once more in the shock of battle the invaders of our soil. . . . Let the 
 impending battle decide our fate, and add a more illustrious page to the 
 history of our revolution, — one to which your children will point with 
 noble pride, saying, ' Our fathers were at the battle of Corinth." 1 " After 
 this bulletin, his army quietly packed up, and sneaked away without a shot. 
 
 
UNDER A CLOUD. 29 
 
 incapable, and because he thought that quickness 
 of movement would outweigh every advantage 
 against him. Said Buckner, after the surrender, 
 " Had I commanded, you would not have reached 
 the fort so easily." — " If you had," replied Grant, 
 " I should have waited for re-enforcements ; but I 
 knew Pillow would never come out of his works to 
 fight." The judgment of Grant proved correct, 
 and the plan of battle was justified by success. 
 In both actions the main principles guiding Grant 
 were, " Having assumed the offensive, to maintain 
 it at all hazards;" " To take every precaution 
 possible for full support of all under command ; " 
 "Begin the fighting ; " and "Never to scare" How- 
 ever erroneous in other respects, these tactics were 
 true to those laws, and were won under them ; but 
 they ended in bringing Grant into temporary re- 
 tirement and discredit. The scandal-mongers were 
 again at their despicable work. Envy, malice, man- 
 agement, had full sway ; and, under pretence of 
 promotion, Grant was for a season in reality ta- 
 booed and ignored, till after his superiors found by 
 the evacuation of Corinth that he had at Pittsbunr 
 
 o 
 
 Landing won the entire field in that section. Sit- 
 ting idly in his tent, instead of being with his 
 command in active service, he wrote to his father, 
 " I will go on and do my duty to the very best of 
 my ability, and do all I can to bring the war to a 
 speedy close. I am not an aspirant for any thing 
 at the close of the war. . . . One thing I am well 
 aware of : I have the confidence of every man in 
 
30 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 my command." Some of the " on-to-Richmond " 
 papers of that period, like the independent press 
 of this, under the impression that the true way to 
 beat your worst enemies is to vilify your best 
 friends, hounded Grant incessantly. 
 
 Mortified and wounded at his treatment from 
 the papers and from those over him, Grant was 
 forced to demand relief from his equivocal relation 
 to the army ; and he said in a letter, " I am not 
 going to lay off my shoulder-straps until the close 
 of the war ; but I should like to go to New Mexico, 
 or some other remote place, and have a small 
 command out of reach of the newspapers." Hal- 
 leck, who had been to the front while Grant was 
 reduced to inaction in his tent, — after his eyes 
 were open to the superior military wisdom of the 
 shelved officer by the extensive manner in which 
 he had been fooled, through the enemy's move- 
 ments at Corinth, in finding a barren town where 
 he had planned to bag an army, — acknowledged 
 his mistake as to the importance of the battle of 
 Pittsburg Landing. The country, seeing a new 
 and alarming emergency before it in the neces- 
 sity to counteract the succession of delays and 
 disasters in other points, ordered the reinstate- 
 ment of Grant on the summoning of Halleck to 
 Washington. He had often expressed his willing- 
 ness to serve under Sherman with the same readi- 
 ness as to have Sherman serve under him ; but 
 he felt his compulsory, and to him humiliating, 
 retirement deeply. 
 
UNDER A CLOUD. 31 
 
 He also saw with regret the needless postpone- 
 ment of a vigorous campaign, and prolongation 
 of movements in a rebellious region, which a 
 change of command forced upon the country. 
 One of the biographers of Grant remarks, "It 
 is pleasant to record, that always after going to 
 Washington, as if in atonement for his former 
 ungraciousness, Halleck gave to Grant hearty and 
 entire support." The same historian observes, in 
 connection with this unpleasant experience, that 
 " Grant felt keenly the newspaper denunciation 
 of which he had been the victim, but very seldom 
 alluded to it. Once he said to a Cincinnati cor- 
 respondent, — 
 
 "' Your paper has made many false statements 
 about me, and, I presume, will continue to do so. 
 Go on in that way if you like ; but it is hard treat- 
 ment for a man trying to do his duty in the field. 
 I am willing to be judged by my acts, but not to 
 have them misrepresented or falsified.' " 
 
 It is possible to imagine how these insults and 
 suspicions rankled in the brave soul that endured 
 them all, and never in the height of his power re- 
 membered these acts against their perpetrators ; 
 but it can never be known how much it cost this 
 country to fight on the most approved principles 
 of engineering, or to pursue the supercilious 
 methods of the martinets who sometimes hold 
 the destinies of nations. 
 
32 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 A BLOW THAT TOLD. 
 
 In March, 1863, three officers stood together 
 one midnight, watching strange incidents about 
 Port Hudson. They made part of the advance 
 which was to co-operate with Farragut in his at- 
 tempt to pass fortifications that Jefferson Davis 
 shortly before, after personal examination, had pro- 
 nounced "impregnable." The formidable bluffs, 
 commanding the river for miles in either direction, 
 were amply supplied with the best armament for 
 defence. Against the fearful fire of these powerful 
 batteries, Farragut was at that moment "running 
 the gauntlet." The land forces were in the rear 
 of Port Hudson, there to divert the enemy, and 
 draw a portion of the garrison from operating 
 against the fleet. The precise object of the ex- 
 pedition no one of the three knew, although 
 hearsay gave it that it was in connection with 
 Grant's movements above. One of the officers 
 in this group had served with Grant in Oregon, 
 and the conversation naturally turned upon him. 
 
 It was an extraordinary scene : the air roared 
 with the rush of bombs ; the earth trembled 
 under the fierce, incessant cannonade ; the heav- 
 
A BLOW THAT TOLD. 33 
 
 ens were filled with curves of light from busy 
 shells ; when an explosion shook the ground for 
 miles, and made the air alive with conflagration. 
 
 One of the officers exclaimed, " If the Lord will 
 let me live just long enough to find what all this 
 is, and what it is about, I shall die happy." 
 
 Morning brought word that Farragut, after a 
 most terrible damage to his fleet, including the de- 
 struction of the large steamer " Mississippi" by the 
 firing of her magazine, and with much loss of life, 
 had passed the guns of the enemy, and was on his 
 way up the river to communicate with Grant. It 
 was the " beginning of the end ; " and what Grant's 
 colleague said, in giving an estimate of him, proved 
 true : " I don't know what he is up to ; but he z\- 
 ways pulls through, and he will come out right." 
 Whoever has seen that area of rank, monotonous 
 desolation along the borders of the Lower Missis- 
 sippi, traversed by sluggish gullies, overspread 
 with trackless and treacherous lowlands, the para- 
 dise of the centipede, alligator, and mosquito, and 
 the terror of living men, will understand why 
 Grant made seven abortive attempts upon Vicks- 
 burg on the upper side. 
 
 A writer says, "The swamps, forests, jungles, 
 bayous, and rivers of this remarkable region are 
 the most perfect defence that could be devised for 
 important points situated on the highlands which 
 lie beyond them. To the army operating along 
 the main river they proved to be a perfect barrier ; 
 for, although they were frequently penetrated, it 
 
34 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 was always with such great labor and loss of time, 
 that the rebels, moving by rail or along the better 
 roads of the highlands, were enabled to meet our 
 forces in superior strength, or to block their way 
 by impassable fortifications." 
 
 A/riend, calling one evening, found Grant alone 
 in his office, — the ladies' cabin of "The Magnolia." 
 He said, — 
 
 " The problem is a difficult one, but I shall cer- 
 tainly solve it: Vicksburg can be taken. I shall 
 give my days and nights to it, and shall surely take 
 it. 
 
 Richardson says of the plan to pass the bat- 
 teries, "It was no sudden inspiration. For 
 months the general had thought of it as a last 
 resort. When he and the staff, three months 
 earlier, first visited the Williams Cut-off, Rawlins, 
 after contemplating the tiny rill which trickled 
 through it, exclaimed, ' What's the use of a canal, 
 unless it can be dug at least fifty feet deeper? 
 This ditch will never wash out large enough in 
 all the ages to admit our steamboats.' Two days 
 later, at headquarters, when several generals and 
 engineers were considering plans, the staff-officer 
 again remarked, 'Wilson and I have a project of 
 our own for taking Vicksburg.' — 'What is it?' 
 asked Sherman. 'Why, not to dig a ditch, but to 
 use the great one already dug by Nature, — the 
 Mississippi River; protect our transports with 
 cotton-bales, run them by the batteries at night, 
 and march the men down the Louisiana shore, 
 ready to be ferried across.' ' 
 
A BLOW THAT TOLD. 35 
 
 The entire fleet passed the Vicksburg batteries 
 in April, transporting the army below to operate 
 upon the city from the south. At the time when 
 the country had become heart-sick of unavailing 
 efforts at " fancy" engineering, and of men 
 mowed down by the thousand with pestilential 
 fevers, and about repulses at Holly Springs and 
 Chickasaw Bayou and Yazoo Pass and Miliken's 
 Bend, till the courage of the land began to fail, 
 and Grant's enemies began to insinuate, " You 
 see he's going to fizzle out like all the rest," 
 by a sudden desperate and unprecedented move, 
 he again lifted the people out of despondency, and 
 was once more, after being for months the public 
 scapegoat, instantly elevated to the position of a 
 public idol. Obtaining valuable information as to 
 roads and ground from the faithful negroes, he 
 started for his objective point to bag Pemberton. 
 On he went, "whipping the rebels beautifully at 
 every step," — on to the Big Black, after taking 
 Grand Gulf and Port Gibson. Finding himself 
 between two wings of the army, — " Pemberton in 
 Vicksburg with fifty thousand men on his left," 
 and the rebels collecting on the right in unknown 
 numbers, — in order to prevent a union of their 
 forces, he resolved to cut loose from his base ; and 
 giving notice, "I shall communicate with Grand 
 Gulf no more, except as it becomes necessary to 
 send trains under heavy escort ; you may not hear 
 from me for several days," he took a leap forward 
 without consultation with his superiors, and prob- 
 
36 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 ably against the judgment of a vast majority of 
 military men ; certainly in spite of the fears and 
 remonstrance of those who fought our battles in 
 the war-office at the Capitol. The suspense of the 
 nation for the next few days was intense. Millions 
 of those now living were then unborn ; and many 
 who passed through this period of anxiety and 
 waiting have forgotten the tension of expectation 
 which made these harrowing days eventful with 
 mingled hope and fear. Grant and his army had 
 disappeared from public view. Would it be 
 ruined, or come forth regnant with glory, was 
 the question ? It was a crisis on which hung the 
 fate of the republic : and when the intelligence 
 came, that Johnston had been outmarched by the 
 celerity of Grant, and that Jackson had been oc- 
 cupied and destroyed as a military depot for the 
 enemy ; and that the most important railway com- 
 munications with Pemberton were utterly ruined, 
 and conjunction with the fleet above Vicksburg 
 secured, and Pemberton, by one of the most suc- 
 cessful series of combinations and strategy known 
 in war, hemmed in behind his works ; and when 
 the account came of the battle of Champion Hills, 
 named by its awful sacrifice of brave men " the 
 Hill of Death," — the great, beating, loyal heart 
 of the country was filled with the commingled emo- 
 tions of astonishment, admiration, and love for the 
 soldier who seemed capable of every thing but the 
 miraculous. 
 
 During the battle of Champion Hills, Grant 
 
A BLOW THAT TOLD. 37 
 
 received from the bureau at Washington an order 
 to make junction with the forces in the Depart- 
 ment of the Gulf before moving on Vicksburg. It 
 was too late. The work had been done ; and Pem- 
 berton's beaten army was pouring back into its 
 defences, only to be helplessly trapped and cor- 
 ralled. " Until this moment I have never thought 
 that your expedition would be a success. I never 
 could see the end clearly ; but this is a campaign," 
 said the ablest officer next to Grant in the army. 
 Vicksburg was encircled from the river above to the 
 river below ; and so accurate had been Grant's cal- 
 culations, that the investment was consummated in 
 exact accordance with his arrangements. Froude 
 describes Julius Caesar returning from a campaign 
 in' " the light of twenty victories.". If history can 
 be depended upon, " Grant's Operations since leav- 
 ing New Carthage had rarely been equalled by the 
 most illustrious captains of history." 
 
 " In twenty days he had marched two hundred 
 miles, and fought five battles ; taking ninety guns, 
 capturing six thousand of the enemy, and killing 
 and wounding many more. He had destroyed 
 Pemberton's communication, stopped him from 
 escaping, and finally driven him to the wall. And 
 his total loss in killed, wounded, and missing, 
 footed up only four thousand." 
 
 And now Grant was compelled to resort to what 
 had been the main weapon of some of the leading- 
 generals of the army, — the spade. With it he 
 made a line of circumvallation to protect his rear, 
 
38 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 and with it he began to mine the rebel works that 
 two assaults had failed to carry. But famine be- 
 gan to smite the doomed city, and the direct 
 horrors of war were felt in the besieged enclosure. 
 Hunger, disease, poison by malaria, death, revelled 
 in that forlorn domain. The days dragged on, — 
 dismay within ; slow and tireless digging without. 
 
 " When do you expect to take Vicksburg ? " 
 tauntingly asked a female rebel. 
 
 " I can't tell exactly," said Grant ; " but I shall 
 stay till I do, if it takes thirty years." 
 
 An intercepted letter contained these words : — 
 
 " We put our trust in the Lord. . . . We ex- 
 pect Joe Johnston to come to our relief." 
 
 On reading this, Grant gave orders to march a 
 portion of his army, saying to the leader, "They 
 seem to put a good deal of trust in the Lord and 
 Joe Johnston ; but you must whip Johnston fifteen 
 miles from here." 
 
 On the 4th of July, 1863, the "old flag" floated 
 over Vicksburg. Rhetoric has no capacity of elo- 
 quence equal to the mere statement that the 
 " Stars and stripes " waved over the Gibraltar of 
 the Confederacy ; and words can add nothing to 
 the condensed record of the historian : — 
 
 " In the capitulation Grant received fifteen gen- 
 erals, thirty-one thousand six hundred soldiers, 
 and one hundred and seventy-two cannon, — the 
 greatest capture of men and armament ever made 
 at one time since the invention of gunpowder, if 
 not since the creation. Adding prisoners pre- 
 
A BLOW THAT TOLD. 39 
 
 viously taken, his captures since the 1st of May 
 were swelled to forty-two thousand and fifty-nine 
 men." 
 
 Thirty millions of loyal people thanked God in 
 earnest prayer that His almighty wisdom had 
 given us such a victory, and a military leader great 
 enough to surmount every peril with which he 
 had grappled. 
 
40 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 WHAT VICKSBURG SETTLED. 
 
 Grant once wrote to his father, "The govern- 
 ment asks a good deal of me, but not more than 
 I feel fully able to perform." Vicksburg settled 
 that the country could put no load upon Grant 
 that he could not lift. As Donelson settled it 
 beyond controversy that the early boast of martial 
 superiority on the part of the South was " as 
 sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal," so Vicks- 
 burg settled several weighty matters that only 
 successful battle could determine. It hopelessly 
 divided the area of rebellion. The "lordly Mis- 
 sissippi " was in loyal control, never again to be 
 wrested from us. The granary of the rebel army, 
 the source from which its sustenance was mainly 
 drawn, was sealed against it. With the Atlantic 
 coast blockaded, and the rich pastures and store- 
 houses of the trans-Mississippi closed, the Con- 
 federacy itself was in a state of siege ; and, with- 
 out foreign intervention, its downfall was but a 
 question of time. The Confederacy was severed, 
 never to be rejoined. Vicksburg vindicated the 
 policy of emancipation, and added the mighty 
 power of moral greatness to the war. 
 
WHAT VICKSBURG SETTLED. 41 
 
 This victory had justified the absorption into 
 loyal ranks of a race that by the magic of en- 
 franchisement was rising in the scale of human 
 dignity. It welcomed from the fields of the 
 South the black hands that, unpaid, tilled the soil, 
 owned as they were by human masters, and placed 
 within those swarthy hands muskets that were to 
 establish their fitness for freedom and their title 
 to manhood. By our thus proclaiming liberty 
 universal, and identifying the cause of loyalty 
 with the cause of religion and humanity, the 
 malicious spirit of our enemies and the vacillating 
 spirit of our questionable friends in England were 
 alike rebuked, and our cause was strengthened 
 throughout the world. 1 
 
 The lofty spirit of devotion to just principles of 
 government which guided the pen of Milton, and 
 animated the tongue of Hampden, in the days of 
 
 ul Adjutant-Gen. Lorenzo Thomas now came from Washington to 
 organize negro regiments. Grant had already paved the way for this in 
 obedience to the President's wish that commanders should help remove 
 the prejudices of our white troops against them. He had issued an order 
 adding three hundred contrabands to the pioneer corps of each division. 
 
 " Grant did nothing in a half-hearted way, but entered zealously into 
 the movement, and reported to Halleck, — 
 
 "'At least three of my corps commanders take hold of the new policy 
 of arming the negroes, and using them against the enemy, with a will. 
 They at least are so much of soldiers as to feel themselves under obliga- 
 tions to carry out a policy which they would not inaugurate in the same 
 good faith and with the same zeal as if it were of their own choosing. 
 You may rely on my carrying out any policy ordered by proper authority 
 to the best of my ability.' " 
 
 This extract shows what an important influence on this question came 
 out of the necessities of Vicksbursr. 
 
42 
 
 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 the Commonwealth ; the sublime sentiment which 
 found echo in all true English hearts, that the air 
 of England was too pure for any slave to breathe, 
 — aroused Englishmen in 1863 to resist the efforts 
 of British toryism and British selfishness to inter- 
 fere for Southern benefit. The fall of Vicksburg 
 insured the final extinction of the slave-owners' 
 empire, and linked together the triumph of the 
 American flag and the full freedom of the Ameri- 
 can slave. A sympathetic spirit was awakened in 
 the mother-country, and smote down with right- 
 eous indignation all efforts to break the embargo 
 on Southern ports. It was no trifling contribution 
 to the national cause that Grant at Vicksburg 
 settled forever the likelihood of foreign intermed- 
 dling with the blockade. We cannot wonder, then, 
 that " Grant became henceforth the central figure 
 in our military history," or that "the country hailed 
 him with unfeigned delight and sincerity as the 
 only general who was always successful." 
 
 Lincoln wrote him, " When you turned north- 
 ward, east of Big Black, I feared it was a mistake. 
 I now wish to make a personal acknowledgment 
 that you were right, and I was wrong." 
 
 Amid all the congratulations and honors that 
 crowded upon him as hero of Vicksburg, Grant 
 maintained a quiet, simple, unostentatious dignity. 
 Declining a public ovation tendered him, he con- 
 cluded his letter with the patriotic sentiment, "The 
 stability of this government and the unity of this 
 nation depend solely on the cordial support and 
 earnest loyalty of the people." 
 
WHAT VIC KS BURG SETTLED. 43 
 
 Of all men, living or dead, who have ever con- 
 tributed by their acts to uphold the unity and sta- 
 bility now represented by our invincible flag, none 
 ever did more than Grant by the capture of Vicks- 
 burg. Placing on sure ground the non-interven- 
 tion of Europe, vindicating the hallowed policy of 
 human freedom, raising up the bond race, unfet- 
 tering the Father of Waters, and giving it back to 
 interstate commerce, it made certain to the calcu- 
 lation of the world that the national flag would 
 yet wave for a country stronger than when the 
 eagles of Rome soared from the " Pillars of Her- 
 cules to the walls of Antoninus." 
 
GRANT AND THE SAVING OF THE 
 BORDER. 
 
" The principle by which my conduct has been actuated through life 
 would not suffer me in any great emergency to withhold any services I 
 could render required by my country, especially in a case where its dearest 
 rights are assailed by lawless ambition and intoxicated power." — Wash- 
 ington's Acceptance of the Commission of Lieutenant-General. 
 
 " I accept the commission with gratitude for the high honor conferred 
 with the aid of the noble armies that have fought in so many battle-fields 
 for our common country. It will be my earnest endeavor not to disap- 
 point your expectations. I feel the full weight of the responsibilities now 
 devolving upon me ; and I know, if they are met, it will be due to those 
 armies, and above all to the favor of that Providence which leads both 
 nations and men." — Grant's Speech on receiving Commission as Lieu- 
 tenant-General. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 CLOSING THE GAPS. 
 
 " I much fear that the spirit which you have aided to in- 
 fuse into the army, of criticising their commander and 
 withdrawing confidence from him, will now turn upon you. 
 I shall assist you as far as I can to put it down. Neither 
 you nor Napoleon, if he were alive again, could get any good 
 out of an army while such a spirit prevails in it. And now 
 beware of rashness ! Beware of rashness ! but, with ener- 
 gy and sleepless vigilance, go forward, and give us victories. 
 " Yours very truly, 
 
 " A. Lincoln." 
 
 This letter from Abraham Lincoln was written 
 to a distinguished general placed at the head of 
 the Army of the Potomac. No such caution was 
 needed in Grant's case. He had little talk with 
 regard to his own or another's military operations. 
 
 " What shall I say to our people, when I return 
 home, about the presidency ? " asked one of those 
 frisky politicians who consider their utterances as 
 very important. 
 
 " Say nothing. I want nothing whatever said," 
 was the reply of Grant ; and the same reticence 
 marked him in all affairs. A commission as 
 major-general in the regular army, personal letters 
 
 47 
 
48 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 of thanks from the chief magistrate and the prin- 
 cipal military and civil dignitaries, congressional 
 and State honors, public eulogiums,' presentations 
 of swords from enthusiastic admirers, indicated that 
 Grant now, as Washington before him, stood first 
 in the hearts of his countrymen. The defeat of 
 our army at Chickamauga — at times threatening 
 to repeat the holocaust at Stone River — had so 
 alarmed government, that Grant was summoned to 
 grapple with a new emergency. The gaps through 
 which invading bands of guerillas could break and 
 overrun the adjacent loyal districts, and the pre- 
 carious tenure by which some of the most impor- 
 tant military positions in the border States were 
 held, gave rise to much apprehension in their im- 
 mediate localities, and general dissatisfaction every- 
 where. To close these dangerous gaps, and dis- 
 lodge the enemy from the border line, was the 
 exigency now before Grant. The consolidation of 
 all forces east of the Mississippi and west of the 
 Alleghanies placed two hundred thousand men 
 at his disposal. His first business was to secure 
 Chattanooga and relieve Burnside, now in an ex- 
 ceedingly embarrassing situation in Knoxville. 
 At Chattanooga was an ill-supplied army, crowded 
 within a small space, with Burnsi'de two hundred 
 miles away in one direction, and Sherman far dis- 
 tant in an opposite direction. Placing Thomas in 
 the position of the commander lately so disastrously 
 defeated, Grant's orders were, — 
 " Hold Chattanooga at all hazards." 
 
CLOSING THE GAPS. 49 
 
 " I will, or starve," was the answer. 
 
 Grant arrived at Chattanooga in October, 1863. 
 Missionary Ridge, three miles away, covered the 
 place. The rebels outnumbered Grant, and were 
 in the full flush of a late victory. Hills in front, a 
 river at their back, rescue or escape alike improba- 
 ble, — such was the deplorable state in which Grant 
 found his cooped-up army at Chattanooga. His 
 forces under Hooker, as usual in advance, had 
 seized the most commanding situation, which held 
 fast the railroad communicating with the supplies. 
 This sharp, quick action put Bragg on the defen- 
 sive, and gave Grant an opportunity for aggressive 
 movement. The former had sent Longstreet to 
 attack Burnside. "Lose most of your army be- 
 fore retreating: hold the line from Knoxville to 
 Clinton seven days, and the Tennessee Valley can 
 be saved," was the message sent to Burnside. 
 Then Grant concluded to save Knoxville by fight- 
 ing Bragg. The only defence Grant believed in 
 was attack. There were few darker days in the his- 
 tory of our struggle than these before Chattanooga. 
 Grant, however, had faith that Burnside would 
 hold on, and that Sherman would make connection 
 in time. In both opinions he was correct. The 
 gallant fighting and the glorious victories at Look- 
 out Mountain and Missionary Ridge are too famil- 
 iar to need description here. The battle of Chat- 
 tanooga is regarded as a most remarkable military 
 contest. Such was the strength of the enemy's 
 position, that Grant said, "A line of skirmishers 
 
50 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 properly handled should have held it." The field 
 of operation was an amphitheatre, and in all prob- 
 ability " no battle was ever fought more completely 
 under the eye of the commander." As one histo- 
 rian says, " Hooker drew attention to the right. 
 Sherman compelled the enemy to mass just as had 
 been designed, and .Thomas was made to attack 
 the centre at the critical moment ; and more than 
 the results hoped for were accomplished. Armies 
 were moved to fight this battle from the Missis- 
 sippi and the Potomac> and came upon time ; 
 mountains were climbed ; rivers bridged and 
 crossed under fire ; ridges scaled, though held by 
 hostile armies ; and the enemy himself took his 
 part in the plan exactly as had been foreseen, as 
 if he had been under the orders of Grant." It 
 sent Bragg flying in retreat, and was the last heard 
 of him. It closed every avenue then open to in- 
 vasion, shut up the "last gap," and delivered the 
 border from danger by raising the siege of Knox- 
 ville, and, relieving the hard-pressed forces of Burn- 
 side, drove the last hostile flag in that vast section 
 forever beyond the sight of loyalty. Recognizing 
 that he had gone on in an unbroken march of tri- 
 umph from the first great national victory at 
 Donelson ; had liberated the great inland highway 
 of waters and all its important tributaries ; and 
 had annihilated three separate rebel armies, — the 
 nation demanded that Grant should be raised to 
 the chief command with a military title never 
 given by the republic but to one, " and that one, 
 
 
CLOSING THE GAPS. ^ 
 
 Washington." Grant was esteemed by his grate- 
 ful countrymen the only soldier worthy to bear for 
 the second time the honors of Lieutenant-General 
 of' the Armies of the United States. 
 
52 ABOUT GRANT, 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE FIRE IN THE REAR. 
 
 It was said by an influential Northern Demo- 
 cratic paper, " If troops shall be raised in the North 
 to march against the people of the South, afire in 
 the rear will be opened on such troops, which will 
 either stop their march altogether or wonderfully 
 accelerate it." Later this treasonable "fire in the 
 rear" came. The rebellion would never have 
 touched the point of armed resistance, but for the 
 expectation of sufficient Democratic support to 
 forbid actual war. The doctrine of State rights, 
 the corner-stone of American Democracy, led 
 legitimately to the principle of ultimate supremacy 
 in local government. Secession was the logical 
 result of the theory that final authority was with 
 the State. If the Democratic school was constitu- 
 tionally correct in holding that the dissolution of 
 government was in the hands of a section rather 
 than of the nation, — if a part could break up the 
 whole, — then every shot fired by the South was 
 right, and every shot sent back by the North was 
 wrong. The sole difference between the Northern 
 and the Southern Democrat was, the one had the 
 courage to fight for his convictions ; the other 
 
THE FIRE IN THE REAR. 53 
 
 had not. The South's glaring mistake was in 
 trusting the pledges, and relying on the co-opera- 
 tion, of Northern Democracy. When it came to 
 the pinch, the Northern end gave out. The action 
 of the South was honorable and pure in compari- 
 son with the craven behavior of its allies in the 
 North. The peace men in the loyal States were 
 poltroons as well as traitors. The South risked 
 lives and property for an idea. Peace men in the 
 North, sympathizing with that idea, without care 
 or thought for the country in its struggle for exist- 
 ence, were simply white-livered re-actionists : keep- 
 ing out of bodily harm, they were content to 
 smirk with joy when the national flag trailed in 
 the dust. The course of the government in eman- 
 cipating and in arming blacks gave the peace 
 Democrat opportunity to style the contest "a nig- 
 ger war." The negro of that day, as is the China- 
 man of this, was the special object of hatred by 
 the naturalized alien race which makes so large a 
 part of the Democracy of the North. To such 
 prominence had the peace party risen in 1863, that 
 it became the main auxiliary of the rebellion. 
 Vanquished at the front by veteran, loyal legions, 
 disloyalty saw that its drooping fortunes must be 
 revived in the treason which worked to divide 
 politically the North. By secret orders parading 
 nightly as " Sons of Liberty " and " Knights of 
 the Golden Circle ; " by boldly forming and arm- 
 ing military bands wherever Democratic senti- 
 ment was in the ascendant ; by mobocratic resist- 
 
54 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 ance to the laws in Democratic strongholds; by 
 predatory bands of desperadoes threatening vio- 
 lence in the borders ; by avowed declarations of 
 opposition to conscription ; by base appeals to pas- 
 sion from an Ex-President of the United States, 
 who designated the loyal conflict as the " mailed 
 hand of military usurpation in the North striking 
 down the liberties of the people ; " by these acts of 
 treachery, together with peace talk in the high- 
 ways and popular assemblies, the "fire in the rear" 
 rekindled the flickering embers of treason in the 
 South by the blaze of such fuel as burning orphan 
 asylums. The despair of the retreating rebel was 
 turned to joy by shrieks of helpless black children 
 pursued by the peace Democrat in riotous demon- 
 stration against the loyal draft. The peace con- 
 spiracy was wide-spread and elaborately planned. 1 
 
 On the Democratic standards of the North the 
 bewildered gaze of- treason was now fastened. 
 As the banners of the foe went down before 
 the tramp of our armies, his cause rose wherever 
 
 1 "The first blow — the signal for uprising — was to be struck at 
 Chicago during the sittings of the Democratic Convention, when eight 
 thousand Confederate prisoners, confined in Camp Douglas, near that city, 
 were to be liberated and armed by the rebel refugees from Canada there 
 assembled, and five thousand sympathizers with the conspirators, and 
 members of the treasonable league, resident in Chicago. Then the Con- 
 federate prisoners at Indianapolis were to be released and armed, and the 
 hosts of the Knights of the Golden Circle were to gather at appointed 
 rendezvous to the number of full one hundred thousand men. This force, 
 springing out of the earth as it were, in the rear of Grant and Sherman, 
 would, it was believed, compel the raising of the siege of Richmond and 
 Atlanta, and secure peace on the basis of the independence of the ' Con- 
 federate States.' " 
 
THE FIRE IN THE REAR. 55 
 
 a Democratic caucus or convention gathered. 
 Guided by the light of history, it is safe to say, 
 that, in all that makes man respect his fellow-man, 
 the war rebel of the South stands, in the estima- 
 tion of the world, far in advance of the peace 
 Democrat of the North. 
 
56 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 UNION BALLOTS AND UNION BULLETS. 
 
 Grant had said, in concluding one of the most 
 comprehensive military reports ever written, that 
 his object was "to hammer continuously against 
 the armed force of the enemy and his resources, 
 until by mere attrition, if in no other way, there 
 should be nothing left to him but an equal sub- 
 mission, with the loyal section of our common 
 country, to the Constitution and laws of the 
 land." That he regarded it as essential that pub- 
 lic opinion should second the hammering process 
 is proved by the following letter : — 
 
 " I have no doubt but the enemy are exceedingly anxious 
 to hold out until after the presidential election. They have 
 many hopes from its effects. They hope a counter-revolu- 
 tion ; they hope the election of the peace candidate ; in 
 fact, like Micawber, they hope for 'something to turnjip.' 
 Our peace friends, if they expect peace from separation, are 
 much mistaken. It would be but the beginning of war, 
 with thousands of Northern men joining the South, because 
 of our disgrace in allowing separation. To have peace on 
 any terms, the South would demand the restoration of their 
 slaves already freed. They would demand indemnity for 
 losses sustained, and they would demand a treaty which 
 would make the North slave-hunters for the South. They 
 
UNION BALLOTS AND UNION BULLETS. 57 
 
 would demand pay, or the restoration of every slave escap- 
 ing to the North. 
 
 (Signed) 
 
 " U. S. Grant." 
 
 As lieutenant-general, Grant had not only to 
 face the schemes of the peace Democracy strain- 
 ing to embitter public sentiment and embarrass 
 the North, but the Army of the Potomac exhibited 
 something of a divided attachment, and looked 
 with distrust, if not discontent, upon its new 
 commander. That noble army had in it the best 
 fighting qualities ; for it had been pitted against 
 the ablest general the South had put in the field. 
 Under various chiefs it had dashed against Lee, 
 but only, as the waves dash against a rock, to roll 
 back, as it were, exhausted with vain effort. 
 These battles had made the soil of Virginia a 
 vast burial-ground of heroes; but no victory 
 had yet crowned our arms on that bloody arena. 
 Antietam had forced the invader from Maryland, 
 and Gettysburg had hurled the great leader of 
 treason back to his lair in distress and disappoint- 
 ment, without decisive results. Still the Army 
 of the Potomac blazoned with deeds of valor ; and 
 its scarred veterans loved, with no common affec- 
 tion, their old commanders. The familiar names 
 were dear to them, and it was not with altogether 
 satisfied hearts they saw the Western hero rise 
 above their favorite generals. Grant knew and 
 felt the difficulties and discomfort of the situation. 
 He knew also that the rebellion would never be 
 
58 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 crushed until one thing had been done that had 
 never yet been done, — to whip Lee effectually. 
 This finishing business did not begin auspiciously. 
 No other sensation but utter dismay is possible, as 
 we turn back to these perilous hours. The first 
 movement upon Petersburg had collapsed, for 
 causes unexplained to this day. The march from 
 the Wilderness to Cold Harbor was attended by 
 such wailing of sad hearts, such " hecatombs of 
 slaughter," as the world rarely hears or sees. 
 The abandonment of the attempt to fight Lee 
 longer north of Richmond ; the change of plan 
 by investment of the Southern capital, and its iso- 
 lation from the Confederacy;, the skurry and panic 
 at Washington at the approach of Early to its 
 line of fortifications, — had tended to dishearten 
 the stoutest trust of patriotism, and to demoralize 
 the condition of the entire country. The debt had 
 swollen to eighteen hundred millions of -dollars. 
 Gold had ballooned to two eighty-five, — the high- 
 est figure reached during the war, — and the land 
 seemed to reel under its heavy load. Above all 
 the sorrow of a great people in sore travail, above 
 the shots of contending armies, above all other 
 wrangling and confusion, could be heard the 
 hoarse croaking and hollow mockery of the Demo- 
 cratic marplots in national convention assembled : 
 " Stop the fight ! the war is a failure" 
 
 Grant was impressed that the national cause 
 needed the momentum of a victory. 
 
 The election of a President and a new Congress 
 
UNION BALLOTS AND UNION BULLETS. 59, 
 
 was impending. Lost to the Union side, the 
 Union itself would be lost. He felt that his best 
 contribution to loyalty would be in fresh success. 
 Success came. Sheridan had been told by Grant 
 to "go in," and try his hand in the valley of the 
 Shenandoah. He went in, and whirled an army 
 glutted with conquest back in grievous rout l and 
 confusion ; giving to the world a story that will 
 live while men admire heroic action, and women 
 sing of daring and bravery. „ Before the famous 
 ride of Sheridan, the loyal ear had been electrified 
 and the loyal heart gladdened with the news, 
 "Atlanta has fallen." 
 
 The Vice-President of the Southern Confeder- 
 acy had said, after reading the proceedings of the 
 peace Democracy at their National Convention at 
 Chicago, " It is the first ray of light I have seen 
 from the North since the war began. I feel like 
 exclaiming, ' Hail, holy light!'" But, while trai- 
 
 1 " After a campaign of four months, Sherman had reached the goal 
 
 ' assigned him, and now occupied a position in the very heart of the rebel 
 
 dominions, eating out its richest products, intercepting communication, 
 
 and standing ready to push forward with his mighty host towards Virginia 
 
 or to the Atlantic sea-coast. 
 
 " The great advantage of his victory was, however, that it enabled 
 Grant to move Sherman towards himself, thus interposing a powerful 
 army between Lee and the rebel forces in the South-West, while the rebel 
 railroad system should be completely destroyed. With the Army of the 
 Potomac investing Petersburg, and Sherman's hundred thousand veterans 
 at Atlanta, Grant felt that the days of the rebellion were numbered ; for, 
 although the armed forces of the enemy had not yet been destroyed, they 
 had been outgeneraled, and henceforward, although they might struggle 
 bravely to retrieve their fallen fortunes, they were destined to gather noth- 
 ing but the bitter fruits of disappointment." 
 
60 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 tors at the South were thus hailing the treasona- 
 ble glimmer made by their brethren at the North, 
 the President had, by proclamation, ordered salutes 
 of one hundred guns at all military and naval 
 arsenals, and advised the people to give common 
 thanks at their respective places of public wor- 
 ship the ensuing sabbath to commemorate the 
 victories of Farragut at Mobile, and the victory 
 of Sherman at Atlanta. A few weeks after 
 these glorious tributes to the national cause were 
 rendered, the great body of the American people 
 went to the polls, and so cast their suffrages, 1 that, 
 by overwhelming majorities, Union ballots upheld 
 the flag for which thousands had fallen, and around 
 which a million of armed men now stood ready 
 
 1 The result of the presidential election gave great joy to all the true 
 friends of the Union at home and abroad. That election was waited for 
 with the greatest anxiety by millions of men. A thousand hopes and 
 fears were excited. Vast interests hung upon the verdict ; and for a while 
 in our country every thing connected with trade and manufactures seemed 
 to be stupefied by suspense. Geld, the delicate barometer of commercial 
 thought, fluttered amazingly as the hour of decision drew nigh. At 
 length the result was announced. 
 
 Principle had triumphed over expediency. The nation had decided 
 by its calmly expressed voice, after years of distressing war, and with the 
 burden upon its shoulders of a public debt amounting to two thousand 
 million dollars, to fight on, and put down the rebellion, at any cost. A 
 load was lifted from the great loyal heart of the republic. Congratula- 
 tions came over the sea like sweet perfumes ; and out of the mouths of 
 the dusky toilers on the plantations of the South went up simple, fervid 
 songs of praise to God for this seal of their deliverance. For the election 
 had surely proclaimed "liberty throughout all the land to all the inhabit- 
 ants thereof." 
 
 By it the hopes of the conspirators were blasted. They well knew the 
 power that slumbered behind that vote, and which would now be awak- 
 ened in majestic energy. 
 
UNION BALLOTS AND UNION BULLETS. 6 1 
 
 to give their lives. The guns of the soldier and 
 the votes of the citizen told against the common 
 enemies of the nation, — the Confederate army 
 and the Democratic party. 
 
GRANT AND THE "LOST CAUSE.' 
 
u It is for us, the living, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work 
 that they have thus far so nobly carried on. It is rather for us to be here 
 dedicated to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of 
 devotion ; that we here highly resolve that the dead shall not have died in 
 vain ; that the nation shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom ; and 
 governments of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not 
 perish from the earth." — Lincoln at Gettysburg. 
 
 " Your enemy continues a struggle in which our final triumph must be 
 inevitable. Unduly elated with their recent successes, they imagine that 
 temporary reversion can quell your spirits or shake your determination ; 
 and they are now gathering heavy masses for a general invasion, in the 
 vain hope that by desperate efforts success may at length be reached. 
 You know too well, my countrymen, what they mean by success. Their 
 malignant rage aims at nothing less than the extermination of yourselves, 
 your wives, and your children. They seek to destroy what they cannot 
 plunder. They propose as spoils of victory that your homes shall be 
 partitioned among wretches whose atrocious cruelty has stamped infamy 
 upon their government." — Jefferson Davis: Address read to Lee's 
 Soldiers after Gettysburg and Vicksburg. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE VANQUISHED CHIEF. 
 
 " When Sherman penetrated to the Atlantic coast, and 
 accomplished his wonderful march, Grant, who had con- 
 ceived the idea of that march, and taken all of its respon- 
 sibility, was still sitting quietly in front of Petersburg; and 
 the country rang with applause for the brilliant lieutenant, 
 affording no share of this to the chief who had sent the lieu- 
 tenant on his errand, and, by his other movements a thou- 
 sand miles away, had rendered the success of the lieutenant 
 possible. It was even purposed in Congress to place Sher- 
 man in the rank which Grant enjoyed. Sherman wrote on 
 the subject at once to Grant, saying that the proposition was 
 without his knowledge, and begging Grant to use his influ- 
 ence against it. This, of course, Grant refused to do, and 
 replied to Sherman, ' If you are put above me, I shall always 
 obey you, just as you always have me.' The history of the 
 world may be searched in vain to find a parallel of mag- 
 nanimity, friendship, and patriotism." — Cainpaign Life. 
 
 This transfer of confidence on the part of the 
 people was, if it existed, but a momentary impulse. 
 Grant, during his seeming inactivity, had been 
 arranging for the final blow. Thomas, Sherman, 
 Sheridan, had been given special work bearing on 
 one result, — the fall of Richmond and capitulation 
 of Lee. Every means of escape, all communica- 
 
 65 
 
66 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 tion with the rest of the Confederacy, was cut off 
 and destroyed : our armies were drawn together, 
 making a circle of steel around the beleaguered 
 capital and the harassed chief. So carefully and 
 completely had Grant mapped out his last cam- 
 paign, that, after a long season of toil over his 
 charts, diagrams, and plans, while at private quar- 
 ters in New York, it is said that he gave a pass 
 dated months ahead to an intimate friend, one of 
 the stanchest loyalists in the nation, granting ad- 
 mission to his headquarters in the field ; telling 
 him, if he reported at the time mentioned, he would 
 see the fall of Richmond. The city was evacuated 
 at the exact date of this most extraordinary pass. 
 
 On the 25th of March, 1865, Lee made an assault 
 on Grant's lines. One of the general officers far 
 to the front was visited by Grant with the request 
 to be put as near as possible to the enemy. Cau- 
 tiously he crawled very close to the rebel skirmish- 
 line. After lying on the ground and listening for 
 some time with great attention, he withdrew, say- 
 ing, "The heart is all out of them. Their fire is 
 slack and scattered. It is time to end it." One 
 history says of that end, — 
 
 "On the 1st of April Sheridan attacked Lee's right at 
 Five Forks, assaulted and carried the fortified position of the 
 enemy, capturing all his artillery and between five thousand 
 and six thousand prisoners. The defeat was decisive. The 
 rebels fled in every direction ; and the bulk of the force that 
 had been in front of Sheridan never was able again to rejoin 
 Lee. 
 
THE VANQUISHED CHIEF. 67 
 
 " News of the victory reached Grant at nine o'clock in 
 the evening. He at once determined that the hour had come 
 for the final assault. Without consulting any one, he wrote 
 a despatch to Meade, ordering an attack at midnight all 
 along the lines in front of Petersburg, which were at least 
 ten miles long. . . . That night the enemy evacuated Peters- 
 burg and Richmond, flying south-west towards Danville. 
 So the goal that our armies had been four years seeking to 
 attain was won. Grant did not wait a moment, but, without 
 entering Richmond in person, pushed on in pursuit at day- 
 light on the 3d, leaving to a subordinate the glory of seiz- 
 ing the capital of Virginia. The energy with which he fol- 
 followed the unhappy Lee was terrific. He disposed his 
 columns on two roads, and marched with marvellous speed. 
 Sheridan, Ord, Meade, vied with each other in their efforts 
 to overtake and annihilate the last fighting force of the re- 
 bellion ; and the men, inspired with their recent and magnifi- 
 cent triumphs, murmured at no labors or dangers. Mean- 
 while mindful, even at this intense crisis, of all other and 
 co-operative emergencies, Grant, as he was pursuing Lee, 
 sent orders to Sherman to push at once against Johnston, 
 so that the war might be finished at once. ' Rebel armies,' 
 he reminded him, 'are now the only strategic points to 
 strike at.' " 
 
 It may be doubted if the loyal American lives 
 who does not appreciate the sterling moral quali- 
 ties, the intellectual powers, and surprising mili- 
 tary genius which elevated Lee above any other 
 Southern officer ; but, in proportion as they ad- 
 mire the military chief of the rebellion, they detest 
 its civil head. The infamous charge of Jefferson 
 Davis that the object of the loyal armies aimed 
 " at nothing less than the extermination of your- 
 selves, your wives, and your children," found its 
 
68 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 most fitting rebuke in the following account and 
 terms of surrender : — 
 
 " All arms, artillery, and public property were to be turned 
 over to officers appointed by Grant. These were the stipu- 
 lations as Lee consented to them ; but, after he had signified 
 his acceptance, Grant inserted the clause that the side-arms 
 and private horses and baggage of the officers might be re- 
 tained. Lee seemed much gratified at this magnanimity, 
 which saved him and his officers the peculiar humiliation of 
 a formal surrender of their weapons. He asked, how about 
 the horses of the cavalry-men, which, in the rebel army, 
 were the property of the private soldier. Grant replied 
 that these were included in the surrender. Lee looked at 
 the paper again, and acquiesced in Grant's interpretation. 
 The latter then said, ' I will not change the terms of the 
 surrender, General Lee ; but I will instrtict my officers 
 who receive the paroles to allow the men to retain their 
 horses, and take them home to work their little farms.'' " — 
 Richardson. 
 
 Thus the manhood and generosity of Grant an- 
 swered the lying imputations of Davis. 
 
THE VANISHED CAPITAL. 69 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE VANISHED CAPITAL. 
 
 Abraham Lincoln went, by invitation of Gen. 
 Grant, to witness the " lost cause " in the throes 
 of death. 
 
 In contesting Illinois with Douglas in 1858, 
 Lincoln had asserted as his belief that this gov- 
 ernment could not " endure permanently half 
 slave and half free. I do not expect," said he, 
 "the Union to be dissolved. I do not expect the 
 house to fall ; but I do expect it will cease to be 
 divided. It will be all the one thing or all the 
 other." He was at the camp of Grant to behold, 
 if not the complete fulfilment of this prophecy, 
 at least a mighty stride towards this desirable, 
 though yet unaccomplished, end. Almost four 
 years previous Stephens of Georgia, in addressing 
 the citizens of Richmond, who were about to range 
 Virginia with the Southern Confederacy, said, 
 " What had you, the friends of liberty, to hope for 
 while under Lincoln ? Nothing. Beginning in 
 usurpation, where will he end ? He will quit 
 Washington as ignominiously as he entered it, 
 and God's will will have been accomplished." 
 This man, whose large, kind heart, perfect hon- 
 
70 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 esty, and tireless consecration of effort to his coun- 
 try had won from his loyal compatriots a love and 
 trust bestowed on but few men who have ever 
 lived ; the man, whose legal choice as President 
 had given umbrage to the conspirators of the 
 South ; whose name had been held up in scorn as 
 a brutal tyrant, and covered with derision as an 
 ignorant despot ; whom children had been taught 
 to hate and brand with the vilest epithets, and 
 upon whose head the loudest curses and foulest 
 abuse had been heaped by a misguided people, — 
 this great, loving, simple-hearted man, because 
 God's will had been accomplished, had "quit 
 Washington " to soon visit the vanishing capital 
 of a baseless confederacy. The event is so admi- 
 rably described by Holland in his " Life of Lin- 
 coln," that place here is given to it, to impress 
 on a new generation a most pathetic and striking 
 incident in history: — 
 
 " He went up in a man-of-war on the afternoon of Mon- 
 day, landed at Rochetts, below the city, and, with his boy 
 * Tad,' rode up the remaining mile in a boat. He entered 
 the city in no triumphal car. No brilliant cavalcade accom- 
 panied him ; but on foot, with no guard except the sailors 
 who had rowed him up the James, he entered, and passed 
 through the streets of the fallen capital. But his presence 
 soon became known to the grateful blacks, who pressed 
 upon him with their thankful ejaculations and tearful bless- 
 ings on every side. Better and more expressive were the 
 hats and handkerchiefs tossed in the air by these happy 
 and humble people, than flags and streamers floating from 
 masts and housetops. ' Glory to God ! glory ! glory ! ' 
 
THE VANISHED CAPITAL. 71 
 
 shouted the black multitude of liberated slaves. ' I thank 
 you, dear Jesus, that I behold President Linkum ! ' exclaimed 
 a woman standing in her humble doorway, weeping in the 
 fulness of her joy. Another, wild with delight, could do 
 nothing but jump, and strike her hands, and shout with 
 wild reiteration, ' Bless de Lord ! bless de Lord ! bless 
 de Lord ! ' At last the streets became choked with the 
 multitude, and soldiers were called to clear the way. A 
 writer in 'The Atlantic Monthly,' to whom the author is 
 indebted for the most of these particulars, says that one old 
 negro exclaimed, ' May de good Lord bless you, President 
 Linkum ! ' while he removed his hat, and the tears of joy 
 rolled down his cheeks. ' The President,' the account pro- 
 ceeds, ' removed his own hat, and bowed in silence ; but it 
 was a bow which upset the forms, laws, customs, and cere- 
 monies of centuries. It was a death-shock to chivalry, and 
 a mortal wound to caste.' " 
 
7 2 
 
 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 BREAKING RANKS. 
 
 Neither the suppression of a gigantic rebellion, 
 nor the construction, during the term of civil war, 
 of a gigantic continental railway, — stretching 
 over a thousand miles of desert, and traversing 
 the steeps of huge mountains, — did so much to 
 astonish the civilized world, or silence the evil pre- 
 dictions of foreigners sceptical and inimical to 
 our form of government, as the disarmament of 
 our soldiers. It was incomprehensible how a vast 
 armed force, for years occupying hostile territory 
 and exposed to all the reckless habits inseparable 
 from war, could be suddenly discharged from mili- 
 tary service, and return to peaceful life without 
 causing confusion and collision to shock the social 
 order and endanger civil relations. A million of 
 soldiers were mustered out in a few months and 
 went back to their homes, and took up again 
 their avocations, without causing a ripple upon 
 the surface of society, with no other sign of dis- 
 order than the wild welcome that everywhere 
 greeted the faded and tattered colors of the loyal 
 regiments on their homeward march. 
 
 A multitude of soldiers became lost in a larger 
 
BREAKING RANKS. 73 
 
 multitude of citizens, — their bronzed faces soon 
 bleaching under the rays of peace ; their scars 
 and wounds alone remaining to tell of their share 
 in the struggle for the nation's life. The stained 
 and rent flags of the loyal army are preserved in 
 the Capitols of every loyal State; and year by 
 year the survivors of that great martial comrade- 
 ship carry flowers to the graves of the lamented 
 dead. Occasionally living members of the " Grand 
 Army of the Republic " are seen in public proces- 
 sion, adding by their presence dignity to public 
 celebrations ; and that is all. No special power 
 or influence inures to these saviors of the repub- 
 lic, save the universal respect due their valor and 
 sacrifice. 
 
 No clamor for confiscation or reprisal was ever 
 raised. No dollar of treasure was ever demanded 
 by these victors as revenge or satisfaction for their 
 losses and burdens here. Magnanimity, if ever 
 shown by conquerors, has been shown by these 
 men, who voluntarily retired from, as they volun- 
 tarily entered into, the service of their imperilled 
 country. It was a magnanimity so generous, that 
 it included within the wide circle of equal citizen- 
 ship the mass of our foes, and held forth the full- 
 est amnesty to every principal offender that sought 
 its boon. 
 
 The spirit of conciliation and fraternity which 
 incited the motive of the Union soldier when he 
 broke ranks and returned to civil life was inspired 
 by the action of Grant at Appomattox. In the 
 
74 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 farewell address of the great Union leader to the 
 disbanding army, the victory of peace and order 
 was foreshadowed. 
 
 To that triumphant army at the moment of its 
 dissolution, he said, — 
 
 " In obedience to your country's call, you left your homes 
 and firesides, and volunteered in its defence. Victory has 
 crowned your valor, and secured the purpose of your patri- 
 otic hearts ; and, with the gratitude of your countrymen and 
 the highest honors a great and free nation can accord, you 
 will soon be permitted to return to your homes and families, 
 conscious of having discharged the highest duty of Ameri- 
 can citizens. 
 
 " To achieve the glorious triumph, and secure to your- 
 selves, your fellow-countrymen, and posterity, the blessings 
 of free institutions, tens of thousands of your gallant country- 
 men have fallen, and sealed their priceless legacy with their 
 lives. The graves of these a grateful nation bedews with 
 tears, honors their memories, and will ever cherish and sup- 
 port their stricken families." — U. S. Grant, Lieutenant- 
 General. 
 
GRANT IN CIVIL EMERGENCY. 
 
" Thither let us tend 
 From off the tossing of these fiery waves : 
 There rest, if any rest can harbor there ; 
 And, re-assembling our afflicted Powers, 
 Consult how we may henceforth most offend 
 Our Enemy ; our own loss how'repair ; 
 How overcome this dire calamity ; 
 What re-enforcement we may gain from hope ; 
 If not, what resolution from despair." 
 
 Paradise Lost. 
 
 1 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 FIRST ATTEMPT TO "CLASP." 
 
 We have quoted what Milton makes the insti- 
 gator of the first recorded rebellion utter, and we 
 shall see how it applies to our own history. 
 
 Grant, in 1865, after visiting the South, made 
 a report to the authorities stating the pleasure it 
 gave him to learn from the leading men whom he 
 met, " that they not only accepted the decision 
 arrived at as final, but now that the smoke of 
 battle had cleared away, and time had been given 
 for reflection, that this decision had been a fortu- 
 nate one for the whole country ; they receiving 
 like benefit from it with those who opposed them 
 in field and council." 
 
 The spirit of the South just after the surrender 
 of Lee was sensible and submissive. When the 
 problem of re -adjustment was under solution, the 
 " original sin " of the section broke out again. 
 The Democratic party took the ground that the 
 Southern States were "in the Union, and entitled 
 to every right and privilege belonging to every 
 other State." Aside from the law of self-preser- 
 vation, which in war is the sole controlling law 
 
 77 
 
78 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 and overrides written compacts, the Democratic 
 argument was unanswerable. But to accept the 
 Democratic view would lead to the glaring incon- 
 sistency, — that the South, after it had stripped 
 Northern households of loved inmates, and had 
 forced on the Northern people enormous burdens, 
 would be more powerful -by increased numbers in 
 the councils of the nation and in the electoral col- 
 lege than it had been before the war. The end of 
 slavery added two-fifths to the representative vol- 
 ume of the South, and nothing to its vote. By 
 Democratic manipulation the crime of treason 
 would be rewarded rather than punished. Thirty 
 new votes in Congress and College would be the 
 bounty paid the rebels by the juggle of Democratic 
 restoration. Heavy obligations of war were en- 
 tailed upon the loyal North : the main benefits of 
 peace were to revert to the disloyal South. This 
 gross injustice would also transfer the national 
 control to the Democratic party. To prevent such 
 wrong and calamity, the loyal majority determined 
 settlement by means of the Constitutional Amend- 
 ments. At this juncture the adherents of loyalty 
 for the first time divided. Seward, Chase, Dix, 
 Raymond, with many other prominent Republi- 
 cans, objected to some extreme features of Recon- 
 struction. 
 
 John A. Andrew, the war Governor of Massa- 
 chusetts, made an eloquent plea for a policy of 
 Southern re-organization that would invite the co- 
 operation of the best men and natural leaders. 
 
FIRST ATTEMPT TO "CLASP." 79 
 
 The amendments especially discriminated against 
 that class. Many soldiers in the Republican par- 
 ty regretted such discrimination. They felt, that 
 had the North been beaten, and had terms been 
 suggested demanding as a return to political fra- 
 ternity that the voters of the Northern States 
 should by their own act disqualify and dishonor 
 their leaders, they would have died before receiv- 
 ing rights or privileges that could not be shared by 
 the. men they loved and honored. This element 
 in the Reconstruction plan of disqualifying the 
 influential classes of the South was the secret not 
 only of Republican opposition before it became 
 law, but explains the resistance of the property- 
 owner and the educated classes when subsequent- 
 ly-adopted. To limit Southern power by basing 
 representation on voting races was the plan urged 
 by conservative Republicans. 1 
 
 1 " If we have the constitutional right to make all men, including 
 negroes, voters in the State they inhabit, let us do it. For to withhold the 
 franchise from any human being solely on account of his color, is unmanly, 
 unchristian, and un-American. If by the nature of our institutions we are 
 precluded from regulating suffrage in the States, let us honestly admit the 
 fact, and cease the attempt ' to do evil that good may come.' It is hard- 
 ly to be believed that this nation, which exerted its grand energies to sup- 
 press a sinful rebellion which sought to subvert its authority and govern- 
 ment, after succeeding, should itself violate and disregard its own laws. 
 We are a law-honoring and law-abiding people. If our statutes are wrong, 
 let us repeal them. If our legislation is incomplete, let us correct it ; not 
 by forced construction, but by calm and prescribed rules. While we be- 
 lieve that the negro, on the basis of intelligence and patriotism, should be 
 permitted to vote ; while we will plead with all our ability for the extension 
 of this privilege to him everywhere, and back up our entreaty by casting our- 
 own vote in his favor when and where we have the right so to do, — we have 
 yet to learn how, either as an inherent right of our nature or the civil right 
 
So ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 The reduction of representation to voting races 
 would make it impossible, even by a "solid South," 
 to jeopardize loyal supremacy. The policy would, 
 moreover, assign the question of suffrage for freed- 
 men to the States where freedmen resided. The 
 prospect of a great increase in its political impor- 
 tance and influence, by extending suffrage to the 
 blacks, would be likely to decide the South, and 
 establish a progressive party naturally in the hands 
 of the most enlightened citizens. All movements 
 for conciliation on conservative Republican grounds 
 were defeated through the ambition of the Demo- 
 cratic party of the North, and the unmasking of 
 the false character of Southern submission. The 
 pretended renunciation of principles underlying 
 secession, and devotion to the "flag" and the 
 "nation" as loyally understood, were shown to be 
 hypocritical on the part of the Southern masses. 
 The disposition to go " half-way " was principally 
 a Northern sentiment. 
 
 The Philadelphia Convention of 1866 was the 
 first appearance of the political leaders of the 
 South in a national body since the opening of 
 the Rebellion. A large portion of the Northern 
 members of this convention were Republicans, and 
 
 we receive from the laws, we can compel other men to accept our views, 
 and foist our convictions upon communities of which we make no part, 
 with any title of authority, or any sanction of conferred power. Wherever 
 this nation has the power, it should protect the people. Wherever it can, 
 it should equalize rights, regardless of color, race, or creed." 
 
 This extract from a Republican paper shows the opinion and reasoning 
 of the Republican conservatives of that date. 
 
FIRST ATTEMPT TO "CLASP." 81 
 
 had been soldiers of the Union. They went there to 
 fraternize. The "clasping" fever seized them early, 
 and with the most it had but a short run. This 
 first movement towards national union found that 
 a national love-feast was looked upon suspiciously 
 by the bulk of the Northern loyalists. There rose 
 loud hooting and much jeering at Northern and 
 Southern officers as they walked into the assembly 
 "arm in arm." The heartiest scorn at this gush- 
 ing tableaux came from those who a few years 
 later went into the express business of "shaking 
 hands over the bloody chasm." The resolutions 
 of this convention were of the genuine pacifica- 
 tory sort. "Gratitude for peace," a desire "to 
 forget and forgive the past," a reverence for the 
 Constitution "as it comes to us from our ances- 
 tors," and a "regard for the Union in its restora- 
 tion more sacred than ever," were some of the 
 yearnings of "peacemakers" of that day. The 
 soldiers who held these views of reunion then, 
 though some were maimed and all were veterans, 
 were dubbed the "Bread and Butter Brigade." 
 Six years after, the man who invented this term of 
 reproach broke from the Republican party to take 
 the Democratic nomination on a platform which 
 demanded "the immediate removal of all disa- 
 bilities," "universal amnesty," "local self-govern- 
 ment," " State self-government," and the "nation's 
 return to methods of peace and the constitutional 
 limitations of power." The wise constituency that 
 joined with the editor of "The Tribune" in de- 
 
82 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 nouncing the premature peace-offering at Philadel- 
 phia in 1866 did not follow him when, in 1872, he 
 consented to become the figure-head of Dem- 
 ocracy in leading the " Confederate brigadiers " 
 back to national rule. The people were then wiser 
 than the " Conservatives," as later they were wiser 
 than the " Independents." They mistrusted 
 Southern professions of loyalty to the Union, and 
 acquiescence in the results of the war. They saw 
 in this political combination at Philadelphia a far 
 greater desire for political power than for real 
 peace. When the hidden countenance of the 
 Prophet of Khorassan was unveiled, -the devoted 
 followers of the apostate were paralyzed with 
 fright as they beheld the distorted features of a 
 face they thought divine. So, when the disguise 
 was torn away at Philadelphia, and the Republicans 
 who made part of this first fraternal effort beheld 
 revealed the naked deformity of the Democratic 
 party, they fled from the scene as the youths of 
 the Orient fled from the monster they had been 
 taught to adore. 
 
AD INTERIM SECRETARY. 8$ 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 AD INTERIM SECRETARY. 
 
 "A man can't throw away his tobacco in this 
 country without hitting a justice of the peace," 
 was the way in which an irate son of Massachu- 
 setts expressed his contempt for the multiplicity 
 of officials in that State. Plentiful as were civil 
 positions, Grant never held one until appointed 
 secretary of war ad interim during Johnson's ad- 
 ministration. The removal from the war-office of 
 its energetic and patriotic incumbent, Stanton, was 
 in opposition to the protests of the general of the 
 army. The rejection by the South of the Four- 
 teenth Amendment had darkened the prospect of 
 unity and peace. Congress, for precaution, if not 
 in retaliation for that act, had passed Reconstruc- 
 tion measures, making five military districts of the 
 area of rebellion. 
 
 The connection of the war bureau with his own 
 department, and the need of its management by 
 a proper loyal officer, during the parturition of 
 reconstruction, led Grant, as the " safest course," 
 to assent to the wish of the President, and fill the 
 vacancy pending the disagreement between the 
 Executive and Senate with reference to the tenure 
 
84 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 of the suspended secretary of war. In accepting 
 the place, Grant was misjudged. It was asserted 
 that he had "gone over to the enemy," that his 
 natural " Copperhead proclivities " had developed, 
 and that he had "betrayed the Union." Had 
 Grant been thin-skinned or over-sensitive, or had 
 he held his personal vindication of more impor- 
 tance than the well-being of the country, he would 
 have declined his doubtful ad interim honors, and 
 left public affairs to drift towards confusion. But 
 he was a patriot, and forgot his private annoy- 
 ance for the common good. He took the position, 
 and held it for five months. He resisted with 
 proper, yet very decided, efforts the Executive 
 action, which day by day was widening the breach 
 newly opened between the contesting sections of 
 the country. Grant remonstrated against the dis- 
 placement of Sheridan, and wrote to the Presi- 
 dent, " Allow me to say, as a friend desiring peace 
 and quiet, — the welfare of the whole country, 
 North and South, — that it is in my opinion more 
 than the loyal people (I mean those who supported 
 the government during the great rebellion) will 
 quietly submit to, to see the very man of all 
 others whom they have expressed confidence in 
 removed." But Sheridan "had to go." Still 
 Grant held on ; for he saw that work was to be 
 done. His industry while ad interim secretary 
 was untiring. The department needed overhaul- 
 ing sadly ; and retrenchment — the principal busi- 
 ness of the nation for years following — was begun 
 
AD INTERIM SECRETARY. 85 
 
 by Grant in a manner so judicious and thorough, 
 that it served as a model for all subsequent econo- 
 mists. " Retrenchment was the first subject to 
 attract my attention," Grant says in his report. 
 So vigorous was the reform broom plied among 
 the sinecures, surplus incumbents, idle property, 
 accumulated rubbish, and needless processes of 
 "circumlocution," that in his five months of civil 
 duty he caused a saving to the government of 
 more than six millions before the year expired. 1 
 
 The collision between the President and the 
 Senate concerning the suspension of Stanton, and 
 the validity of the " Tenure of Office Act," made 
 no common crisis. A rupture of the most serious 
 nature between co-ordinate branches of govern- 
 
 1 By his direction, while secretary of war ad interim, the duties of 
 the Bureaus of Rebel Archives and of Exchange of Prisoners were trans- 
 ferred to the adjutant-general's office, thus dispensing with the services 
 of a great number of officers and clerks. He reduced the number of 
 agents and subordinates in the Freedmen's Bureau, and largely curtailed 
 its expenses ; closed useless hospitals and dispensaries ; discontinued a 
 long list of superfluous mustering and disbursing offices, discharging their 
 numerous incumbents and attendants, and thus stopping the needless 
 expenditure of considerable sums. He sold surplus animals, ambu- 
 lances, wagons, &c, to the amount of 833,535 ; and superfluous and use- 
 less stores and war material of various kinds, amounting to £268,000 ; and 
 one thousand temporary buildings used by quartermasters throughout the 
 country, to make every practicable reduction in the number of employes on 
 duty under their direction. The result was, that in a short time the 
 monthly expenses of that department, arising from the hire of civilians, 
 had been reduced by 8407,065, making an annual saving in this item alone 
 of nearly £5,000,000. Besides the class of employees just mentioned, the 
 numbers of mechanics, laborers, and others, in various branches of the 
 service, were so reduced that the monthly expenditures in this particular 
 were curtailed full £100,000, making an annual saving of more than 
 $1,200,000. 
 
86 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 ment was imminent. By the Constitution, the 
 right of removal was secured as the plain preroga- 
 tive of the President. The Tenure Act, made into 
 law in the heat of the controversy, required con- 
 current action on the part of the Senate for 
 removing as well as appointing constitutional 
 officers. The law was generally held to be illegal, 
 but had not yet been so reported by the compe- 
 tent tribunal. The President sought to force an 
 opinion from the Supreme Court by having the 
 secretary adinterim refuse to obey the operation 
 of the Tenure Act, which, according to the senato- 
 rial view, restored Stanton, as his removal had not 
 been approved by the conferring body. To regard 
 the law as void, and have the position ratified by 
 the court, was the policy of the Executive. Grant 
 determined to yield the place on the theory that 
 all laws legally enacted were binding, until overset 
 by judicial process. The plan of the President 
 was revolutionary ; that of Grant in conformity to 
 the soundest precepts of law and order. It was 
 an emergency fraught with the most alarming 
 symptoms. The body politic was in an excited 
 and inflammable state. The least mistake would 
 lead to deplorable results. To yield to the Presi- 
 dent would have been a dangerous precedent in 
 the direction of Executive innovation. The hatred 
 of the contending powers was as relentless as the 
 hostility that Rome held for Carthage, It was 
 fortunate for both the liberties and the integrity 
 of the republic that the secretary ad interim was 
 
AD INTERIM SECRETARY. 87 
 
 the real power in the land. Holding with firm 
 hand the army ; having the profoundest respect 
 for the law ; keeping step to the loyal needs of the 
 hour, — he declined to second the President in his 
 open disregard of statutes rightfully passed ; and 
 thus by his patriotic conduct he held the nation 
 to its constitutional restraints. 
 
 Grant wrote to the President a letter, of which 
 the following is the conclusion : — 
 
 " The course you would have it understood I agreed to 
 pursue was in violation of law, and without orders from 
 you; while the course I did pursue, and which I never 
 doubted you fully understood, was in accordance with law, 
 and not in disobedience of any orders of my superior. 
 
 " And now, Mr. President, when my honor as a soldier 
 and integrity as a man have been so violently assailed, 
 pardon me for saying that I can but regard this whole 
 matter from the beginning to the end as an attempt to 
 involve me in the resistance of law, for which you hesitated 
 to assume the responsibility in orders, and thus to destroy 
 my character before the country. I am in a measure con- 
 firmed in this conclusion by your recent orders directing me 
 to disobey orders from the secretary of war — my superior 
 and your subordinate — without having countermanded his 
 authority to issue the orders I am to disobey. With the 
 assurance, Mr. President, that nothing less than a vindica- 
 tion of my personal honor and character could have induced 
 this correspondence on my part, 
 
 " I have the honor to be very respectfully your obedient 
 
 servant, 
 
 " U. S. Grant, General" 
 
88 ABOUT GRANT, 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE CHANGED CONSTITUTION. 
 
 The North was forced by events to take ultra 
 ground on Reconstruction. Many who hesitated 
 at first were compelled to yield their objections. 
 The attitude of the late rebels had become so 
 offensive and unbearable, that popular indignation 
 was at white heat. Northern justice recoiled with 
 horror at the saturnalia of blood in New Orleans, 
 where Republicans, white and black, were shot 
 down like cattle. "Conciliation" sounded farcical, 
 and " hand-shaking " seemed a mockery when one 
 political opinion was reason for murder, and a 
 meeting of freemen the occasion of massacre. 
 The press of the South was saturated with venom, 
 and full of loathsome abuse of " the institutions 
 and people " of the loyal States. Persecution, 
 terrible and relentless, was dealt out to the loyal- 
 ists of the South. Sworn testimony gave it that 
 "the national banner is openly insulted, and the 
 national airs scoffed at, not only by an igno- 
 rant populace, but at public meetings." It was 
 an open revolt on the part of the South against 
 the proposed methods of settlement, only sup- 
 pressed by the superior military status of the 
 
THE CHANGED CONSTITUTION. 89 
 
 central government The blacks were the sub- 
 ject of "malicious hatred" by the whites. The 
 predjudice against color, being deep-seated, mani- 
 fested itself in a "denial of civil equality" to the 
 freedmen, and "an aversion shown towards them 
 in an insulting and cruel manner." 
 
 The attempt was made to substitute through 
 legislation the serfdom once regulated by the lash. 
 Hostility to the Federal Union as it was compre- 
 hended by the North; detestation of Federal 
 officers, military and civil ; social ostracism for 
 Northern settlers in the South, displayed in an 
 open contempt for " Yankees " by women and 
 children, whose sullenness and scorn were inborn 
 and incurable, — were among the provocations 
 which instigated a committee of Congress to re- 
 port on the affairs of the nation : " In return for 
 our kind desire for a resumption of fraternal rela- 
 tions, we receive only an insolent assumption of 
 rights and privileges long since forfeited. The 
 crime we have punished is paraded as a virtue ; and 
 the principles of republican government, we have 
 vindicated at so terrible cost, are denounced as un- 
 just and oppressive." This condition of the South 
 so influenced the North in the year 1866, that the 
 people, with the force of great numbers, determined 
 on the most radical method of Reconstruction. 
 The adoption of the Amendments was secured 
 by the election of that year. The nature of the 
 Constitution, when amended, was totally changed. 
 The change was fundamental : it struck deep, 
 
9° 
 
 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 and lifted citizenship out of the limitations of the 
 State, and placed the life, liberty, protection, and 
 privileges of the citizen under the jurisdiction of 
 the nation. The changed Constitution made dec- 
 laration to the effect, that the flag covered every 
 American, whether found on his native or on 
 foreign soil. It guaranteed to every qualified 
 American a free vote, to be counted once, and 
 but once in each instance, when thrown ; the 
 unintimidated vote and the impartial count to be 
 assured with the whole strength of the people. 
 So citizenship, like territorial unity and the pub- 
 lic honor, was to be the task of the sovereign 
 nation, and not the affair of the separate State. 
 
 The American people, with great deliberation 
 and full realization of the bearing and consequence 
 of their action, changed their Constitution to 
 endow with equal citizenship the black race whom 
 their victorious arms had liberated. Remember- 
 ing the fidelity of that race to the cause of the 
 Union, its readiness to share all it possessed for 
 the comfort and safety of the loyal soldier; re- 
 calling: its welcome to our banners in a hostile 
 land, its service as guides to our armies, and 
 its contribution to our exhausted ranks ; knowing 
 that no sacrifice was too great for it to make, 
 no task too hard to perform, no watchfulness or 
 labor too exacting to render for loyalty, — the peo- 
 ple put it into their changed Constitution, with all 
 the solemnity of the amending power, that, by the 
 organic law, no rebel should come back into the 
 
THE CHANGED CONSTITUTION. . 91 
 
 Union on better terms than the black man, who 
 had never been our foe. " Stalwartism " was 
 born in this crisis. There is no better definition 
 of this significant term than the following extract 
 from Grant's speech at Des Moines : — 
 
 " Let us labor for security of free thought, free speech, 
 free press, pure morals, unfettered religious sentiments, and 
 equal rights and privileges for all men, irrespective of na- 
 tionality, color, or religion ; encourage free schools ; resolve 
 that not one dollar appropriated to them shall go to the sup- 
 port of any sectarian school ; resolve that neither State nor 
 nation shall support any institution, save those where every 
 child may get common-school education unmixed with any 
 atheistic, pagan, or sectarian teaching ; leave the matter of 
 religious teaching to the family altar, and keep Church and 
 State forever separate." 
 
 The " Stalwart" believes in the civilization of 
 the free States, which dignifies labor, and main- 
 tains exact civil equality of all its units. At the 
 opening of the Centennial Exhibition, a few years 
 a^o, the N. Y. " Nation " said, " Government is not 
 an emblem, a name, or an army with banners. It 
 is a bundle of mutual services ; and its goodness or 
 badness, and the value of its Contributions to the 
 moral growth of the world, depend on the effi- 
 ciency with which they are rendered. Unless we 
 are supplying the poor and the rich with better 
 justice; unless we are striving to make taxation 
 lighter, and its collection simpler and easier; un- 
 less we are discovering modes of making the exe- 
 cution of all the laws more efficient and more 
 
92 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 certain ; of taking better care of the poor- and 
 insane ; of giving the young a better education ; 
 of bringing the highest intelligence of the com- 
 munity to bear on legislation and administration ; 
 of enabling: the weak and unlearned to feel secure 
 about the future ; of making firmer the hold of the 
 frugal on their savings ; of making marriage a 
 more honorable and sacred relation, and children a 
 more solemn responsibility, — all that we heard on 
 Tuesday of the novelty and success of our politi- . 
 cal system was a reproach, and not a glory." To 
 this the " Stalwart " says, "Amen ! " He accepts 
 this test of political goodness and badness. Be- 
 cause Southern civilization tends to reproach such 
 sentiments, he pronounces it vicious, and hence 
 unsafe. It is because free institutions under loyal 
 control tend towards good government that the 
 men who, in 1865, laid down the duties of war to 
 take up the duties of peace, declare for the loyal 
 and progressive administration of affairs as under- 
 stood by a majority of the North. 
 
 Grant struck the key-note of that political faith 
 which is loyal to the core and to the end, when he 
 gave expression to the desire to see the time 
 " when the title of citizen carries with it all the 
 protection and privileges to the humblest that it 
 does to the most exalted." 
 
 While Grant is spared to America he will be 
 regarded as the grandest living defender and 
 exponent of that civilization founded upon the 
 
THE CHANGED CONSTITUTION. 
 
 93 
 
 dignity, equality, and liberty of man as man, and 
 which finds its fundamental guaranty in the Con- 
 stitution of the United- States as perfected by its 
 late Amendments. 
 
GRANT, EIGHTEENTH PRESIDENT. 
 
" If I were a sovereign, I would never call any statesman to my councils 
 who had not shown for one session he could be totally silent." — Sir 
 Arthur Helps. 
 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 grant's hardest battle. 
 
 The sovereign people called Grant to become 
 their chief magistrate, — a man silent in public, 
 except so far as deeds speak, and if capable of, 
 much averse to, making addresses of a popular 
 character. At the Soldiers' and Sailors' and Re- 
 publican Conventions which met in 1868, he was 
 nominated by acclamation as the loyal candidate 
 for the presidential office "amid thunders of ap- 
 plause." Some of his most intimate friends im- 
 plored him not to accept the nomination for the 
 presidency. They urged as reasons against it his 
 inexperience in civil affairs, and the probability of 
 embroilments that would be likely to tarnish his 
 unsullied military fame, and permanently affect 
 his historical reputation. To all these counsellors 
 he replied in effect : " All you say is plain to me. 
 I am aware of the difficulties awaiting any man 
 who takes that position with its present complica- 
 tions. I have no ambition for the place. My 
 profession is suited to my tastes and habits. I 
 have arrived at its height, and been honored with 
 a position to continue for life, with a generous 
 
 97 
 
98 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 compensation, and satisfactory to the highest aspi- 
 rations of a soldier. It will be the greatest sacri- 
 fice I ever made to give this up for the turmoil of 
 the presidential office. But, if the people ask it, 
 I must yield. For some years the people of 
 America have trusted their sons and brothers and 
 fathers to me ; and every step taken with them, in 
 the period from Belmont to Appomattox, has been 
 tracked in the best blood of this country. If now 
 they need me to finish the work, I must accept the 
 duty, if in doing so I lay down the realization of 
 my most ambitious hopes." 
 
 He was triumphantly elected, and took the oath 
 of office, March 4, 1869. His messages, public 
 acts, and political course, since then, reflect the 
 best opinion of the country on all matters con- 
 nected with the yet unsettled affairs growing out 
 of rebellion. 
 
 GRANT ON PUBLIC POLICY. 
 
 If elected, " it will be my endeavor to administer all the 
 laws in good faith, with economy, and with the view of giv- 
 ing peace, quiet, and protection everywhere." 
 
 His principle of action is embodied in the state- 
 ment : — 
 
 "A purely administrative officer should always be left 
 free to execute the will of the people. I always have 
 respected that will, and always shall." — Letter accepting 
 Nomination. 
 
 GRANT ON EXECUTIVE DUTY. 
 
 " On leading questions agitating the public mind, I will 
 always express my views to Congress, and urge them 
 
GRANT'S HARDEST BATTLE. 
 
 99 
 
 according to my judgment ; and, when I think it advisable, 
 will exercise the constitutional privilege of interposing a 
 veto to defeat measures which I oppose. But all laws will 
 be faithfully executed, whether they meet my approval or 
 not. 
 
 " I shall on all subjects have a policy to recommend, but 
 none to enforce against the will of the people. Laws are to 
 govern all alike, — those opposed as well as those who favor 
 them. I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or 
 obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution." 
 
 j g v 
 
 GRANT ON PUBLIC CONTROVERSIES. 
 
 " In meeting these, it is desirable they should be ap- 
 proached calmly, without prejudice, hate, or sectional pride, 
 remembering that the greatest good to the greatest number 
 is the object to be obtained. 
 
 "This requires security of person, property, and free 
 religious and political opinion in every part of our common 
 country, without regard to local prejudice. All laws to 
 secure these ends will receive my best efforts for their 
 enforcement." 
 
 GRANT ON FOREIGN POLICY. 
 
 " I would deal with nations as equitable law requires 
 individuals to deal with each other." 
 
 GRANT ON CITIZENSHIP. 
 
 " I would protect the law-abiding citizen, whether of 
 native or foreign birth, wherever his rights are jeopar- 
 dized, or the flag of our country floats." 
 
 GRANT ON THE INDIAN. 
 
 " I will favor any course towards them which tends to 
 their civilization and ultimate citizenship." 
 
 GRANT ON INDIVIDUAL DUTY. 
 
 " I ask patient forbearance, one toward another, through- 
 out the land, and a determined effort on the part of every 
 
IOO ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 citizen to do his share toward cementing a happy union ; and 
 J ask the prayers of the nation to Almighty God in behalf 
 of this consummation." 
 
 GRANT ON PUBLIC EDUCATION. 
 
 " The ' Father of his Country,' in his farewell address, uses 
 the language, 'Promote, then, as a matter of primary impor- 
 tance institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge.' 
 The adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitu- 
 tion completes the greatest civil change, and constitutes the 
 most important event that has ever occurred since the 
 nation came into life. The change will be beneficial in 
 proportion to the heed that is given to the urgent recom- 
 mendation of Washington. If these recommendations were 
 important then, with a population of but a few millions, how 
 much more important now ! 
 
 " I therefore call upon Congress to take all the means 
 within their constitutional powers to promote and encourage 
 popular education throughout the country ; and upon the 
 people everywhere to see to it that all who possess and ex- 
 ercise political rights shall have the opportunity to acquire 
 the knowledge which will make their share in government 
 a blessing, and not a danger. By such means only can the 
 benefits contemplated by this amendment to the Constitution 
 be secured." 
 
 GRANT ON THE TEST OATH. 
 
 " I believe that it is not wise policy to keep from office 
 by an oath those who are not disqualified by the Constitu- 
 tion, and who are the choice of the legal voters ; but, while 
 relieving them from an oath which they cannot take, I 
 recommend the release also of those to whom the oath has 
 no application." 
 
 GRANT ON ASSESSMENTS. 
 
 "The utmost fidelity and diligence will be expected of 
 all officers in every branch of the public service. Political 
 assessments, as they are called, have been forbidden within 
 
GRANT'S HARDEST BATTLE. 101 
 
 the various departments ; and, while the right of all persons 
 in official positions to take part in politics is acknowledged, 
 and the elective franchise is recognized as a high trust to 
 be discharged by all entitled to its exercise, whether in the 
 employment of the government or in private life, honesty 
 and efficiency, not political activity, will determine the 
 tenure of office." 
 
 GRANT ON CIVIL RIGHTS. 
 
 " I sympathize most cordially in any effort to secure for 
 all our people, of whatever race, nativity, or color, the exer- 
 cise of those rights to which every citizen should be en- 
 titled." 
 
 GRANT ON THE SUCCESSION. 
 
 " Past experience may guide me in avoiding mistakes, 
 inevitable with novices in all professions and in all occupa- 
 tions. When relieved from the responsibilities of my pres- 
 ent trust by the election of a successor, whether it be at the 
 end of this term or the next, I hope to leave to him as Ex- 
 ecutive a country at peace within its own borders, at peace 
 with outside nations, with a credit at home and abroad, and 
 without embarrassing questions to threaten its future pros- 
 perity." 
 
 GRANT ON HIMSELF. 
 
 " I never sought the office for a second, nor even for a 
 first, nomination. To the first I was called from a life posi- 
 tion, — one created by Congress expressly for me for sup- 
 posed services rendered to the republic. The position va- 
 cated I liked. It would have been most agreeable to me to 
 have retained it until such time as Congress might have con- 
 sented to my retirement, with the rank and a portion of the 
 emoluments which I so much needed, to a home where the 
 balance of my days might be spent in peace and in the en- 
 joyment of domestic quiet, relieved from the cares which 
 have oppressed me so constantly now for fourteen years. 
 But I was made to believe that the public good called me 
 to make the sacrifice. 
 
102 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 " Without seeking the office for the second term, the 
 nomination was tendered to me by a unanimous vote of 
 the delegates of all the States and Territories, selected by 
 the Republicans of each to represent their whole number for 
 the purpose of making their nomination. I cannot say that 
 I was not pleased at this, and at the overwhelming indorse- 
 ment which their action received at the election following. 
 But it must be remembered that all the sacrifices, except 
 that of comfort, had been made in accepting the first term. 
 Then, too, such a fire of personal abuse and slander had 
 been kept up for four years, — notwithstanding the conscien- 
 tious performance of my duties to the best of my under- 
 standing, though I admit, in the light of subsequent events, 
 many times subject to fair criticism, — that an indorsement 
 from the people, who alone govern republics, was a gratifi- 
 cation that it is only human to have appreciated and en- 
 joyed." 
 
 Grant made mistakes in war : his virtue con- 
 sisted in never defending or repeating them. He 
 erred in civil administration : it is but to acknowl- 
 edge his humanity to admit his liability to stumble. 
 He had the military contempt, not always sound, 
 for doctrinaires and politicians. He did not, as 
 it would have been better for him to have done, 
 consult familiarly public men who had done much 
 to make true public sentiment. His method of 
 selecting his cabinet and of making appointments 
 will not stand the test of rigid criticism. There is 
 a better way to choose ministers and high officials 
 than because of their genial qualities or good fel- 
 lowship. As ninety per cent of the civil list to- 
 day were officers under Grant, and as no complaint 
 is made now in this direction, it is apparent in the 
 
GRANT'S HARDEST BATTLE. 103 
 
 main that his appointments were judicious. His 
 mistakes came from his generous impulses towards 
 his personal friends, and his determination to stand 
 by them against odds. His reliance upon those 
 who had served with him, and others whom he had 
 intimately known, was over-confident : he could not 
 discredit them. When, early in the war, his old 
 instructor at West Point, who was in his command, 
 had been reported disloyal, he said, " Keep out of 
 the papers every thing against Smith. Any thing 
 against him must be a lie." This was the key of 
 his adhesion to his friends through good and ill 
 report. 
 
 He sometimes trusted not wisely, but too well. 
 The motive was always good and true, whatever 
 may have been the mistake. Coming into civil life 
 unprepared, save by natural excellence of judg- 
 ment, purity of intention, and firmness of resolve, 
 his administration brought the country each year 
 nearer to that consummation of reduced expenses, 
 lessened public debt, unquestioned public credit, 
 and peace at home and abroad, to which he stood 
 pledged in assuming his responsibilities. If those 
 in whom he placed confidence were unfaithful, no 
 one of his bitterest maligners has ever yet dared 
 to impugn his individual integrity, or refuse to him 
 the qualification Aristides said " became a gene- 
 ral ; " and that is, " to have clean hands." 
 
104 
 
 ABOUT GRANT, 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE BESOTTED NATION. 
 
 Ask any one of the professional denunciators of 
 Grant the cause of his opposition, it will be re- 
 replied, that corruption flourished, and the civil 
 service was debauched during his administration. 
 
 This statement cannot be disputed. War had 
 unloaded upon the community a currency that in 
 volume was far beyond honest business-needs, and 
 was worth much less than its face value. It was 
 the era of latitude in morals as well as looseness 
 in political and commercial dealings. Occupants 
 of congressional and senatorial seats had continued 
 the system, which, from the days of Andrew Jack- 
 son, had been growing into general practice, — of 
 farming out the federal patronage. This perni- 
 cious system had the effect to increase the force, 
 while it weakened the standard for the individual 
 office-holder. 
 
 The temptation to defraud the revenues, to- 
 gether with the inefficiency or infidelity of the offi- 
 cial, led to an organized swindling. To protect 
 the treasury there were made many additions to the 
 civil list. 
 
 There is a legend that the lambs once got to- 
 
THE BESOTTED NATION. 105 
 
 gether, and voted to increase the number of dogs 
 to protect themselves from the ravenous beasts. 
 The affair went on well until the beasts were 
 disposed of ; when, being hungry, the dogs turned 
 their attention to mutton. So the flock suffered 
 more from the dogs at last than from the beasts at 
 first. So with our government. 
 
 " One bottle of water will not be noticed if I 
 pour it into the rabbi's yearly store," said a close- 
 dealing Hebrew. As every one else had the same 
 thought, and carried it out, it was fatal to the 
 rabbi's store of wine. 
 
 The same inclination to be sharp and to take 
 advantage, if not universal, was very general ; 
 while inflation careered among us with the' mad 
 recklessness of a carnival. So lost to a fine sense 
 of honor had the greater number of property-hold- 
 ers become, that the returns of income, though 
 verified by oath, were deemed incorrect as a rule. 
 The grossness and openness of this way of wrong- 
 ing the treasury was so proverbial and irremedi- 
 able, that the repeal of the tax was demanded on 
 the score of impossibility in procuring just ac- 
 counts. If those who had wealth, and could best 
 afford to bear the heavy burdens of the nation, 
 were so unscrupulous as to rob the nation, what 
 could be expected of those less fortunate in pos- 
 sessions, and from other circumstances less likely 
 to be accurate in keeping books ? Grant came 
 to the presidency when the spirit of speculation 
 was most rife. He did nothing to create this 
 
106 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 unhealthy state of excess ; and yet he was held 
 responsible for its continued sway. He found it 
 in existence, and recognized its danger and its de- 
 moralizing influence. By all legitimate means he 
 sought to avert the calamity which confronted the 
 country. His State papers are full of caution. 
 
 GRANT ON MOIETIES AND FLUCTUATION. 
 
 " The present laws for collecting revenue pay collectors 
 of customs small salaries, but provide for moieties (shares 
 in all seizures), which, at principal ports of entry particu- 
 larly, raise the compensation of those officials to a large 
 sum. It has always seemed to me as if this system must, 
 at times, work perniciously. It holds out an inducement to 
 dishonest men, should such get possession of those offices, 
 to be lax in their scrutiny of goods entered to enable them 
 finally to make large seizures. Your attention is respect- 
 fully invited to this subject. Continued fluctuations in the 
 value of gold, as compared with the national currency, has 
 a most damaging effect upon the increase and development 
 of the country in keeping up prices of all articles necessary 
 in every-day life. It fosters a spirit of gambling, prejudicial 
 alike to national morals and the national finances." 
 
 GRANT ON OFFICIAL HONESTY. 
 
 " It has been the aim of the administration to enforce 
 honesty and efficiency in all public offices. Every public 
 servant who has violated the trust placed in him has been 
 proceeded against with all the rigor of the law. If bad men 
 have secured places, it has been the fault of the system 
 established by law and custom for making appointments, or 
 the fault of those who recommend for government positions 
 persons not sufficiently well known to them personally, or 
 who give letters indorsing the characters of office-seekers 
 without a proper sense of the grave responsibility which 
 such a course devolves upon them. A civil-service reform 
 
THE BESOTTED NATION. 107 
 
 which can correct this abuse is much desired. In mercan- 
 tile pursuits, the business-man who gives a letter of recom- 
 mendation to a friend, to enable him to obtain credit from a 
 stranger, is regarded as morally responsible for the integrity 
 of his friend and his ability to meet his obligations. A 
 reformatory law which would enforce this principle against 
 all indorsers of persons for public peace, would insure great 
 caution in making recommendations. A salutary lesson has 
 been taught the careless and the dishonest public servant in 
 the great number of prosecutions and convictions of the last 
 two years." 
 
 GRANT ON THE TENURE OF OFFICE. 
 
 " An earnest desire has been felt to correct abuses which 
 have grown up in the civil service of the country through 
 the defective method of making appointments to office. 
 Heretofore federal offices have been regarded too much as 
 the reward of political services. Under authority of Con- 
 gress, rules have been established to regulate the tenure of 
 office and the mode of appointments. It cannot be ex- 
 pected that any system of rules can be entirely effective, 
 and prove a perfect remedy for the existing evils, until they 
 have been thoroughly tested by actual practice, and amended 
 according to the requirements of the service. During my 
 term of office it shall be my earnest endeavor to so apply 
 the rules as to secure the greatest possible reform." 
 
 GRANT ON REFORM. 
 
 " In three successive messages to Congress I have called 
 attention to the subject of " civil-service reform." Action 
 has been taken so far as to authorize the appointment of a 
 board to devise rules governing methods of making appoint- 
 ments and promotions ; but there never has been any action 
 making these rules binding, or even entitled to observance 
 where persons desire the appointment of a friend, or the 
 removal of an official who may be disagreeable to them. 
 To have any rules effective, they must have the acquiescence 
 of Congress as well as of the Executive. I commend, 
 
108 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 therefore, the subject to your attention, and suggest that a 
 special committee of Congress might confer with the civil- 
 service board during the present session for the purpose of 
 devising such rules as can be maintained, and which will 
 secure the services of honest and capable officials, and 
 which will also protect them in a degree of independence 
 while in office. Proper rules will protect Congress, as well 
 as the Executive, from much needless persecution, and will 
 prove of great value to the public at large in the civil ser- 
 vice of the government ; but it will require the direct action 
 of Congress to render the enforcement of the system bind- 
 ing upon my successors, and I hope that the experience of 
 the past year, together with appropriate legislation by Con- 
 gress, may reach a satisfactory solution of this question, 
 and secure to the public service, for all time, a practical 
 method of obtaining faithful and efficient officers and 
 employes." 
 
 Macaulay says the ministers of England during 
 the reigns of George the First and George the 
 Second "were compelled to reduce corruption to 
 a system, and to practise it on a gigantic scale." 
 With us the unholy greed for wealth, however got- 
 ten, like a virus, had run through the veins of the 
 body politic. There were officials, even secreta- 
 ries, false to their duty. It must be acknowl- 
 edged, however, that corruption came from the 
 community, and seduced the officer, instead of 
 being, as in England, a constituent part of the 
 political machinery. The public was the first 
 tempter. In the city of New York, where the 
 importations were of such magnitude that proper 
 superintendence was difficult, the most intricate 
 schemes of deceit were devised. In hosiery, 
 
THE BESOTTED NATION. 109 
 
 gloves, and silks, false invoices and false exami- 
 nations were arranged by collusion ; the merchant 
 generally being the originator of the trickery. 
 Cargoes of merchandise were underweighted, and 
 the margin divided between importer and official. 
 Frauds in sugar, wool, metals, by under-valuation, 
 by obtaining appraisements on low grades when 
 high ones should have been rendered, and many 
 processes combining ingenuity with dishonesty, 
 were in daily practice at the great ports. A firm 
 in the East, of the highest reputation, was glad to 
 compromise with government by payment of thou- 
 sands of dollars. 
 
 In the season when hair, other than natural, 
 was the rage, one dealer controlled the market. 
 He dodged impost by importing thoroughly 
 cleaned hair rolled up in sawdust, which then 
 passed as raw hair, and escaped taxation. Taking 
 the material to his warehouse, he merely shook the 
 hair free ; and, putting upon it the foreign labels 
 which had reached him by mail, he was enabled to 
 drive the honest merchant out of the field. This 
 offender settled with government by handing over 
 thousands of dollars purloined in this manner. 
 
 A distinguished public man came to the Bos- 
 ton Custom House with a certified invoice of a 
 watch. The document had upon it the required 
 consular seal. The gentleman said the bill did 
 not represent the true price, and he wished to pay 
 what was just. The Swiss vender had written 
 him a letter, saying he had made out the account 
 
HO ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 for half the sum paid, " as he usually did with 
 American purchases," to lessen the duty. An idea 
 of the mercantile morals of the foreign tourist is 
 disclosed when it is custom to dock American 
 bills to assist in cheating the revenue. It was 
 affirmed by one of the highest federal officials in 
 New York, that, from his experience, there did not 
 at one time seem to be a dozen merchants in that 
 city who were honest with the government. The 
 mania for wealth, and passion for gain, stimulated 
 by the redundant currency, were demonstrated 
 among all classes. "Corners," "jobs," "brilliant 
 operations in the street," " land schemes," " colo- 
 nizations," "railroad enterprises," engrossed the 
 attention of men to such a degree, that they had 
 little time to look into the safety or honesty of 
 many investments. 
 
 The Pathans of the frontier of India "neither 
 lend money at usury, nor keep shop," because the 
 former is forbidden by the Koran, and the latter 
 they think demeaning as an occupation. It will 
 be well for our republic when conscience will put 
 limitations upon profit, because the law of God 
 requires justice in all things. 
 
 To resist the degrading tendencies of the times 
 was the common resolution of thoughtful men. 
 Reform became the demand of the hour. But, in 
 working the reform batteries, some zealous but in- 
 discreet reformers, instead of bearing on the cen- 
 tral motive of avarice which had taken possession 
 of the besotted nation, turned upon the President, 
 
\ \ 
 
 THE BESOTTED NATION. in 
 
 and charged him with the guilt of the public rot- 
 tenness. Every thing abominable was laid to 
 "Grantism." Did a combination of speculators 
 contract to lay wooden pavements in Washington 
 at ruinous cost, it was all "Grantism." Did West- 
 ern underlings connive at "whiskey frauds," again 
 it was " Grantism." Did cold-blooded directors 
 for undue gain invest the scanty earnings of the 
 freedmen in a scandalous manner, most unjustly 
 the cry went up, " Grantism ! " 
 
 Hugo revives the story that King James caused 
 suspected witches to be boiled in caldrons, and, 
 tasting the broth, from its flavor would pronounce 
 upon the character of the victim. Self-appointed 
 moral censors hurled into the seething caldron 
 of public calumny the reputation of Grant, and, 
 tasting the unhallowed brewage, brazenly gave 
 out that all the iniquities of the period had the 
 unmistakable flavor of " Grantism." Grant chal- 
 lenged investigation, but no one dared to impugn 
 his personal purity. Corruption was traced to 
 many places and departments : none ever touched 
 his garments. When the startling revelations 
 broke upon him that those near to him, whom he 
 had chosen to uphold his honor with that of the 
 country, were smirched, though his heart felt the 
 blow of the betrayal, with the sternness of Roman 
 justice he gave the order, " Let no guilty man 
 escape." The storm of personal abuse and the 
 consolidation of attack culminated in the political 
 campaign of 1872. The people read the arraign- 
 
112 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 ment of his accusers, they heard the bitter words 
 uttered against his fame, and with that majestic 
 emphasis which four millions of intelligent voting 
 citizens only could pronounce, they vindicated the 
 hero of their wars, and bade him once more serve 
 in the place once honored by Washington and Lin- 
 coln. 
 
 Of his re-election Grant says, — 
 
 " I acknowledge before this assembly, representing as it 
 does every section of our country, the obligation I am under 
 to my countrymen for the great honor they have conferred 
 on me by returning me to the highest office within their gift, 
 and the further obligation resting on me to render them the 
 best services within my power. 
 
 "This I promise, looking forward with the greatest 
 anxiety to the day when I shall be released from responsi- 
 bilities that at times are almost overwhelming, and from 
 which I have scarcely had a respite since the eventful firing 
 upon Fort Sumter, in April, 1861, to the present day. My 
 services were then tendered, and accepted under the first call 
 for troops growing out of that event. I did not ask for place 
 or position, and was entirely without influence or the ac- 
 quaintance of persons of influence, but was resolved to per- 
 form my part in a struggle threatening the very existence of 
 the nation — a conscientious duty — without asking promotion 
 or command, and without a revengeful feeling towards any 
 section or individual. 
 
 " Notwithstanding this, throughout the war, and from my 
 candidacy for my present office in 1868, to the close of the 
 last presidential campaign, I have been the subject of abuse 
 and slander scarcely ever equalled in political history, which 
 to-day I feel that I can afford to disregard in view of your 
 verdict, which I gratefully accept as my vindication." — Sec- 
 ond Inaugural Address. 
 
THE BESOTTED NATION. 113 
 
 Benton once said, " Every form of government 
 has something in it to excite the pride and to 
 rouse the devotion of its citizens. In monarchy 
 it is the authority of the king ; in a republic it is 
 the sanctity of the laws." 
 
 One of the certain tests of fealty to law is to 
 honorably adhere to public fiduciary obligations. 
 That test had its full trial under Grant's presi- 
 dency; and the uncertainty attending Republican 
 integrity was settled, it is to be hoped, finally. The 
 inviolability of public faith, giving as it does the 
 highest evidence of national character, was the 
 crowning feature of his administration. The dan- 
 ger that threatened the public faith prior to 1868 
 led the loyal people to select Grant as the candidate 
 most sure to receive popular support. 
 
 During his eight years of service, so steadily 
 had the public debt been reduced, so rigidly had 
 our engagements with the public creditor been 
 kept, so judiciously had the public burdens been 
 lessened by funding at low rates of interest and 
 decreased expenditure, that the public credit never 
 stood, up to that time, so high in the estimation of 
 the world as when Grant turned over to his suc- 
 cessor the presidential office. 
 
li 4 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE OLD FIGHT IN A NEW FORM. 
 
 Natural leaders of the South, unable to pre- 
 vent the adoption of the constitutional amend- 
 ments, combined to render them inoperative. To 
 neutralize in that locality the special features of 
 war legislation relative to the constitutional stand- 
 ins: of the freed race — to restore the Democratic 
 party to national control — became the effort and 
 ambition of Southern politics. The political 
 vacuum caused by absence of influential white 
 Southerners from States where the emancipated 
 class were an equal number or a majority, was 
 filled by a class of men termed in derision " carpet- 
 baggers." There were whites — some natives, but 
 more "new-comers " — who defied the old Southern 
 rule and sentiment, and cast their lot politically 
 with the blacks.- To overthrow power thus ob- 
 tained, the standard of "home rule" was raised, 
 and was made the shibboleth of the "lost cause" 
 in its revived condition. 
 
 The old war-yell of independence was exchanged 
 for the new peace-yell of "local government." 
 
 It is still an " irrepressible conflict ; " and God 
 means that it shall be so until free institutions, 
 
THE OLD FIGHT IN A NEW FORM. 115 
 
 and justice to the negro, shall exist throughout the 
 land. To say that such justice now exists, is to lie 
 before men and before Heaven. 
 
 A political confederacy of repudiating States; 
 the disappearance in a few years of Republican 
 majorities by the "shot-gun policy;" and the 
 banks of the Mississippi lined with fleeing blacks, 
 upheld by thoughts as grand as those which nerved 
 the Hebrew exodus, make false all assertions of 
 Southern freedom or its justice. "Better die in 
 Kansas free than live in the South slaves," said 
 a black refugee ; and the sentiment gives promise 
 that the race which holds to such ideas will yet 
 have its risrhts. 
 
 May God help it to that end, and may he help 
 us to help it! "The New-Orleans Times" has 
 this incident : — 
 
 ; ' There was an episode in the convention a day or two ago 
 which ought to be preserved in history. It will be remem- 
 bered that Mr. T. T. Allain, a colored delegate from West 
 Baton Rouge or Iberville, made a remarkably able and 
 sensible speech in opposition to the abolition of the office 
 of superintendent of public education. As soon as he con- 
 cluded, Mr. McGloin, of one of the up-town wards of New 
 Orleans, arose, and offered a resolution that his speech be 
 translated into all the known languages and dialects for the 
 information and guidance of humanity. We did not notice 
 whether any one laughed. Mr. Allain at once took the floor, 
 and said, — 
 
 "'Mr. Chairman, I was formerly a slave. The results 
 of the war emancipated me, and simultaneously placed me 
 under the obligation of fitting myself to discharge the duties 
 of citizenship. While the gentleman from Orleans was per- 
 
Ii6 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 fecting himself in all those languages to which he refers, I 
 was picking cotton. The years that I spent in picking 
 cotton he devoted to his moral and intellectual improve- 
 ment; yet I think I may be pardoned for saying that he 
 might have put his varied accomplishments to a more 
 creditable »se than in thus striving to ridicule and deride 
 me in my effort to promote an end I consider right and 
 proper.' " 
 
 Just men believe in the Allains more than the 
 McGloins. 
 
 From various public documents written by- 
 Grant, we take the following extracts : 
 
 " Mississippi is governed to-day by officials chosen 
 through fraud and violence, such as would scarcely be 
 accredited to savages, much less to a civilized and Christian 
 people." 
 
 To Gov. Chamberlain of South Carolina he 
 says, — 
 
 " Go on in the conscientious discharge of duties to the 
 humblest as well as to the proudest citizen, and I will give 
 every aid for which I can find law or constitutional power." 
 
 Thus, during the administration of Grant, the 
 States where the black race balanced or out- 
 numbered the white were politically in posses- 
 sion of the loyal party. 
 
 That party was composed of a race reared in 
 slavery — therefore unused to responsibility — and 
 of a portion of the white race, from both North 
 and South, who held Republican views from prin- 
 
THE OLD FIGHT IN A NEW FORM. II 7 
 
 ciple, but were inclined in many cases to use power 
 for self-interest. Legislation coming from such 
 sources was sure to be improvident. Often wild 
 in its extravagance, and sometimes unjust in its 
 nature, it could not but be a failure. This phase 
 of affairs, under the attempt to project a new race 
 into the experiment of civilization, was as much a 
 natural phenomenon as the half-light of the dawn 
 that comes between night and day. 
 
 In this experiment the old rulers of the South 
 were set against the old slaves and their new 
 friends, and in all ways resisted their authority. 
 
 Such a political soil was ready to receive the 
 seed of inflation. Black Republicans expected to 
 become learned by large outlays for educational 
 purposes. The whites of the party hoped to get 
 rich by putting the credit of the State into rail- 
 road projects ; in this they were not sinners 
 above all other men. In peculation, pure and sim- 
 ple, one year of Democratic robbery in the city of 
 New York amounted to more than the entire sum 
 of theft perpetrated in all the States of the South 
 in all the time they were in Republican hands. 
 
 There is no form of Republican government 
 possible, but in the agreement to obey the will of 
 the majority "for better or worse." Republics, if 
 they continue republics, like water in motion, 
 will finally run clear. 
 
 It was the duty of Grant, under his oath of 
 office, to sustain the States, into whatever hands 
 they came, by legal operation, He did so with 
 
Ii8 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 the power he had through the " appropriate legis- 
 lation " of Congress. 
 
 He regretted the mistakes and misdeeds of the 
 Southern Republicans ; but he had more faith for 
 the ultimate prosperity of that section in the 
 Republican than in the "old" party. 
 
 "Home rule" became the policy of the "old" 
 South. It meant this : wherever there was a 
 Republican majority, to shoot that majority down, 
 or "terrorize" it until the Republican excess was 
 reduced to a minority. 
 
 Then came the domination of the lawless 
 South. The planters were stocked with the most 
 improved rifles, and used them in the service of 
 " home rule." 
 
 The authority of the United States was openly 
 defied, the loyal judiciary was imperilled, and 
 home rule flourished amid the rattle of shot-guns, 
 the thud of the rifle-ball, and the light of burning 
 churches and schoolhouses, with which the vandals 
 of the South made lurid the Southern sky. 
 
 To meet this emergency Grant asked for "ap- 
 propriate legislation " to combat unlawful with 
 lawful force. 
 
 For the first time the people failed him, and his 
 arms were pinioned. 
 
 The panic of 1873 had created consternation 
 and havoc in politics. 
 
 The election of 1874 went against the adminis- 
 tration. 
 
 " Change for the sake of change," was a com- 
 mon demand. 
 
THE OLD FIGHT IN A NEW FORM. 119 
 
 Pity for the " home rulers " was a rallying cry 
 with all Democrats and some weak Northern 
 Republicans. 
 
 Convention's and mass-meetings were convened 
 in the principal cities to give the South fair play ; 
 that is, where there were three blacks and two 
 whites, to see to it that the whites governed "any- 
 how." 
 
 As all the evils of corruption in the North had 
 been laid to "Grantism," so all the debts, disas- 
 ters, and disorganization of the South were claimed 
 to be due to the " carpet-bagger " and to the ad- 
 ministration of Grant. 
 
 The popular vote of 1874, with regard to non- 
 interference by federal force with local govern- 
 ment, may be considered irrevocable. Right or 
 wrong, it must be deemed an ultimate decision. 
 
 There is a fable that a northern race of ele- 
 phants in India have all the size, but not quite 
 the wisdom, of their kind. One of this class was 
 elected to govern the animal kingdom. The 
 wolves got from him permission to take a little 
 wool from the sheep to protect themselves from 
 the cold winter. The sheep made complaint that 
 they were being outraged by this "home rule" of 
 the northern elephant. In defence the wolves 
 said the sheep were making an unnecessary fuss: 
 "All they took in a whole year was a single fleece" 
 — "Well, well," said the Bourbon elephant, "I 
 will have no injustice done. Take one fleece from 
 each, but not a hair more" 
 
120 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 The following is a specimen of the workings of 
 "home rule :" — 
 
 The Hamburgh massacre took place in 1876. 
 Its leader is now a United-States senator from 
 South Carolina. 
 
 In 1875 a committee of the Senate of the United 
 States investigated the affairs of Mississippi. The 
 conclusion of the report says, — 
 
 " The evidence shows further that the State of Missis- 
 sippi is at present under the control of political organiza- 
 tions composed largely of armed men, whose common pur- 
 pose is to deprive the negroes of the free exercise of the 
 right of suffrage, and to establish and maintain the suprem- 
 acy of the white-line Democracy in violation alike of the 
 Constitution of their own State and the Constitution of the 
 United States." 
 
 Murder for political opinions, and denial of con- 
 stitutional rights to the blacks, have ended in the 
 present voluntary exile of the freedmen. 
 
 Seeing their lot becoming harder each year, that 
 less provision in many States is made for their 
 education, 1 and that their fate under the present 
 
 1 " How Arkansas Negroes are kept Ignorant. — All the ne- 
 groes of the county are congregated in Bentonville, where their children 
 are growing up in ignorance. The school law of the State makes some 
 nominal provision for negro schools ; but they have no school building, and 
 I believe they never had a school. The class of negroes that hang 
 around the outskirts of a town are seldom of any consequence ; and those 
 of Bentonville are no exception. The men drink what whiskey they can 
 get, do a little gardening for a mere song, run errands, and serve as scape- 
 goats for all the petit larcenies perpetrated for miles around. . In fact, all 
 the stealing is accredited to ' them niggers ; ' but I noticed that there 
 were no ' niggers ' before the grand jury for any offence, while there were 
 several clear-blooded Caucasians, to the manner born, lying in jail await- 
 ing trial. " — Cor. Troy Times. 
 
THE OLD FIGHT IN A NEW FORM. 121 
 
 rule will certainly reduce them to virtual peonage, 
 they are striking out for a better country. The 
 exodus is the legitimate result of " home rule." 
 
 On the 9th of June, 1879, the papers, referring 
 to the exodus, remarked that, — 
 
 " Between Baton Rouge in Louisiana and St. Louis in 
 Missouri, on the banks of the Mississippi River, are a large 
 number of companies of black people, — men, women, and 
 children, — who have sold all they had, and started on an 
 emigration to the West. The number is estimated at near- 
 ly eight thousand. The places of their bivouac are per- 
 fectly known by correspondence. The people have left 
 home, and are now simply waiting for the means of travel. 
 They are starving while they wait. They are in unfriendly 
 surroundings. They supposed they were American citizens, 
 with the rights of American citizens. But it proves that 
 certain steamboat-captains take the privilege of deciding 
 whether they ought to emigrate, or ought not, and leave 
 them, by their decision, to die where they are." 
 
 These facts justify the statement that the South 
 is unchanged, or, more correctly, the statement 
 that her last state in some features is worse than 
 the first. It must not be forgotten that the evi- 
 dence of unpunished murderers of black and white 
 Republicans stamps as a base mockery the phan- 
 tom of Southern justice, that the obliteration of a 
 vast political organization by the peremptory appli- 
 cation of powder and bullet brands as an infamous 
 falsehood the plea of equal rights. 
 
 One thing more should be remembered. From 
 the tongue of no prominent Southern man has 
 ever come an acknowledgment of wrong-doing in 
 
122 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 forcing war on this nation. To utter such a senti- 
 ment would deprive the statesman who avowed it 
 of social and political standing. Why speak of a 
 consistent peace when the righteousness of the act 
 which procured it is denied by the solid South ? 
 
 At the one-hundredth anniversary of the battle 
 of Bunker Hill, every effort was made by New 
 England to welcome the South. Distinguished 
 guests from that section were entertained with the 
 hospitality of the State of Massachusetts and the 
 city of Boston. Spacious halls decorated with 
 floral loveliness were open to the reception of our 
 Southern fellow-citizens. A hundred thousand 
 voices cheered them as they were recognized in 
 the moving pageant. Yet no warmth of hospi- 
 tality could win from the Southern visitors the 
 admission that to fight to break up a free gov- 
 ernment, and to build up a slave government, was 
 wrong of itself. 
 
 The same public sentiment at home that closes 
 the gangway of the steamer to the fleeing freed- 
 men closes the lips of the representative of the 
 "solid South" at Bunker Hill or at Washington 
 to the confession that liberty for all is a diviner 
 principle than liberty for some. 
 
 In a letter to Gov. Chamberlain of South Caro- 
 lina, written in July, 1876, Grant advised him to 
 continue the conscientious discharge of his duties. 
 He stated with precision the whole scope of con- 
 stitutional power, saying, " A government that 
 cannot give protection to the life, property, and all 
 
THE OLD FIGHT IN A NEW FORM. 123 
 
 guaranteed civil rights (in this country the greatest 
 is an untrammelled ballot) to the citizen, is so far 
 a failure, and every energy of the oppressed should 
 be exerted (always within the law and by constitu- 
 tional means) to regain lost privileges or protec- 
 tion." 
 
 To-day there is no government in a majority of 
 the Southern States to protect the life, liberty, or 
 ballot of the minority. 
 
 In the old Byzantine wars the conquerors chained 
 their captives together in bands, and pierced their 
 eyeballs with red-hot irons. To the leader they 
 would spare a single eye, that he might guide his 
 forlorn and sightless companions to their moun- 
 tain homes. 
 
 Unless the Providence of God intervenes to 
 create a new and better political sentiment in the 
 South, the inhuman discipline of " home rule " 
 will blind with ignorance and fetter with debt the 
 doomed blacks, until, losing heart and hope, they 
 will slowly wander back to the degradation of that 
 bondage from which it was thought they had 
 mercifully escaped. 
 
GRANT AND CONSTITUTIONAL 
 MONEY. 
 
"Congress shall have power . . . 
 
 " To borrow money on the credit of the United States ; . . . 
 11 To coin money, regulate value thereof." — Constitution of the United 
 States. 
 
 " I am not a believer in any artificial method of making paper money 
 equal to coin when the coin is not owned or held ready to redeem the 
 promises to pay ; for paper money is nothing more than promises to 
 pay." — Grant's Veto Message on the Senate Currency Bill. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE WAR DOLLAR. 
 
 The campaign of 1868 was the beginning of a 
 contest over public honesty not yet ended. The 
 platform of the Democratic party submitted that, 
 "Where the obligations of the government do not 
 expressly state upon their face, or the law under 
 which they were passed does not provide, that 
 they shall be paid in coin, they ought, in right and 
 in justice, to be paid in the lawful money of the 
 United States." This meant to force the ex- 
 change of interest-bearing bonds for " green- 
 backs " not carrying interest. It was on that 
 direct issue, keeping faith or breaking it, that the 
 battle was fought. The incentive of the Demo- 
 cratic action was the belief that men had a nat- 
 ural bias for cheating, and would gladly avoid 
 paying their debts if possible. 
 
 As the greenback stated on its face that it could 
 legally satisfy all debts but interest and imposts, 
 Democrats held that it could discharge public 
 obligations. The most debasing appeals to cupid- 
 ity and prejudice were made. 
 
 It was asked if the glutted bondholder should 
 
 127 
 
128 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 have coin, and the hard-fisted ploughholder should 
 have paper ? It was openly said that the bonds 
 were owed abroad, and "who cares if foreigners 
 are not paid?" It was urged that the interest 
 already paid had in some cases amounted to as 
 much as had been received for the bonds ; and so 
 to " square off " would be about right. Republi- 
 cans marched under the banners of public faith. 
 Their fight is thus described : " On the one side 
 are loyal multitudes, and the generous freedmen 
 who bared themselves to danger as our allies, with 
 Grant still at their head ; and on the other side 
 are rebels under the name of the Democratic 
 party." 
 
 Republicans said, no matter if, by a quibble, we 
 could slink out of the legal obligation to pay the 
 bonds in coin : morally we were bound so to do, 
 inasmuch as all parties at the time understood 
 the contract in that way. The people declared 
 their preference to be honest, and pay their debts 
 when within their power. After pouring out the 
 life-blood of the nation because they chose to 
 fight rather than violate conscience, they spurned 
 the temptation to wrong those who had loaned 
 money to carry on the war, by taking advantage 
 of a flaw or omission in the bond. The people 
 elected Grant on the basis of honest payment. 
 
 "A great debt has been contracted in securing to us 
 and our posterity the Union. The payment of this, princi- 
 pal and interest, as well as the return to specie basis as soon 
 as it can be accomplished without material detriment to the 
 
THE WAR DOLLAR. 1 29 
 
 debtor class, or the country at large, must be provided for. 
 To protect the national honor, every dollar of government 
 indebtedness should be paid in gold, unless otherwise ex- 
 pressly stipulated in the contract. Let it be understood 
 that no repudiator of one farthing of our public debt will 
 be trusted in public place, and it will go far towards strength- 
 ening a credit which ought to be the best in the world, and 
 will ultimately enable us to replace the debt with bonds 
 bearing less interest than we now pay." 
 
 So said Grant in his first inaugural, and it led 
 to the passage of the Public Credit Act : — 
 
 " That, in order to remove any doubt as to the purpose 
 of the government to discharge all just obligations to the 
 public creditors, and to settle conflicting questions and inter- 
 pretations of the law by virtue of which such obligations 
 have been contracted, it is hereby provided and declared, 
 that the faith of the United States is solemnly pledged to 
 the payment in coin, or its equivalent, of all the obligations 
 of the United States not bearing interest, known as United- 
 States notes, and of all the interest-bearing obligations of 
 the United States, except in cases where the law authoriz- 
 ing the issue of any such obligation has expressly provided 
 that the same may be paid in lawful money, or other cur- 
 rency than gold and silver; but none of said interest-bearing 
 obligations not already due shall be redeemed or paid before 
 maturity unless at such time United-States notes shall be 
 convertible into coin at the option of the holder, or unless 
 at such time bonds of the United States bearing a lower 
 rate of interest than the bonds to be redeemed can be sold 
 at par in coin. And the United States also solemnly pledges 
 its faith to make provision at the practicable period for the 
 redemption of the United-States notes in coin." 
 
 This may be termed the loyal creed of honesty. 
 It was carried over millions of Democratic ballots, 
 
13° 
 
 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 and but for the personal popularity of Grant might 
 not have been so triumphant. 
 
 The currency of the war was not money, and 
 did not purport to be any thing but the best 
 substitute in the place of money, that, in the exi- 
 gencies that existed, could be devised. It was a 
 promise to the holder to produce money at the 
 option of the maker of the promise. Its excuse 
 for being was the peril of the land. " Any thing 
 is constitutional to save the country," said Lincoln 
 when they told him his call for troops was uncon- 
 stitutional. It was on that principle that the 
 " legal-tender " note became the war dollar. 
 
 The country had to pay dearly for this intro- 
 duction of paper currency. While war was de- 
 stroying vast amounts of property, the use of 
 vast amounts of this paper medium was required. 
 When the destruction by war ceased, the paper 
 volume was employed in piling up personal prop- 
 erty of all kinds. 
 
 There was an overstock of railroads, mills, 
 buildings, manufactured articles, which made an 
 unnatural demand for labor at impossible wages. 
 
 A crash came, calamitous in its suspension of 
 all departments of industry, fearful in its contrac- 
 tion of estimates, deplorable in its mercantile de- 
 pression. It swept away incomes, drove labor to 
 the wall, and caused want and hunger to come 
 to centres of population, and poverty to visit 
 homes where comfort and luxury had always been 
 enjoyed. The prostration of thrift and commerce 
 
THE WAR DOLLAR. 13 1 
 
 was the price paid for attempting to employ 
 in peace a currency made by and absorbed in 
 war. Though we are now recovering from the 
 disheartening consequences of the late painful 
 business trials, another misfortune came with paper 
 currency, from which we have not yet rallied and 
 are not soon likely to rally. It created an appetite 
 for permanent inflation. It gave rise to a wild 
 financial school. They who found it "against 
 their principle to pay interest," or against their 
 "interest to pay principal," rallied for a paper mil- 
 lennium. The heaviest curse produced by paper 
 currency was the popular folly which demanded 
 the political or paper dollar as a medium of ex- 
 change. 
 
132 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE FIAT DOLLAR. 
 
 The friends of the "fiat" dollar boldly said 
 their dollar must be worthless in itself, but should 
 pass as the circulating medium of barter between 
 man and man by the sheer power of the majority. 
 Law, they told us, gives to money its function, and 
 it can give function to any thing. 
 
 It was a device, we were told, of the capitalist, 
 that money shall possess value. Valuable money 
 is hoarded. Valueless money has the faculty to be 
 got rid of, and that makes things lively. A late 
 utterance of a Solon of " fiat " was : " At the pres- 
 ent time the gold dollar of the money-king has a 
 purchasing power from forty to sixty per cent 
 greater than before the war. At the present time 
 the masses do not have the necessary money to 
 purchase the goods which now glut the market." 
 It is an essential tenet of communism, that when 
 the individual is short of any thing the State shall 
 furnish it. The soul of the " fiat dollar " is com- 
 munistic. 
 
 In a country where suffrage is universal, the 
 vote must represent false or true principles of 
 action. The voter here is undergoing some kind 
 
THE FIAT DOLLAR. 133 
 
 of education. More extensively than ever before, 
 among the great army of the "dissatisfied," among 
 the mechanics who are sullen from struggle with 
 life, among the merchants, speculators, and manip- 
 ulators, who remember the " kiting" days of the 
 past, the seeds of communism are being scattered 
 profusely, and are taking root. The literature of 
 the International is freely disseminated ; and the 
 most flagrant pandering to the envy and jeal- 
 ousy of those who have little, against those who 
 have much, is the outgrowth of that communistic 
 spirit which with us flourishes wherever the paper 
 theory succeeds. Fiat conventions do not put 
 communism in their platforms, but their private 
 conversation reeks with the foul heresy. 
 
 Tell a fiat enthusiast that the Constitution is 
 adverse to his opinions, — that Congress has only 
 power to "coin money," — he will tell you that he 
 interprets the Constitution to have the implied 
 power to do every thing for the people that has 
 not in that document been forbidden by the people. 
 
 A man bought a horse of a church-member, 
 and found he was spavined. He went to him, and 
 asked, " Are you a Christian ? " 
 
 "Well, yes, I think I am." 
 
 " Do you read the Bible ? " 
 
 "I do." 
 
 "You had better read it again." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "You sold me a horse with spavin." 
 
 "You look here. You just go over the Bible 
 
134 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 yourself, and, if you find one word in it where a 
 Christian is required to mention spavin in connec- 
 tion with a horse-trade, I'll take him back." 
 
 The paper financier, not finding a word in the 
 Constitution that says Congress shall not make 
 paper money, says Congress can and shall make a 
 "greenback." 
 
 The disciples of inflation might learn a lesson 
 from the story of Ulysses. 
 
 When about to start homeward after tarrying 
 with the God of Winds, to hasten his journey 
 Eolus tied the contrary winds in a bag, — 
 
 " With a bright chain of silver, that no breath 
 Of ruder air might blow. He only left 
 The west wind free-to waft our ships and us 
 Upon our way." 
 
 The travellers had come almost in sight of their 
 native shore ; and, while Ulysses slept, the sailors 
 complained that wherever they had been together, 
 " rich gifts of gold and silver " had been tendered 
 to the chief alone, though all had shared the perils 
 of the voyage. Curiosity led them to examine the 
 concealed treasure. 
 
 " Thus speaking to each other, they obeyed 
 The evil counsel. They untied the sack, 
 And straight the winds rushed forth, and seized the ship, 
 And swept the crews, lamenting bitterly, 
 Far from their country, out upon the deep." 
 
 There is no need to " point this moral : " to 
 "adorn the tale " is a hopeless task. 
 
THE FIA T DOLLAR. 135 
 
 The war currency had no support from Grant in 
 its unredeemed state. He said, — 
 
 " Fluctuation, in the paper value of the measure of all 
 values (gold), is detrimental to the interests of trade. It 
 makes the man of business an involuntary gambler ; for, in 
 all sales where future payment is to be made, both parties 
 speculate as to what will be the value of the currency to be 
 paid and received. I earnestly recommend to you, then, 
 such legislation as will insure a gradual return to specie 
 payments, and put an immediate stop to fluctuations in the 
 value of currency." — Inaugural^ i86g. 
 
136 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 CHAPTER XXL 
 
 THE HONEST DOLLAR. 
 
 In his first message Grant called attention to 
 the fact that "among the evils growing out of the 
 Rebellion, is that of an irredeemable currency. It 
 is an evil which I hope will receive your earliest 
 attention. It is a duty, and one of the highest 
 duties, of government, to secure to the citizen a 
 medium of exchange of fixed, unvarying value. 
 This implies a return to specie basis, and no sub- 
 stitute for it can be devised." 
 
 In 1875 a law was passed containing the clause, 
 "On and after the first day of January, Anno 
 Domini eighteen hundred and seventy-nine, the 
 Secretary of the Treasury shall redeem, in coin, 
 the United-States legal-tender notes then out- 
 standing, on their presentation for redemption at 
 the office of the Assistant Treasurer of the United 
 States, in the city of New York, in sums of not 
 less than fifty dollars." 
 
 Most extraordinary pressure was brought to 
 bear upon the President, to induce him to with- 
 hold his signature from the Resumption Bill. 
 
 Many of Grant's warmest personal friends were 
 ardent inflationists. Eminent bankers, leading 
 
THE HONEST DOLLAR. 137 
 
 merchants, men with the care of great railroad 
 enterprises, by petition, by personal appeal, by 
 letter, and by telegraph, warned him of ruin to the 
 country by forcing resumption. 
 
 Prominent Republicans doubted the policy of 
 naming a day when we should redeem. It was 
 derided as a party dodge and a visionary scheme. 
 Not for one moment did Grant waver. He felt 
 that if the occasion slipped by, it might not come 
 again. The bill was right. The vital interests of 
 the country demanded that we should come back to 
 financial sanity. The honor of the people could 
 only be maintained by redeeming their outstand- 
 ing pledges. By his act the bill became law,- and 
 because of that act resumption is now an accom- 
 plished fact. It was among the last acts of special 
 importance in his administration, and was the con- 
 summation of a recommendation made by him in 
 his first state paper. It was the finality of the 
 war currency; and by this act the American peo- 
 ple once more had a circulation convertible into 
 specie, the honest, constitutional money of "their 
 fathers." 
 
 We are to-day — because we had Grant for 
 President — regarded by the world as an honest 
 nation. Our credit is second only to that of Eng- 
 land. 
 
 We are not, however, out of danger. Formid- 
 able agencies are at work to take from us our 
 "good name " for honesty. Stripped of sophistry, 
 the " greenback " agitation was a crusade of dis- 
 honesty. 
 
138 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 There is, in kind, no difference of morality be- 
 tween the act of the highwayman who takes a 
 purse after presenting his pistol, and the act of 
 a voter who scales a debt by dishonest legislation. 
 The motive in both cases is to get that which 
 belongs to another: it is the method only that 
 varies. The champions of cheap money are, j list 
 now, beaten ; but the area of dishonesty has not 
 been contracted, its activities are not lessened. 
 
 Twelve States have repudiated more or less of 
 their debts. Eleven of them are Southern ; one, 
 to its shame, is a Northern State. Nearly a third 
 of the Republic has upon it the stain of dishonor. 
 
 Capital and labor are very far from being upon 
 the terms of amity needed for their common inter- 
 est. We are separating into classes ; habits are 
 changing; feelings of bitterness, strange to this 
 country, are being manifested, and the breach be- 
 tween the "well-to-do" and the ill-provided-for is 
 widening. 
 
 Late immigration brings us more agitators and 
 less agriculturists than formerly. 
 
 Commercial integrity is more and more inclined 
 to find its incentive rather in the maxim that 
 "honesty pays," than in the principle of ac- 
 countability to a higher than earthly tribunal. 
 Every large town and city with us has resorts 
 where levelling and agrarian ideas fester and 
 spread, and the ignorant voter is receiving a 
 street and shop education tainted with the social- 
 ism of Germany and the nihilism of Russia. The 
 
THE HONEST DOLLAR. 139 
 
 thin end of the communistic wedge is labelled 
 "cheap money." Cheap money is always bad 
 money. Said Grant, in one of his messages, 
 " A poorer currency will always drive the better 
 out of circulation. With paper a legal tender, 
 and at a discount, gold and silver become articles 
 of merchandise as much as wheat or cotton. 
 The surplus will find the best market." 
 
 What we need in this country is thorough 
 primary discussion, face to face with the people, 
 on the elementary principles of political economy. 
 The delusion that there is any easy way or short 
 cut out of the inequalities of human conditions 
 is as cruel in its effect as it is false in its start. 
 Opportunity for each and all to get out of the 
 world all they can, by all ways and means except 
 immoral, selfish, and illegal ones, is the central 
 principle of our government. There is a moral 
 obligation to use means, power, and talent for the 
 common good ; but to regulate morals is beyond 
 the province of law. 
 
 We are soon to be in a political controversy over 
 the function of silver as money. Silver, when 
 coined, is constitutional money — but a silver 
 dollar can be a lie or a truth. Silver payment 
 can be just or unjust. It is right to use silver 
 in a right way ; it has value, and should be used 
 for what it is worth. It may be wise for us to 
 co-operate for the recognition by all nations of 
 silver as money, when coined. 
 
 The silver issue will enter into the coming 
 
140 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 grave national campaign of 1880, and the Demo- 
 crats and inflationists will "pull together." In 
 their hands the volume of silver is to be carried 
 to the point of utmost depreciation. Their cardi- 
 nal point is cheap money, or money that will 
 "float." 
 
 To cheapen silver is to raise prices, and they are 
 for high prices. It will enable the debtor to pay 
 his creditor in a less value than the latter had a 
 right to expect. To make ninety, eighty, or sixty 
 cents in payment do the work of one hundred 
 cents of contract, is to the expansionist a " con- 
 summation devoutly to be wished." 
 
 The Republicans of the country are to join 
 issue on the silver fight. They will deal with 
 this metal as they did with the war-currency, — 
 justly. It will be their object to make silver as 
 they made the "greenback," as "good as gold," 
 so that silver and paper alike shall represent an 
 honest dollar. 
 
 It was fourteen years prior to the passage of the 
 Resumption Act that Grant had left the humble 
 tanyard at Galena, to respond to the call of his 
 country. 
 
 He had, by what some regard as destiny, but 
 others more reverently hold to be the guidance 
 of Providence, been permitted to do great deeds 
 and to receive great honors. 
 
 With the aid of his trusted generals and his 
 loyal legions, he had carried the flag of the nation 
 through all the vicissitudes of war, and had brought 
 
THE HONEST DOLLAR. 141 
 
 it back to the American people with every star 
 shining and its stripes purified by victory. 
 
 The grateful nation had created for him a mili- 
 tary honor no other American had ever borne. 
 Twice he had been chosen chief magistrate, serv- 
 ing through eight years of unparalleled civil con- 
 fusion and unprecedented commercial desolation. 
 By the help of his loyal associates in other 
 branches of government, he had been enabled to 
 bring back the "age of gold," and had thereby 
 added to the renown of America not only the title 
 of a brave, but the higher glory of an honest, peo- 
 ple. Will we keep the honor? 
 
GRANT AS A RETIRED CESAR. 
 
"Tell me, O Muse! of that sagacious man, 
 Who, having overthrown the sacred town 
 Of Ilium, wandered far, and visited 
 The capitals of many nations." — Odyssey. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 IMPERIALISM. 
 
 When the comet resembled a cross, it received 
 the blessing of the chief pontiff: when it as- 
 sumed the shape of a Turkish cimeter, the head 
 of the Church cursed it vigorously. Popular 
 adulation passes into popular censure sometimes 
 with equal rapidity. Periodically this country is 
 afflicted with spasms over some imagined case 
 of imperialism. At an early date in our history 
 Jefferson was seized with an apprehension that 
 we were on the brink of monarchy. If John 
 Adams wore curled hair, or indulged in the pomp- 
 ous airs for which he was said to be noted, the 
 Jefferson school saw crowned heads and sceptres 
 in the distance. This school was in constant ter- 
 ror over a possible king. 1 
 
 1 John Adams says that the difference between him and Jefferson was, 
 i. In the difference between speeches and messages. I was a monarchist. 
 I thought a speech more manly, more respectful to Congress and the 
 nation : Jefferson and Rush preferred messages. 2. I held levees once a 
 week, that all of my time might not be wasted in idle visits: Jefferson's 
 whole eight years was a levee. 3. I dined a large company once or twice 
 a week : Jefferson dined a dozen every day. 4. Jefferson and Rush were 
 for liberty and straight hair : I thought curled hair as republican as 
 straight. 
 
 M5 
 
146 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 This nervous Jeffersonian trait has been trans- 
 mitted; and every generation has had its timid 
 prophets, who have seen " handwritings on the 
 wall," that portended the Atlantic Caesar. Said 
 a State legislator, " I'm agin five-inch cart-wheels. 
 Our fathers did their business with four-inch ones. 
 If they was good enough for them, they .is good 
 enough for us. I'm agin this five-inch move. I 
 see monarchy in it." Caesarphobia is found in 
 two extremes, — the backwoods statesman of hay- 
 seed propensities, and the Eastern dilettant who 
 has run to seed. It was the touching statement 
 of Pecksniff that " in the nose of my eldest and 
 chin of my youngest their sainted parent lives 
 ag-ain." In the boisterous rhetoric of the frontier 
 granger, and the polished sentences of the Atlan- 
 tic pamphleteer, the spirit of Jefferson lives again. 
 Grant was the occasion of the latest imperialistic 
 scare. The possibility that he might be chosen 
 three consecutive terms gave rise to an outcry 
 against the monarchical tendency. The doubtful 
 dasher which troubled the vision of Macbeth found 
 a counterpart in the royal blade that in imagina- 
 tion waved in the hands of Grant. Caesarism was 
 the synonyme of Grantism. The classics were 
 searched to find examples of ambitious men who 
 had plotted for empire, to range beside our Caesar. 
 If Grant travelled in a steamboat on which a brass- 
 band discoursed music, if he drove "a four-in- 
 hand " at Long Branch, or if he asked for troops 
 to protect the hunted black people, to some these 
 
IMPERIA L ISM. 1 4 7 
 
 affairs were " confirmation strong " that Grant in- 
 tended to seize the government, and that he was 
 practising the role of king. Frantic harangues 
 were made by alarmists ; and ink-black warnings 
 written by excited correspondents, that Grant 
 never would give up the Presidency, but would 
 become a military dictator. 
 
 The man, of whom it was predicted that he 
 would perpetuate his power at the point of the 
 bayonet, withdrew from the public in the most 
 quiet and unostentatious manner ; gladly leaving 
 his high civic station to re-enter private life. In- 
 stead of seeking to wield the sword of empire, 
 Grant has never been known to lift his finger for 
 his own advancement. In a letter he had said, — 
 
 " Now for the third term. I do not want it any more 
 than I did the first. I would not write or utter a word to 
 change the will of the people in expressing and having their 
 choice. The question of the number of terms allowed to 
 any one executive can only come up fairly in the shape of a 
 proposition to amend the Constitution, — a shape in which 
 all political parties can participate, fixing the length of time 
 or the number of terms for which any one person shall be 
 eligible for the office of President. Until such an amend- 
 ment is adopted, the people cannot be restricted in their 
 choice by resolution further than they are now restricted as 
 to age, nativity, &c. 
 
 " It may happen in the future history of the country, that 
 to change an executive because he has been eight years 
 in office will prove unfortunate, if not disastrous. The idea 
 that any man could elect himself President, or even renomi- 
 nate himself, is preposterous. It is a reflection upon the 
 intelligence and patriotism of the people to suppose such a 
 
148 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 thing possible. Any man can destroy his chances for the 
 office, but no one can force an election, or even a nomina- 
 tion. To recapitulate : I am not, nor have I ever been, a 
 candidate for a renomination. I would not accept a nomi- 
 nation if it were tendered unless it should come under such 
 circumstances as to make it an imperative duty, — circum- 
 stances not likely to arise." 
 
 Faithful to the contents of this letter, Grant, 
 after being elevated from an obscure position to 
 become chief among forty millions of people, laid 
 down his honors not only without a murmur, but 
 with a sense of relief, — going back to the people 
 after serving their will, seeking nothing, desir- 
 ing nothing, but the privileges of a retirement 
 that could only be disturbed by the command of 
 the people, which to him has ever been a summons 
 to duty. From the moment that one of his towns- 
 men by persistent effort obtained for him a subor- 
 dinate appointment in the volunteer army, to the 
 time of his return to the ranks of citizenship, 
 every honor had come to him unsought. While 
 suffering unjust treatment, and subject to un- 
 founded suspicion, he did not resort to political 
 influence for vindication. 
 
 In all matters of public policy the public judg- 
 ment was law to him. Examine his eventful 
 career with the closest scrutiny, and not a sign of 
 intrigue or inclination for personal aggrandizement 
 can be traced. Yet speeches elaborately prepared, 
 requiring hours for delivering, sought to prove 
 him the basest aspirant for place, and to fasten 
 
IMPERIALISM. 149 
 
 upon him the stain of imperial ambition. A 
 stream of vilification poured over him for years. 
 No instance of sordid greed for wealth or glaring 
 thirst for power, and nothing of disrepute that 
 imagination could invent when history failed, were 
 left unhidden or unsaid by those who had banded 
 to counteract the power of Grant by blasting his 
 reputation. There were great men who did this, 
 believing that duty required the task. There were 
 little men who echoed these sentiments for the 
 notoriety which comes from the mere fact of abus- 
 ing men of eminence. " A very small fly can 
 worry a very large horse, and still the fly is a fly, 
 and the horse is a horse," is a saying attributed 
 to Dr. Johnson. Human flies have some capacity 
 for annoyance if they have none for positive in- 
 jury. 
 
 In relinquishing official responsibility, Grant 
 looked forward to that enjoyment at home, and 
 pleasure by travel abroad, impossible while in 
 public position. His modesty in speech, and his 
 desire for others to share the attentions heaped 
 upon him, is the best answer that can be made to 
 the dribble and nonsense about imperialism. 
 
 In taking leave of his friends at Philadelphia, 
 before starting upon his now famous foreign tour, 
 he said in reply to very complimentary remarks, — 
 
 " I do not regard myself as entitled to all the 
 praise. I believe that my friend Sherman could 
 have taken my place as a soldier as well as I 
 could, and the same will apply to Sheridan." 
 
150 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 "I -believe," said he, "that, if our country ever 
 comes into trouble again, young men will spring 
 up equal to the occasion, and if one fails there will 
 be another to take his place." If that is the spirit 
 and language of "Csesarism," the more of it the 
 better for the country. 
 
 Over the bier of William Lloyd Garrison, Wen- 
 dell Phillips pronounced a sentence that should 
 be cut in marble or raised in bronze, upon the 
 monument yet to commemorate the noblest of 
 all Puritan philanthropists : — 
 
 "If you seek through the hidden causes 
 and unheeded events for the hand that 
 wrote Emancipation on the statute-books 
 
 AND ON THE FLAG, IT LIES STILL THERE TO-DAY." 
 
 It lessens no honor due the man who consecrated 
 his life to the cause of the slave, to avow the fact 
 that the same overruling power which gave effect 
 to the pen of Garrison also guided the sword of 
 Grant when it cut the Gordian knot which, from 
 the origin of the nation, had been alike our 
 danger and our dishonor. The great agitator is 
 dead. The magistrate whose signature made 
 emancipation legal became the martyr of loyalty. 
 The soldier who led the triumphant armies which 
 made emancipation a fact survives those associ- 
 ated with the grandest event since the Christian 
 era began. He takes rank justly as our first liv- 
 ing citizen. 
 
 It is the recreation of Carlyle to scoff at our 
 country and our countrymen. It has been said 
 
. IMPERIALISM. 1 5 1 
 
 that he regards the time spent in the company of 
 Americans as lost. To avenge himself for the 
 "forced loan" of his society to Americans, which 
 etiquette sometimes requires him to make, Carlyle 
 wounds his listeners in a tender place, by assert- 
 ing, in his broadest Scotch dialect, that " G-e-a-r-g-e 
 Washington did not amount to much either as a 
 statesman or general." Frederick the Great, in 
 the fourth year of the " Seven Years' War," was 
 beaten near his capital. It was a " universal rout." 
 " Shattered in body and in mind," the retreating 
 king found refuge in a deserted farmhouse. He 
 sent a despatch to the royal family to leave Berlin. 
 " The defeat was in truth overwhelming ; of the 
 fifty thousand men who had that morning marched 
 under the black eagles, not three thousand re- 
 mained together." Of Frederick it has been said, 
 that " his heart was ulcerated with hatred." He 
 once wrote, " I begin to feel, as the Italians say, 
 revenge is a pleasure for the gods. My philoso- 
 phy is worn out by suffering. I am no saint like 
 those of whom we read in the legends ; and I will 
 own that I should die content if I could only first 
 inflict a portion of the misery which I endure." 
 Carlyle spent fifteen years in writing the life of 
 Frederick the Great. A number of bulky volumes 
 contain his estimate of that Prussian soldier. 
 Surely we can afford to be patient under the spite 
 of the eminent Scotch termagant, as he projects 
 his gall upon the men and the ideas of America, 
 when we can present in contrast to his famous 
 
152 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 hero a captain who never lost a battle, and whose 
 heart never felt any sentiment of hatred to the 
 foes he fought and conquered. 
 
 Edmond de Pressense, writing on Thiers, says, 
 " This was he whom last year the Chamber of 
 Deputies named with acclamation when it inter- 
 rupted M. de Fourtou, the worthy minister of the 
 government of intriguers and conspirators, which 
 had grasped the power on the 16th of May, 1877. 
 He had here the impudence to pay homage for the 
 liberation of the country to the monarchical ma- 
 jority of the National Assembly, when more than 
 three hundred deputies rose like a single man, and, 
 pointing at the illustrious old man, exclaimed, " Le 
 voila, le liberateur de la France, le voila ! " 
 
 Should the question be put to the American 
 people, what one of their number had been most 
 instrumental in aiding the supremacy of the flag 
 upon which Emancipation was written, and who 
 in the calm of peace had done most to write upon 
 that flag the word Honor after Liberty and Loy- 
 alty, it would be the acclaim of the nation that 
 this great dignity belonged to Grant. 
 
GRANT ABROAD. 153 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 GRANT ABROAD. 
 
 Priggish Americans have been made very un- 
 comfortable by the manners of both Lincoln and 
 Grant. Taking their idea of presidential deport- 
 ment from Everett's finished discourse upon Wash- 
 ington, and being impressed with the fact that the 
 first chief magistrate rarely, if ever, smiled in his 
 maturer years, the awkward appearance of Lin- 
 coln and his fondness for stories, the impertur- 
 bability of Grant and his attachment to horses, — 
 have been a perpetual source of irritation to those 
 who have notions of decorum based on the sound- 
 est provincial standards. These might find relief 
 in their distress by reading Emerson, the most 
 genial, if not the most authoritative, of the apos- 
 tles of culture. Says Emerson, " The hero should 
 find himself at home, wherever he is ; should im- 
 part comfort, by his own security and good-nature, 
 to all beholders. The hero is suffered to be him- 
 self. A person of strong mind comes to perceive 
 that for him an immunity is secured so long as he 
 renders to society that service which is native and 
 proper to him ; an immunity from all the observ- 
 ances, yea, and duties, which society so tyranni- 
 
154 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 cally imposes on the rank and file of its members." 
 For two years the man of whom it had been often 
 remarked, " He is a consummate soldier, but under 
 no circumstances could he ever act the gentleman" 
 has been in the society of " princes, potentates, 
 and powers ; " and has passed the social ordeal, 
 not only with sufficient decorum, but with great 
 distinction. The fine adaptation of his responses 
 to the immediate and exact duty before him, and 
 his manly modesty in attributing to the greatness 
 of the nation over which he had presided, the 
 cause of the marked attention accorded to him, 
 cannot fail to strike with admiration whoever has 
 read or may read his travels abroad. Replying to 
 the mayor of Manchester, England, he said, " I was 
 very well aware, during the war, of the sentiments 
 of the great mass of the people of Manchester 
 toward the country to which I have the honor to 
 belong ; and also the sentiments with regard to 
 the struggle in which it fell to my lot to take a 
 humble part. ... I therefore accept, on the part 
 of my country, the compliments which have been 
 paid to me as its representative, and thank you 
 for them heartily." 
 
 At Salford he said, " I cannot help feeling that 
 it is my country that is honored through me." 
 
 At Leicester, "Allow me in behalf of my coun- 
 try to return you thanks for this honor, and for 
 your kind reception, as well as for the other 
 kind receptions which I have had since the time 
 that I first landed on the soil of Great Britain. 
 
GRANT ABROAD. 155 
 
 As children of this great Commonwealth, we feel 
 that you must have some reason to be proud of 
 our advancement since, our separation from the 
 mother country. I can assure you of our heart- 
 felt good-will, and express to you our thanks on 
 behalf of the American people." This resem- 
 "bles Caesarism as nearly as the cloud on which 
 Polonius gazed resembled a whale. At the re- 
 ception given to Grant by the American ambassa- 
 dor, the apartments were crowded with dukes, 
 marquises, earls, the lord chancellor, and lesser 
 nobles ; and the prigs may be glad to learn that 
 the behavior of the " great horse president " was 
 unexceptionable. The freedom of the city of 
 London, " the highest honor that can be paid by 
 this ancient and renowned corporation," was ex- 
 tended to Grant. To the presentation banquet 
 eight hundred guests were invited ; and the " free- 
 dom of the city was presented in a gold casket," 
 and all the ceremonies were of the most interest- 
 ing nature. His speech in response to the Lord 
 Mayor may be taken as a model of simple strength 
 and dignity. It was received with the most hearty 
 cheering ; and from the absence in it of toadyism, 
 and the "slop-over" trait so common in American 
 speeches, it could be imitated with great advan- 
 tage by some of our literary lights. 
 
 "It is a matter of some regret to me, that I have never 
 cultivated that art of public speaking which might have ena- 
 bled me to express in suitable terms my gratitude for the 
 compliment which has been paid to my countrymen and my- 
 
156 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 self on this occasion. Were I in the habit of speaking in 
 public, I should claim the right to express my opinion, and 
 what I believe will be the opinion of my countrymen when 
 the proceedings of this day shall have been telegraphed to 
 them. For myself, I have been very much surprised at my 
 reception at all places since the day I landed at Liverpool, 
 up to my appearance in this the greatest city in the world. 
 It was entirely unexpected, and it is particularly gratifying 
 to me. I believe that this honor is intended quite as much 
 for the country which I have had the opportunity of serving 
 in different capacities, as for myself ; and I am glad that this 
 is so, because I want to see the happiest relations existing, 
 not only between the United States and Great Britain, but 
 also between the United States and all other nations." 
 
 At a dinner given to him by Mr. Thomas 
 Hughes, the host, in proposing the health of his 
 distinguished guest, relieved him of the " burden 
 of a formal reply." Grant, however, rose and said, 
 " Mr. Hughes, I must none the less tell you what 
 gratification it gives me to hear my health pro- 
 posed in such hearty words by Tom Brown of Rug- 
 by." A gentleman could hardly have done better. 
 He dined with the Prince of Wales, in company 
 with the Emperor of Brazil, at the Marlborough 
 House ; and later there was a banquet given by the 
 Trinity Corporation in their hall on Tower Hill, 
 the Prince of Wales presiding. The company 
 was a distinguished and brilliant one. Among 
 others were Prince Leopold, Prince Christian 
 of Schleswig-Holstein, the Prince of Leinengen, 
 Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar, the Duke of 
 Wellington, and the Earl of Derby. 
 
 The Prince of Wales in his speech said, " It 
 
GRANT ABROAD. 
 
 157 
 
 is a matter of peculiar gratification to us as Eng- 
 lishmen to receive as our guest Gen. Grant. I can 
 assure him for myself, and for all the loyal sub- 
 jects of the Queen, that it has given me the great- 
 est pleasure to see him as a guest in this country." 
 From all that can be learned, the conduct of Grant 
 in this distinguished society would not have ruffled 
 the serenity of the most fastidious taste. The fol- 
 lowing unusual invitation was sent : " The Lord 
 Steward of her Majesty's household is commanded 
 by the Queen to- invite Mr. and Mrs. Grant to 
 dinner at Windsor Castle, the 27th inst, and to 
 remain until the following day, the 28th of June, 
 1877." This exceptional courtesy is more remark- 
 able when we recall the frequent charge made 
 against the recipient, that he was a " would-be 
 Caesar," "and was a person of no breeding, famil- 
 iar only with war and horses." Plain " Mr. Grant " 
 is a strange address for a scheming imperialist ; 
 and it is not generally supposed that the Queen 
 of England offers hospitality to ill-bred people. 
 
 Five days after the visit to royalty, Grant re- 
 ceived the representative working-men of London. 
 After the reading of an address handsomely en- 
 grossed on vellum, Grant in response said, — 
 
 " Gentlemen, — In the name of my country I thank you 
 for the address you have just presented to me. I feel it a 
 great compliment paid to my government, to the former gov- 
 ernment, and one to me personally. Since my arrival on 
 British soil I have received great attentions ; and, as I feel, 
 intended in the same way for my country. I have received 
 
158 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 attentions, and have had ovations, free hand-shakings, and 
 presentations from different classes, and from the Govern- 
 ment, and from the controlling authorities of cities, and 
 have been received in the cities by the populace. But there 
 is no reception I am prouder of than this one to-day. I 
 recognize the fact that whatever there is of greatness in the 
 United States, or indeed in any other country, is due to the 
 labor performed. The laborer is the author of all greatness 
 and wealth. Without labor there would be no government 
 or no leading class, or nothing to preserve. With us labor 
 is regarded as highly respectable. When it is not so re- 
 garded, it is then man dishonors labor. We recognize that 
 labor dishonors no man ; and no matter what a man's occu- 
 pation is, he is eligible to fill any post in the gift of the peo- 
 ple. His occupation is not considered in the selection of 
 him, whether as a law-maker or an executor of the law." 
 
 Grant's reply to the mayor of Liverpool is most 
 loyal to his country : — 
 
 " Mr. Mayor and Gentlemen, — You have alluded to the 
 hearty reception given to me on my first landing on the soil 
 of Great Britain, and the expectations of the mayor that this 
 reception would be equalled throughout the island have been 
 more than realized. It has been far beyond any thing I 
 could have expected. [Cheers.] I am a soldier, and the 
 gentlemen here beside me know that a soldier must die. I 
 have been a president, but we know that the term of the 
 presidency expires ; and, when it has expired, he is no more 
 than a dead soldier. [Laughter and cheers.] But, gentle- 
 men, I have met with a reception that would have done 
 honor to any living person. [Cheers.] I feel, however, 
 that the compliment has been paid, not to me, but to my 
 country. I cannot help but at this moment being highly 
 pleased at the good feeling and good sentiment which now 
 exist between the two peoples who of all others should be 
 good friends. We are of one kindred, of one blood, of one 
 
GRANT ABROAD. 159 
 
 language, and of one civilization, though in some respects 
 we believe that we, being younger, surpass the mother- 
 country. [Laughter.] You have made some improvements 
 on the soil and the surface of the earth which We have not 
 yet done, but which we do not believe will take us as long 
 as it took you. [Laughter and applause.] I heard some 
 military remarks which impressed me a little at the time. I 
 am not quite sure whether they were in favor of the volun- 
 teers, or against them. I can only say from my own obser- 
 vation, that you have as many troops at Aldershott as we 
 have in the whole of our regular army, notwithstanding we 
 have many thousands of miles of frontier to guard, and hostile 
 Indians to control. But, if it became necessary to raise a 
 volunteer force, I do not think we could do better than fol- 
 low your example. Gen. Fairchild and myself are examples 
 of volunteers who came forward when their assistance was 
 necessary ; and I have no doubt that if you ever needed 
 such services you would have support from your reserve 
 forces and volunteers, far more effective than you can con- 
 ceive. [Cheers.] " 
 
 We cannot follow Grant farther. The same 
 rising up of people, the same extraordinary court- 
 esy from titled and untitled rulers, were seen in 
 the Empire of Germany, the Republic of France, 
 and the Kingdom of Italy. The ovations of the 
 elder continent of Asia were no less cordial than 
 those of Europe. India, with her Oriental mag- 
 nificence ; China, forgetting for the moment her 
 stoicism ; Siam and Japan, stirred to an enthusi- 
 asm unfamiliar to Asiatic races, — showered their 
 welcome upon the American who has been the 
 guest of the world. 
 
 The method with some in controversy, when 
 
160 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 argument fails, is to resort to ridicule. There 
 being no constitutional objection in choosing a 
 President every four years, for as many four years 
 as the people see fit, the organs that have con- 
 tracted to "smash " the third-term movement meet 
 it with gibes. Aware that the position, that to 
 elect a President for three terms will end in his 
 re-election for life, is to concede that the people 
 are incapable of self-government, the plan now is 
 to "pooh-pooh" and laugh down the proposition 
 to take Grant again. His trip abroad gave rise to 
 the following exhibition of anti-third-term wit : — 
 
 " The European nobles would soon fall into the way of 
 taking a hand jn the presidential canvass. When an ex- 
 President arrived on their shores, they would receive him 
 with increasing honors on seeing that it tickled the Ameri- 
 cans. Then, if there were two ex-Presidents in the field 
 pitted against each other, the campaign orators of each side 
 would endeavor to show that their man had had bigger din- 
 ners in Europe, and had been received by more crowned 
 heads, and had had more elephants in his procession, than 
 the other man." 
 
 As this is the sort of intellectual pabulum upon 
 which a certain class of voters are fed, and as it 
 is perhaps the nearest approach to an argument 
 given us by the other side, whoever feels that a 
 possible exigency might demand another term for 
 Grant, may congratulate himself that the gravest 
 danger attending the innovation upon custom 
 would be the habit of rival candidates making 
 political thunder by ex-presidential trips to Eu- 
 
GRANT ABROAD. 161 
 
 rope. We can afford to face this bugbear. Grant, 
 if re-elected, could not retire till 1885. Should his 
 successor prove a Democrat, and serve the usual 
 eight years, the "big dinner," "crowned head," 
 and "white elephant" rivalry, which now keeps 
 awake the guardians of the public virtue, could 
 by no means occur until after 1896. These dates 
 are given, that the innocent political babes who 
 are sustained on such editorial pap may be 
 soothed or strengthened. 
 
 It was not because he was an ex-President, but 
 because he was Grant, that he had unusual honor. 
 A visit by a former ex-President was as free from 
 special attention as would be the foreign tour of 
 one of the staff of the most prominent organs 
 of the eight-years-and-out idea. "The divine 
 horses of Persia allow no one to ride them but 
 their own heroes." The civilities of Europe are 
 proffered, and three presidential terms are sug- 
 gested in America, only to the man whose life 
 and deeds have made him such a hero as the good 
 and brave of the world delight to honor and trust. 
 One of the public documents of the United States 
 contains two thousand pages, filled with letters 
 from all governments of the earth, from famous 
 men of letters, from occupants of high station, 
 expressing sorrow at the assassination of Abraham 
 Lincoln. It may be doubted whether there exists 
 another such compilation of heartfelt sympathy. 
 
 There is now being issued an account of the 
 journey of Grant around the globe. From this 
 
1 62 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 volume we have extracted largely. Its contents 
 will number from twelve to fifteen hundred pages. 
 It will relate the incidents attending the "visit 
 to the capital of many nations" of a living Ameri- 
 can. It will tell of the most significant courtesy 
 extended by kings and nobles on the one hand, and 
 the people on the other, to a republican citizen, 
 and one of the " foremost captains of his time." 
 Nothing will touch the heart of the reader more 
 than the sincere regard of strange races for their 
 honored guest. If there are some Americans who 
 will read it with a sneer, there are multitudes who 
 will read it with quickened faith in Grant, and 
 with an eye to the near future. 
 
HIS WELCOME HOME. 163 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 HIS WELCOME HOME. 
 
 Japanese satire on the evanescence of fame 
 says, " Great men are spoken of for seventy-five 
 days." 
 
 There have been presidents and kings who have 
 "died, and made no sign." The last act of the 
 burial-service is to let fall upon the coffin-lid the 
 dust of earth, and often it closes over the memory 
 of many who have been esteemed as great and 
 wise while living. 
 
 But there is a greatness that outlives death, and 
 becomes a part of the inheritance of mankind. 
 
 There are names which are as "familiar as a 
 household word," — there are men among all races 
 that cannot be forgotten, because their deeds make 
 both the glory and the history of their age. In 
 the United-States Senate it was said that Grant 
 was gifted "with that splendid courage which 
 never blanched in battle, which never quaked 
 before clamor, — with that matchless self-poise 
 which did not desert him even when a continent 
 beyond the sea rose and uncovered before him." 
 No other American, in making the circuit of the 
 globe, has received honors that might vie in 
 
1 64 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 splendor with a triumphal march. The world 
 makes no mistake in its voluntary recognitions. 
 First and last it bestows its highest estimate on 
 greatness. The recognitions of Grant were not 
 due merely to the high positions he had held. 
 They were paid to one who, by his acts, was 
 entitled to high rank among marked men. The 
 same instinctive respect which caused two con- 
 tinents to lavish attention upon Grant is about 
 to extend to him, when he touches again the 
 shores of the Republic, such a welcome as no 
 man has ever received among us. 1 The greet- 
 ings of the Old World for him will scarcely 
 have died away before the rejoicing of the New 
 World will begin. Preparations by cities and 
 States now making are but symptoms of that 
 outburst of affection and esteem awaiting Grant. 
 The silence of Grant while President had sub- 
 jected him to unfavorable comment. It was a 
 fling often made, that he was incapable of doing 
 any thing but to butcher men in war. " Until 
 polished, the precious stone is not brilliant." 
 Until the occasion came, Grant had little to say : 
 when it came, he never failed to say the right 
 word at the right time. This unsuspected gift 
 has made his maligners unhappy, for one main 
 point of attack is gone. Nothing is left to the 
 chronic contemner of Grant but the revival of 
 the scandals of an unfortunate period in our 
 career. But the people understand that the cry 
 
 l Written before Grant's return. 
 
HIS WELCOME HOME. 165 
 
 of "ring," as applied to him, is one of the most 
 defunct of our "dead" issues. The national re- 
 ception in store for Grant will include the numbers 
 who understand loyalty to mean fidelity to the idea 
 that " we are a nation," and not " a confederacy." 
 Joining in it will be seen that vast host, united by 
 the "mystic chords of memory, stretching from 
 every battlefield and patriotic grave to every living 
 heart and hearthstone all over the broad land." 
 The swarthy race, remaining on the soil of its 
 birth in despair, or fleeing to friendlier lands in 
 hope, still uncertain whether the rights once 
 solemnly guaranteed to it are to prove in the 
 end a curse rather than a blessing, with all the 
 fervor of its nature will hail the coming of 
 the man, who, when he became its friend, never 
 forsook or forgot the faithful ally of the assailed 
 Union. All those who remember with pride the 
 hard-fought contest by which the faith of the 
 nation was kept, and the money of the Constitu- 
 tion re-instated ; all those who see the anarchical 
 and disorganizing agencies now combined against 
 public honor and welfare, together with those who 
 believe that the imaginary evils of a "third term" 
 are slight, compared with the positive evils of one 
 term of such government as would come from as- 
 cension to power of those who fought the nation 
 with arms, and those who fought it with votes, — 
 will swell the chorus of welcome. The great body 
 of patriotic people who regulate their lives in 
 the spirit of prayerful responsibility to God, and 
 
1 66 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 perform political duties in obedience to consci- 
 entious conviction, will unite in hearty jubilee 
 over the return of Grant. There is existing at 
 the present time a conviction, which is likely to 
 increase in intensity, that a new peril may require 
 the extricating hand of Grant. So powerful is 
 this sentiment already, that it is sustained by a 
 great majority of the most influential members of 
 the loyal political party. In the late Republican 
 convention of Iowa, when the " silent man, now 
 ploughing the Chinese seas," was referred to as 
 the best standard-bearer of Republican principles, 
 cheer upon cheer responded to the suggestion. 1 
 
 Among the reasons given by the business-men 
 of Chicago, for the unanimity of choice for Grant 
 in 1880, was a growing "distrust of the future. 
 . . . The communistic outbreaks, the partial suc- 
 cesses of Kearney and his friends, the threats of 
 the men who are now drilling at socialistic gather- 
 ings in many of the Western cities," have, it was 
 said, "all conspired to urge on the movement in 
 favor of Grant." 
 
 To the present ministerial government of Eng- 
 land, the Duke of Argyle said lately, — 
 
 " My lords, you are beginning to be found out. The 
 people of this country are beginning to see you have not 
 obtained for them what they expected. It is not we, the 
 
 1 During the ovation and speeches made at the gathering of the 
 veterans at Albany yesterday, whenever Gen. Grant was alluded to, not- 
 withstanding the presence of Gens. Hooker, Slocum, and McQuade, and 
 many illustrious heroes, the immense audience " rose from their chairs, 
 pounded with their canes, and waved their hats wildly." — New-York 
 paper. 
 
HIS WELCOME HOME. 167 
 
 members of the opposition, are accusing you. Time is your 
 great* accuser. The course of events is summing up the 
 case against you. What have you to say? I shall await 
 to hear what you have to say, — why you should not re- 
 ceive an adverse verdict at the hands of the public, as you 
 will certainly be called upon to receive it at the bar of 
 history." 
 
 The people are fast finding out that one unfal- 
 tering purpose animates the conspirators against 
 the peace and order of the Republic. It is the 
 possession of the government at all hazards, for 
 which they strike. The people see this determi- 
 nation revealed by the virtual extinction of the 
 Republican vote of the South ; by the attempt to 
 invalidate the title of the present executive through 
 investigation ; in the effort to force the President 
 to assent to measures forbidding the use of the 
 army for constitutional duty ; and in the persist- 
 ent partisan labor to destroy the last vestige of 
 protection to the imperilled ballot by national 
 authority. 
 
 They see an imperious lust for power in the 
 late atrocious conspiracy to withhold from gov- 
 ernment the force to shield from persecution the 
 black race of the South, or to guard the ballot-box 
 from the base element ready to prostitute it for 
 base ends. 
 
 They believe that a Senator spoke for the people 
 when he said that '•the nation has tasted and 
 drank to the dregs the sway of the Democratic 
 party, organized and dominated by the same in- 
 
1 68 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 fluences which dominate it again and still. You 
 want to restore that domination. We mean to 
 resist you at every step and by every lawful means 
 that opportunity places in our hands. We believe 
 that it is good for the country, good for every 
 man, North and South, who loves the country 
 now, that the government should remain in the 
 hands of those who were never against it. We 
 believe that it is not wise or safe to give over our 
 nationality to the dominion of the forces which 
 formerly and now again rule the Democratic party. 
 We do not mean to connive at further conquests, 
 and we tell you that if you gain further political 
 power, you must gain it by fair means and not by 
 foul." 
 
 The loyal people of America look upon the 
 solid South as the survival of the Rebellion. With 
 a revulsion that words fail to express, they see 
 that "local government in one portion of our 
 land is no better than despotism tempered with 
 assassination." The nationalization of the " solid 
 South " they see will open elections in the great 
 Northern cities to systematic fraud, so that suf- 
 frage will be nullified by rascality. 
 
 Therefore while the spirit of rebellion still 
 lingers, and its ambition for political power is 
 plainly divulged, the people welcome the return 
 of one who, under the Providence of God, has 
 been equal to all our late emergencies ; and, as an 
 impending menace to our future confronts them, 
 they rejoice — • 
 
 
HIS WELCOME HOME. 169 
 
 " That now 
 Ulysses is in his own land again, 
 And sits or walks observant of the deeds 
 Of wrong ; " 
 
 ready again, if it be the will of the people, to face 
 the enemy he has so often routed. 
 
GRANT AND THE NEXT EMERGENCY. 
 
"Cheer answers cheer from rise to set 
 Of sun. We have a country yet. 
 The praise, O Lord, be thine alone, 
 That givest not for bread a stone ! 
 Thou hast not led us through the night 
 To blind us with returning light ; 
 Not through the furnace have we passed 
 To perish at its mouth at last." 
 
 Whittier : After Election. 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 THE PERIL OF SOLIDITY. 
 
 This glance at Grant's relation to our national 
 emergencies, and at his remarkable career since his 
 return to civil life, was not written with any inten- 
 tion of intermeddling in the approaching contest 
 over the twentieth President. Having no desire for. 
 forming or anticipating public opinion in connec- 
 tion with the near election, this book has awaited 
 the return of Grant to this country before con- 
 cluding its review of our political condition. Its 
 "excuse for being" is an endeavor to record the 
 fact of an unmistakable public sentiment for Grant, 
 and to give the reasons of its unexampled force 
 and direction. 
 
 The welcome extended to Grant from the 
 moment he entered the Golden Gate in September, 
 to this hour, has exceeded the most extravagant 
 expectation in brilliance of demonstration, hearti- 
 ness of enthusiasm, and outpouring of masses. 
 The populace has greeted him. It is an unvarying 
 story, from San Francisco to the last-visited city, 
 of crowded avenues, uncounted thousands, and 
 unbounded delight. The movement in favor of his 
 
 173 
 
174 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 candidacy has assumed national proportions. It is 
 a movement of the people. The party manipula- 
 tors have been quiet and cold, if not averse to the 
 popular " ground-swell." In most States the 
 Republican unity for Grant is without precedent. 
 In spots where it has been discovered by special 
 illumination, that the " chief end of man," as a 
 voter, is to mutilate his ticket to make it perfect ; 
 the number who croak over the disasters of 1874, 
 and who with parrot-like monotony harp on a few 
 offensive names, is small, compared with those 
 who believe, that, take him for all in all, Grant 
 will best secure the peace, honor, and prosperity 
 of the people. Notwithstanding frantic efforts 
 made to get Grant out of the way, by making up 
 a plethoric purse to content him as " the sands of 
 life are running out," or wild projects to install him 
 into the presidency of trans-continental canals and 
 railways ; and notwithstanding the more ingen- 
 ious bribe of a new military title and occupation, 
 with the attractive accompaniment of a large in- 
 come, and life-tenure ; notwithstanding the spleen 
 of uneasy carpers, and the railing of self-appointed 
 moral censors, who aspire to an apron-string au- 
 thority by which they can lead at will the wayward 
 multitude, — in spite of all, Grant is steadily grow- 
 ing in strength, and the tidal wave setting in for 
 him appears irresistible in its volume and mo- 
 mentum. 
 
 The limited character of the Republican oppo- 
 sition is manifest. In an article sneering at Grant, 
 
THE PERIL OF SOLIDITY. 175 
 
 a semi-Republican paper takes the position that 
 "those who have the public weal most at heart" 
 resist the demand for his nomination. 
 
 Yet in the State of Massachusetts, where the 
 largest showing inimical to Grant might be looked 
 for, in a convention called to celebrate the twenty- 
 fifth anniversary of the Republican party, where 
 its veterans were gathered, and delegates from all 
 parts of the Commonwealth were assembled, no 
 name mentioned to that significant body of citi- 
 zens was received with such decided satisfaction, 
 or with such unusual or prolonged and spontaneous 
 applause, as the name of Grant. It is the evi- 
 dence of speakers in the late campaign in Mas- 
 sachusetts, that any reference to Grant would 
 waken in all audiences unwonted ardor. If only 
 those among Republicans who object to Grant 
 have the public weal at heart, it is time to begin 
 fasting and prayer over the much-neglected pub- 
 lic welfare. The lamentable failure by the recon- 
 structed section, to respond favorably to honest 
 and earnest efforts of President Hayes, to estab- 
 lish good understanding and amicable relations 
 between heretofore contending communities, is the 
 secret of the Grant revival. The present adminis- 
 tration began with a revolution in Republican con- 
 duct bearing on Southern affairs. It stretched out 
 an olive-branch in each hand. Federal restraint 
 was taken from, and the policy of coercion aban- 
 doned in, the disaffected States. Paeans were sung 
 as the Federal soldier retreated, and the hated 
 
176 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 carpet-bagger passed into political oblivion. While 
 the President and Cabinet with considerable flour- 
 ish made a tour of fraternal interchange through- 
 out a portion of the South, in order to give the 
 new plan of peace full chance of success, the 
 North, while these embraces and other overtures 
 of friendship were transacted, withheld all com- 
 ment, criticism, and censure of the performance. 
 The interregnum of reconciliation was short-lived. 
 The first important election after the voyage of 
 amity revealed the hollowness of Southern profes- 
 sions of good faith. The predetermined policy of 
 annihilating Republican majorities was quick and 
 complete in its enforcement. The instrumentali- 
 ties used to accomplish this end were frauds, 
 brutalities, and massacres. The Mephistophelean 
 advisers of the Republican party say to it, " You 
 cannot go into the presidential canvass, or even 
 go to the convention, and draw up a platform of 
 stalwart principles with nothing but two old, and 
 indeed, we might say, second-hand murders." 
 This breezy and heartless manner of dealing with 
 Southern outrages has a tendency to shock, rather 
 than seduce, the patriotic voter. Fifteen years 
 have gone by since the war, and the peace account 
 closes with an array of monstrous facts, the dam- 
 aging nature of which can be no more refuted than 
 the morality of the Ten Commandments, or the 
 facts of the multiplication-table. When the sick 
 fox in the fable despaired of his health, he advised 
 the rest of his race to improve their mode of life, 
 
THE PERIL OF SOLIDITY. 177 
 
 by ceasing to plunder, and to begin making a more 
 reputable character for foxes. One of the band 
 who listened remarked that the counsel was good, 
 but it was given too late ; the hereditary taste for 
 mutton and fowl was too strong, and it was impos- 
 sible to effect a radical change of heart or nature. 
 Just then the clucking of a hen was heard : it 
 roused the instincts of the dying fox, and he said, 
 
 " If you must, you must. 
 Go, but be moderate in your food : 
 A chicken, too, might do me good." 
 
 So the Southern instinct was found to be inde- 
 structible. A little negro bull-dozing always seems 
 to do it good. Mississippi regained her standing 
 as a Democratic State, because Republicans fell 
 back from the range of the deadly rifle, and the 
 muzzle of the menacing shot-gun. The abolition 
 of the true majority enabled a Democrat to enter 
 the United-States Senate. 
 
 A Mississippian who had contributed largely 
 towards Democratic restoration, by fidelity to the 
 "plan," was most signally rewarded for his "gal- 
 lant" services, and the chief person in the cere- 
 mony of appreciation was their Democratic Sena- 
 tor. The distinguished recipient, having altered 
 his politics, was subsequently murdered at high 
 noon by a local ruffian. No word of reproach for 
 the act has yet come from the Senator who once 
 honored the victim of assassination. The silence 
 of Lamar is the tribute the ablest men of Missis- 
 
178 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 sippi must pay to the outlaws who rule their poli- 
 tics. The defence for this shameful silence is, 
 that Southern statesmen will not condemn lawless- 
 ness while the North meddles with the matter. 
 The sealed lips and bated breath of the North is 
 the price asked for an indulgence of Southern 
 indignation for killing at sight a man on the other 
 side in politics. 
 
 The plea for "home rule," that it is better for 
 all, that the white minority by force should reduce 
 the black majority, is a blow at self-government. 
 
 In other days, when any one dissented from the 
 horrors of slavery he was met with the inane query, 
 "But you don't want your daughter to marry a 
 nigger, do you ? " Now, if protest is made against 
 murder as a means of acquiring Democratic major- 
 ities in Republican localities, the equally imbecile 
 question is put, "Do you want to Africanize the 
 South ? " 
 
 The inventory of wrongs inflicted upon the 
 weaker race of the South, and upon the people 
 of the United States, by unfair federal representa- 
 tion in the national councils, and the tragic ending 
 of the vaunted era of reconciliation, makes, since 
 the days of "home rule," an appalling record of 
 arrogance and infamy. If we can believe Jeffer- 
 son Davis, he has never seen "a reconstructed 
 Southern woman." And he looks to such women 
 "to raise up children to vindicate" the Rebellion. 
 "Harper's Weekly," in an article on Southern 
 School-Books, speaks in this way of a certain 
 
THE PERIL OF SOLIDITY. 179 
 
 book : " Instead of aiming to make the youth, for 
 whom it is prepared, honorable and patriotic 
 American citizens, it seeks to make them 'South- 
 erners.' Visit a Southern school to-day, and the 
 embryo orators will be heard rehearsing in the 
 following words the praise of ' The Confederate 
 Dead:' 'They represented the principles of self- 
 government, of local freedom, and of the right of 
 a people to decide their own political associations. 
 In them were struck down those ancient and hon- 
 orable ideas.' " 
 
 Said the President of the Confederacy for which 
 these men died in vain, " Our new government has 
 its foundation ; its corner-stone rests upon this 
 great truth, that the negro is not equal to the 
 white man ; that slavery, subordination to the su- 
 perior race, is his natural and normal condition." 
 The object of Southern education is to pervert 
 history, by embalming in the affection of the rising 
 generation of that region, the Confederate dead, as 
 the martyrs of liberty. The son of a former Presi- 
 dent of the United States, a Confederate officer 
 in high command, prior to his death, speaking of 
 George Mason of Virginia, said, " He stood for a 
 union of consent and love : he has seen one of 
 force and hate. He urged independent States to 
 create a common servant, the Federal Government 
 as a useful agent. He has seen the creature they 
 called into being rend, like Frankenstein, its crea- 
 tors." Half the life of a generation has fled, since 
 the blood of the dead and the bravery of the living 
 
180 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 Union soldier vindicated the idea that our fathers 
 reared a nation among men ; yet, in face of the 
 sacrifice and toil of a hundred years of American 
 history, to infuse into the children of one-third of 
 the Republic the poison of State superiority, is a 
 part of the common daily task of the true Southern 
 teacher. Henry Watterson holds that the South 
 might justly say to the radical leaders, " You 
 alone, among Americans, have caused the cheeks 
 of honest Americans to blush for their country in 
 every part of the world." The unapproachable 
 "cheek" of the statement defies comment. Hill 
 of Georgia asserts that "the mission of the Re- 
 publican party was to destroy this government." 
 
 The statement has been made in Congress, and 
 never successfully contradicted, that four hundred 
 thousand votes have disappeared from the South, 
 and that thirty-two seats in Congress are fraudu- 
 lently occupied because of the forced destruction 
 of the natural majorities in terrorized districts. 
 The Southern neglect to provide education for the 
 negro population is thus referred to by a late cor- 
 respondent of "The Boston Herald : " — 
 
 " I had occasion, in a recent letter on the school system 
 of Virginia, to remark the indifference of the Southerners in 
 this matter of popular public education, which is such an 
 important feature of Northern civilization. If any thing 
 goes wrong with the appropriations, or a special sum is 
 badly needed, or some public improvement is proposed, the 
 first effort they make to raise the money is by cutting down 
 the school fund." 
 
 Nine Southern States have openly repudiated 
 
THE PERIL OF SOLIDITY. 181 
 
 their debts, or have defaulted in payment, and 
 propose to adjust their liabilities. In eleven 
 Southern States the postal service falls behind 
 more than two millions of dollars. Worse than 
 all, local misgovernment, persecutions, intimida- 
 tions, tissue-ballot stuffings, shotguns at the polls, 
 and other characteristics of the " home " policy of 
 the South, have depopulated the Gulf States of a 
 fearful percentage of their labor, — that labor by 
 which their community is sustained, and by which 
 alone it merits any consideration or regard from- 
 mankind. The community that distresses or dis- 
 heartens its labor shows an incapacity for local, 
 much more for general, government. 
 
 The failure to properly furnish education for the 
 black man has been the most powerful stimulus 
 to his migration. He is bound to go where there 
 is the least resistance to his race, and where his 
 child is sure to be taught. The exodus is an 
 invincible argument against the ability and will 
 of the Southern people to rule with justice, or 
 govern with discretion. Yet, according to Senator 
 Bayard, the " South does not need legislation : the 
 South needs sympathy and respect." Respect 
 and sympathy for what? Even those journals 
 that have strenuously advocated the policy that 
 the South should have its own way, now inform 
 us that in Louisiana "the machinery of elections, 
 as created by the party now in power, is in no 
 respect an improvement on the "old machinery 
 devised by the carpet-bagger." For years there 
 
182 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 has been no Federal interference to inflame the 
 South. No provocation has goaded it to its sur- 
 prising conduct. The South is solid in its dislike 
 of the Republican party of the nation, solid in 
 its determination to banish the existence of that 
 party within its province, by hereditary inclina- 
 tion. In the degree that it has gained in power, 
 the South has increased its haughtiness and inhu- 
 manity. " The man who has one hand in your 
 pocket strikes the other in your face ; the man 
 who has both hands in your pocket spits in your 
 face." When the South had only the House of 
 Representatives under its control, it confined its 
 exercise to shotgun practice on election day. 
 When it came into possession of the Senate 
 through a Democratic majority, it boldly proposed 
 to " starve the government " into submission. 
 Montaigne says, " Whatever be the cost of this 
 noble liberty, we must be content to pay it to 
 Heaven." 
 
 We are forced to choose, as American citizens, 
 between conflicting ideas, institutions, civiliza- 
 tions. We cannot admit that the grade of our 
 free civilization is a debatable question. We know 
 its advantages as we know that the tides move, or 
 the sun shines. The census avows it. Popula- 
 tion attests the fact. Libraries garnered at great 
 cost and care, numerous structures devoted to 
 learning, rapidly increasing wealth, every fea- 
 ture that testifies to a prosperous and intelligent 
 social order, use of books, improved methods of 
 
THE PERIL OF SOLIDITY. 183 
 
 living, extended circulation of the daily press, and 
 the added number of Christian churches, Chris- 
 tian seminaries, and Christian charities, — all dem- 
 onstrate the superiority of Northern civilization. 
 Its spread is the hope and glory of the future. 
 To doubt or to disguise its superiority, is to be 
 false to truth and patriotism. The peril before us 
 is the possibility that this better and purer civili- 
 zation, based as it is on equality of human rights 
 and the supreme duty of universal justice, may go 
 down in the next election before a weak and isfno- 
 ble civilization, founded upon the boasted claims of 
 a privileged class, and having little identity with 
 the progress that has gained for the Republic the 
 respect of the world, and no friendly participa- 
 tion with the victories that have made the nation 
 immortal in its valor and renown. 
 
1 84 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 THE BATTLE AND THE BATTLE-GROUND. 
 
 The sanctity of American citizenship, and its 
 protection on our soil with the same vigilance and 
 assertion that shields and sustains it abroad, are 
 not the questions now to be decided. 
 
 The imperative duty of national education, that 
 popular action shall accord with an enlightened 
 will, is a matter of the future. 
 
 The next battle is to determine whether the 
 constitutional legislation, the personal rights, and 
 the common obligations adjudicated by the war 
 settlements, are to have local governments, or the 
 nation, as their final tribunal. The battle of to- 
 day is over the foundation principle that the vote 
 of the country, in order to insure fairness of 
 casting and accuracy in counting, demands national 
 supervision in elections pertaining to national in- 
 terests, and cannot safely be left to the varying 
 and negligent oversight of the several States. 
 Whatever doubt may exist with regard to other 
 questions, it cannot be denied that the Constitu- 
 tion is meaningless jargon, unless a voter in Mas- 
 sachusetts shall be certain that his represented 
 power in the electoral college and in all national 
 
THE BATTLE AND THE BATTLE-GROUND. 185 
 
 bodies is not abridged or overthrown by imperfect 
 balloting in Mississippi or New York. The con- 
 flict before us is to pass upon the essence of the 
 national contract, and the validity of the title of 
 national government. While it would be unwise 
 needlessly to offend the worthy portion of our 
 countrymen who rally under the banner of "in- 
 dependence," it is not the time to follow doctri- 
 naires, to forget experience, or fret at the inevita- 
 ble. The fact is irrefutable, thiat our political 
 conduct, active or passive, will assist either the 
 party ranging with the "solid North," or the 
 party ranging with the "solid South." They are 
 blind leaders of the blind, whether they stand 
 in pulpits or write at editorial desks, who teach 
 that there is no choice of parties, and that it is 
 of little moment which wins. By an eternal law 
 parties differ, and by the same law they differ for 
 good or ill. The heresy of political indifference, 
 so flippantly paraded by chipper critics, strikes 
 at that inherent and fundamental morality upon 
 which alone the social and political structure can 
 be wisely reared. 
 
 We may reconnoitre about or skirmish over 
 revenues, reform, finance, and civil administra- 
 tion ; but the main battle is not to be fought on 
 less ground than a test of civilizations, and the 
 best title to the possession of government. We 
 should not now waste our energies on fanciful or 
 frivolous issues. Even important affairs must be 
 postponed. However momentous may be the 
 
1 86 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 controversy over civil-service reform, it cannot be 
 made the "gage of battle." Its advocates may 
 have sufficient power to make a diversion that 
 will jeopardize the cause of good government, 
 and fatally injure the cause of civil-service ad- 
 vancement ; but they have not now, nor can they 
 have, the force to push their specialty to the front. 
 
 Experience is throwing light upon both the 
 difficulties and the proper modifications of this 
 grave question. As President Hayes, who at the 
 start was furiously applauded by civil-service re- 
 formers, has since felt the slings and arrows of 
 outrageous squibbing from his former admirers ; 
 it may happen that Grant, whose patriotism is 
 undoubted in public affairs, from being the dread- 
 ed Apollyon in the path of civil-service reform, 
 may prove the redeeming agency to place this 
 reform on a sound and practical basis. Rising 
 above the consideration of merely subordinate 
 measures, the people have a clear perception of 
 duty as to the state of the battle and the field 
 where it is to be contested. 
 
 The battle-ground is the pivotal State of New 
 York. 
 
 There are a certain number of assured votes 
 "solid" on either side. It is the thirty-five elec- 
 toral votes of that State, required to make the 
 majority of the electoral college, that cause New 
 York to be the scene of interest and struggle. 
 The situation is intricate. 
 
 Ordinarily, parties there are so nearly balanced, 
 
THE BATTLE AND THE BATTLE-GROUND. 187 
 
 that certainty of calculation is an impossibility. 
 There are in the State from thirty to forty thou- 
 sand converts to the gospel of " split tickets." 
 The signs that help " Old Probabilities " to fore- 
 cast the weather are luminous beside the political 
 indications of the Empire State. 
 
 To wilfully risk the result of the strife, by bad 
 leadership or thoughtless management of the fight, 
 would be a political blunder which is crime against 
 mankind. The rule of action demanded by con- 
 science and intelligence is to secure strength of 
 position and command. The decision of the bat- 
 tle is to foreshadow the policy of the country for 
 years. If the "solid South" breaks, it is the end 
 of warfare over opposing forms of civilization that 
 have existed in some phase since the origin of the 
 nation. If the North breaks, we must enter upon 
 an epoch of confusion and disorder in all internal 
 affairs, uncertainty as to the bonded debt, cur- 
 rency, and the tariff; and such insecurity con- 
 cerning the franchise as would threaten anarchy. 
 The magnitude of the issue should force us to 
 remember that the contest of a century between 
 State rights and a supreme national government 
 constitutionally endowed, has not changed in its 
 nature, but simply in the method of its campaign. 
 We should not forget that the loss of national 
 control by those now holding it, would place re- 
 sponsibility upon a party having for twenty years 
 no history but that of dishonor, no creed but 
 that of negation and fault-finding. The sane 
 
1 88 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 voter is compelled to the conclusion, that a peo- 
 ple who seem unable to properly develop a prov- 
 ince should not be empowered to minister to the 
 needs of an empire. The conscientious voter, 
 after careful examination of the field, sees no 
 prospect of perfection in civil service, from acces- 
 sion to political power by a party whose greed 
 for spoils has been heightened by long abstinence 
 from the pleasures of patronage. He sees no 
 hope of peace in the success that ruptures twenty 
 years of national memories. He sees no chance 
 of purity in the triumph of a political organiza- 
 tion that vanquishes its opponents in States by 
 preventing them from voting, and obtains its 
 majorities in cities by falsifying returns. He 
 apprehends no progress from a political fraternity 
 with twenty per cent of its members religiously 
 educated to fear public education. 1 He expects 
 no development of patriotism from the domina- 
 tion of a party, of which forty per cent have 
 been in armed resistance to the Republic. The 
 wise voter regards this as an unfit moment for 
 
 l "In this connection the Archbishop (Williams) reads from the in- 
 structions sent to the bishops of the United States through the Roman 
 propaganda in a document dated Nov. 24, 1875, and printed in some 
 papers in this country soon after its reception. From this document, now 
 before us in the original, we gather that the system of instruction peculiar 
 to secular schools appears even in itself to be full of peril. The document 
 proceeds to attribute this peril to the severing of secular from religious 
 instruction, the exclusion of the authority of the church from the schools ; 
 the opportunity frequently given to teachers holding sectarian opinions to 
 infuse error into the minds of the young, so plastic and receptive in the 
 tender age of school days, and, in some cases, the co-education of the 
 sexes." — Boston Daily Advertiser. 
 
THE BATTLE AND THE BATTLE-GROUND. 189 
 
 trifling. Whoever treats politics lightly or as 
 a farce should be impressed by the records of 
 humanity that the farces of politics and bad gov- 
 ernment have preceded all the bloody tragedies 
 that have cursed the world. 
 
 The thoughtful American citizen reads from 
 Mir'abeau that " Liberty is pledged to liberty ; 
 they are indissolubly allied in the great cause ; it 
 is an alliance between God and nature, immutable, 
 eternal ; " and he seeks in this country the party 
 of liberty as the party of power and promise. He 
 reads from Chatham, " I have an ambition : it is 
 the ambition of delivering to my posterity those 
 rights of freedom which I have inherited from my 
 ancestors ; " and a like ambition fills the American 
 heart. He reads from Erskine, " My only wish is 
 to see a happy, powerful, disentangled union, that 
 may save from destruction the constitution ; " and 
 he is impelled to ally himself with those whose con- 
 secrated purpose has been the preservation in this 
 land of the Constitution and the Union. He reads 
 what Franklin said of the fathers : "As long as the 
 government is mild and just, as long as there is 
 security for civil and religious interests, the Amer- 
 icans will be respectful and submissive subjects ; " 
 and he holds that justice to all, civil and religious 
 privileges to all, will make for the sons a contented 
 citizenship. He reads from Bancroft, " that in 
 the cabin of ' The Mayflower ' humanity received 
 its rights, and established government on the basis 
 of ' equal laws ' enacted by all the people for the 
 
190 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 ' general good ; ' " and believing that the " general 
 good " with us can only be upheld, that " equal 
 laws" here can only be established, that the "rights 
 of humanity " in this nation can only be secured, 
 by a constitutional government with adequate force 
 to protect the citizen everywhere in his rights, 
 and guard his ballot everywhere in its purity, he 
 is for that party of the nation that shall wield the 
 power of the nation for the largest personal liber- 
 ty and the most impartial justice. He looks back- 
 ward, and sees that the imperial Commonwealth 
 of New York, with four million souls within it, was 
 robbed in 1868 of the will of the people by the 
 will of political miscreants cheating at the polls. 
 Later he has seen a race numbering five million 
 souls virtually disfranchised by terrorizing at the 
 polls ; and he prefers to trust the whole people of 
 the country, rather than the people of any part of 
 it, with the vital duty of " counting by the head." 
 Therefore he cherishes the warning and advice con- 
 tained in the eloquent words of Senator Blaine : — 
 
 " Organized wrong will ultimately be met by organized 
 resistance. The sensitive and dangerous point is in the 
 casting and the counting of free ballots. Impartial suffrage 
 is our theory. It must become our practice. Any party 
 of American citizens can bear to be defeated. No party of 
 American citizens will bear to be defrauded. The men who 
 are interested in a dishonest count are units. The men 
 who are interested in an honest count are millions. I wish 
 to speak for the millions of all political parties, and in their 
 name to declare that the Republic must be strong enough, 
 and shall be strong enough, to protect the weakest of its 
 
THE BATTLE AXD THE BATTLE-GROUND. 191 
 
 citizens in all their rights. To this simple and sublime prin- 
 ciple let us, in the lofty language of Burke, 'attest the retir- 
 ing generations, let us attest the advancing generations, 
 between which, as a link in the great chain of eternal order, 
 we stand ! ' " 
 
192 
 
 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 THE NATIONAL NEED, "A STRONG MAN." 
 
 The sections are arrayed in antagonism. Mere 
 complaint of the fact does not, and will not, evade 
 the weighty peril which confronts us. 
 
 The issue of 1880 is, whether the government 
 as administered from March 4, 1881, is to be 
 strengthened by an unquestioned title to power, 
 is to represent our best civilization, is to be con- 
 ducted by the most efficient executive. 
 
 To do this, we need an honest ballot, substan- 
 tial peace, and a " strong man." 
 
 These make up our pressing national wants. 
 
 The minimum of risk should be taken to meet 
 the coming exigency. States uncertain in their 
 political action are to decide the immediate nation- 
 al destiny. The strongest leader is needed to at- 
 tract the doubtful vote. The problem of candidacy 
 is, to hold the largest number of one party, and to 
 impress favorably the largest number of the other 
 party. A man of known strength of character, 
 patriotic record, firmness in administrative capa- 
 city, who will be certain to draw more from the 
 Democrats than he is likely to lose from Republi- 
 cans, is the standard-bearer that loyalty should, and 
 
THE NATIONAL NEED — "A STRONG MAN" 193 
 
 in all probability will, select. Grant is the candi- 
 date combining the most strength with the least 
 weakness. There are men of influence and edu- 
 cation who do not want Grant again. He is not 
 desired by those who see danger in a "third term," 
 and apprehend evil from the personal element in 
 politics. The class that is striving to crystallize a 
 sentiment of disrespect to parties as such, aims to 
 develop a body of voters, who, by the process of 
 shifting sides, may so trim the ship of state, as 
 to keep it safe. The danger from these political 
 Quixotes is, that in some perilous moment, from 
 sheer prejudice, they may so shift as to wreck the 
 craft. There would be flaws found in any nomi- 
 nee. Though one possessed the purity of Galahad 
 and the bravery of Launcelot, he would have quib- 
 blers and defamers. A man so weak or insignifi- 
 cant as to be below criticism would be too weak 
 for consideration as a candidate. Strength of per- 
 sonal character, strength of popular support, and 
 the fewest objections, make the strong leader. 
 
 Weak points in the candidature of Grant are so 
 few that their repetition is as tiresome as their 
 substance is trivial. It is said that Grant was 
 President during the Republican overturn of 1874. 
 It is true. Business re-action, and its consequent 
 depression, swept aside, as like disasters have 
 swept and will sweep aside, the party in power. 
 
 As well might Grant be charged with causing 
 the earthquake at Lisbon, or with effecting the 
 periodical visitation of the Asiatic cholera, as 
 
194 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 with being the author of that railroad collapse 
 which led to the panic of 1873, and the com- 
 mercial and political prostration that followed it. 
 
 It is said that Grant appointed to the cabinet, 
 and other important positions, men who proved 
 corrupt. It is so. Washington trusted Arnold ; 
 and the treachery at West Point could as con- 
 sistently be laid to the first President as the 
 betrayal later, by civil traitors, should be at- 
 tributed to the eighteenth President. Men who 
 see nothing in the career of Grant but the im- 
 perfections of his official term, and the miscon- 
 duct of those in whom he unwisely placed con- 
 fidence, have for him an incurable aversion. 
 Equally beyond the reach of argument are those 
 who seek perfection in any presidential choice. 
 The flawless candidate is a creature of Utopia. 
 It is an impossibility to have any man selected who 
 would satisfy the test of those who fancy the best 
 way to show an interest in higher politics is to 
 "vote in air," — a process which amounts to 
 hurting the party which, on the whole, is best, 
 and helping the party conceded by reformers to 
 be the worst. No one has any chance to be 
 put in nomination by the Republican convention 
 who was not a member of that '■ senatorial group," 
 which, after Grant, was the recipient of the bit- 
 terest comment by the free-lance element in 
 politics. It should be kept constantly in sight, 
 that, outside of the objection to three terms, no 
 condemnation or reproach is urged against Grant 
 
THE NATIONAL NEED — "A STRONG MAN." 195 
 
 but would exist and would be mooted against any 
 Republican leader that we can have. If fear of the 
 " Independent" forces the overthrow of Grant's 
 nomination, the successful man, by his party alli- 
 ance and party devotion, will furnish opportunity 
 to those who have an itching for scratching, to 
 exercise that propensity. If we are to have a 
 candidate whose party fealty is to be used against 
 him, to take the one strongest in all other qualifi- 
 cations is to be governed by plain common sense. 
 It is not with any faith in the power of a mere 
 nomination, or any dependence upon the hollow 
 pretence of " regularity," that Grant is advocated. 
 It is because, in an emergency of no common 
 order, all things considered, he is the " strongest " 
 man. If those who, according to Whitelaw Reid, 
 vindicate " independence only by sitting on the 
 fence, and throwing stones, with impartial vigor, 
 alike on friend and foe," can defeat Grant, they 
 can defeat others. Like the dog in " Tynley Hall," 
 " who never barked at any one but the members 
 of his own family," their opposition, under any 
 circumstances, is expected. Neither should we 
 be misled by those who are excessively anxious 
 that Grant's reputation, now so enviable, might be 
 impaired if he were once more President. This 
 is the plea of men who heretofore have been prin- 
 cipally engaged in marring that reputation, and 
 assailing the honor of Grant. From idle chatter 
 about the resuscitation of " rings," the restoration 
 of "bosses," and the re-appointment of obnoxious 
 
196 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 men, the believers in Grant turn to his own em- 
 phatic declaration, that "past experience may guide 
 in avoiding mistakes inevitable with novices in all 
 professions and in all occupations." 
 
 "The Nation," in denying that any danger 
 would come to the country by the preponderance 
 of Southern " brigadier-generals " in Congress, 
 says, " When you see a man walking into a big 
 hole, into which he once fell and broke his thigh, 
 you must not conclude his design is to fall in again 
 and break the other hip." If the logic is sound 
 in the case of a Confederate " brigadier," that 
 experience teaches caution, it is as good for a 
 Union general. 
 
 The insinuation that to go back to Grant is a 
 confession that no other Republican is of sufficient 
 eminence to fill the Presidency, is answered by the 
 statement, that, while many Republicans would 
 make good Presidents, no citizen is likely to make 
 a better President than Grant, and no one can so 
 easily or surely obtain the required number of 
 votes. We have hosts of good men, but no such 
 man as Grant. The question will not be, whether 
 the American people will drift into a "monarchy," 
 or become an " empire," or succumb to a dic- 
 tator ; but it will be whether they prefer Grant 
 as President again, or the Democratic candidate 
 who runs, or makes an effort to run, against him. 
 Among the blessings to be anticipated by another 
 term of Grant, putting a quietus on the stock 
 alarm, that the life of the Republic will expire 
 
THE NATIONAL NEED — "A STRONG MAN" 197 
 
 on account of a third choice of the people for 
 the same man as chief magistrate, is one that 
 will be both lasting and incalculable. If the lon- 
 gevity of popular governments hangs on such 
 slight events as a third term or no, the sooner 
 the delusion of free institutions is exposed and 
 exploded, the better for the world. 
 
 They who are made unhappy by the phantom 
 of an " Atlantic Caesar" tell us, in mournful 
 numbers, that the "man on horseback," in the 
 United States, "will set up, by intrigue and vio- 
 lence, a rule which will have absolutely nothing in 
 common with the government organized by our 
 fathers, which will be vulgar through and through, 
 steeped in corruption, political and social." That 
 remarkable political "melancholia," which visits 
 its victims with a passion for nursing the decrepit 
 "government of the fathers," is generally attended 
 with a gloomy nightmare, in which the mounted 
 Caesar tramples unchecked over the ruins of the 
 Republic. 
 
 Let us observe some of the traits of the man 
 at times called the American Caesar. He has 
 been for three years under the gaze of the people 
 of the Old and New Worlds. We find him at the 
 grammar-school at Stratford, where Shakspeare 
 was taught, asking "a holiday for the boys ; " and 
 this Caesar of ours is greeted with "three times 
 three cheers." He says to the working-men of 
 Birmingham, "Labor disgraces no man." Before 
 an arbitration-union, this imperialist, speaking of 
 
198 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 universal peace, says, " I would gladly see the 
 millions of men, who are now supported by the 
 industry of nations, return to industrial pursuits." 
 Listen to this Caesar as he tells Englishmen, that, 
 in America, we do "not quite believe that it is 
 possible for any one man there to assume any 
 more right and authority than the Constitution of 
 the land gives to him." See him in Paris, visiting 
 the American newspaper-office ; slipping " in of a 
 morning to seek a quiet corner, and brood over 
 the papers for an hour or two." See him pro- 
 viding "an assortment of coins" to scatter to the 
 Italian beggars that haunt his carriage. See him 
 refusing, at Pompeii, to visit "scenes of shame 
 and vice," which, according to the guide, was the 
 "special object of interest to tourists." 
 
 Hear one who journeyed with him in the most 
 intimate manner assert that he had "no resent- 
 ments," and that "I have heard him refer to most 
 of the men, civil and military, who have flourished 
 with him, and there is only one about whom I have 
 seen him show feeling." In Egypt Grant meets 
 an ex-Confederate general, an early friend, but 
 "his enemy during the war," and extends to him 
 a cordial recognition. 
 
 Lounging on the deck of the Nile-boat, lazily 
 sailing towards the scenes of a civilization that has 
 become a dream, the narrator of the trip says 
 "that the red-letter days of our Nile journey were 
 when Gen. Grant told us how he met Lee at Ap- 
 pomattox, or how Sherman fought at Shiloh." An 
 
THE NATIONAL NEED — "A STRONG MAN." 199 
 
 Egyptian official presents Grant with an Arabian 
 steed ; and it is suggested that perhaps it would 
 be safer to " pace the horse up and down, with an 
 attendant to hold him." The answer is, " If I can 
 mount a horse, I can ride him ; and all the attend- 
 ants can do is to keep away." This is the sole 
 Caesarean view of the "man on horseback" given 
 us in his foreign tour. At Memphis, "some one 
 proposes, laughingly, that the general, who is on 
 his way to Turkey, should offer the Sultan his 
 services." — "No," he said, "I have done all the 
 fighting I care to do ; and the only country I shall 
 fight for is the United States." How like a 
 Caesar ! At Madrid, he will not see a bull-fight. 
 At Berlin, we are told that a "grand review is on 
 the tapis, which Gen. Grant is to witness. I don't 
 think he can possibly escape this time, as much as 
 he is disinclined to witness military pageants." 
 
 In an interview with Bismarck, our Caesar re- 
 marks, " The truth is, I am more of a farmer than 
 a soldier. I take little or no interest in military 
 affairs ; and although I entered the army thirty- 
 five years ago, and have been in two wars, — in 
 Mexico as a young lieutenant,' and later, — I never 
 went into the army without regret, and never re- 
 tired without pleasure." At a dinner given on 
 the Fourth of July at Hamburg, Grant's health 
 was proposed as the "man who had saved the 
 country." In response, among other things, he 
 said, " What saved the Union was the coming for- 
 ward of the young men of the nation. They came 
 
200 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 from their homes and fields, as they did in the time 
 of the Revolution, giving every thing to the coun- 
 try. To their devotion we owe the salvation of 
 the Union. The humblest soldier who carried a 
 musket is entitled to as much credit for the re- 
 sults of the war as those who were in command. 
 So long as our young men are animated by this 
 spirit, there will be no fear for the Union." 
 
 And when the tide of welcome had rolled in 
 from the Pacific slope to the borders of the Great 
 Lakes, and a vast multitude hung breathlessly upon 
 the words that came from their fellow-citizen, he 
 said, — 
 
 " To one allusion to my reception abroad I will say, that, 
 in every case, I felt that it was a tribute to our own country. 
 I will add further, that our country stands differently abroad, 
 in the estimation of European and Eastern nations, from 
 what it did a quarter of a century ago. At that time it 
 was believed we had no nation ; it was merely a confedera- 
 tion of states, tied together by a rope of sand, and would 
 give way upon the slightest friction. They have found it 
 was a grand mistake. They know that we have now a na- 
 tion; that we are a nation of strong and intelligent and 
 brave people, capable of judging and knowing- our rights, 
 and determined on all occasions to maintain them against 
 either a domestic or foreign foe; and that is the reception 
 you, as a nation, have received through me while I was 
 abroad." 
 
 These instances of a grand, simple, patriotic 
 nature could be multiplied. They would only 
 tend to strengthen the feeling shared by all our 
 countrymen, except those who are dulled by preju- 
 
THE NATIONAL NEED — "A STRONG MAN." 20 1 
 
 dice or imbittered by bigotry, that the ambition 
 which attaches to the name of Caesar would apply 
 with equal fitness to Washington or Lincoln as to 
 Grant. 
 
 The group of events included in these pages 
 were critical occasions, turning-points, in Ameri- 
 can history. They were so interwoven with the 
 life of the Republic, that the failure of any one of 
 them would have brought utmost disaster, if not 
 defeat, to the national cause. In each emergency, 
 when the tide of misfortune had touched the point 
 of despair, when the blow that cleft in twain the 
 domain of the foe settled forever neutrality and 
 emancipation, when the scattered armies of the 
 enemy were driven in upon their centre, when the 
 dream of a Confederacy dissolved " like the base- 
 less fabric of a vision," when the heroic chief of 
 the "lost cause" calmly met his fate, — in all 
 these supreme moments, one commanding figure 
 is the centre of each decisive scene. And when 
 the roar of war was hushed, to be supplanted by 
 the roar of contending factions, when the halls 
 of the nation became the field of combat, as loyalty 
 battled defection in its own ranks, the same clear 
 head, calm mind, and steady hand guided us in 
 the " pinch " of reconstruction. The standard of 
 bad faith and repudiation is raised at an hour when 
 all the burdens of war and none of the advantages 
 of peace are felt ; and he is chosen to lead against 
 the hosts of dishonor those to whom the fame of 
 the Republic was no less dear than its life. 
 
202 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 Once more : while he occupies for the second 
 time the Presidential office, an alarming conspiracy 
 against constitutional money and honest finance 
 is begun. 
 
 The fight for morals and conscience and good 
 money rages at last about him. His signature as 
 President makes into law the policy which saved 
 the character and honor of the nation as its rights 
 and liberties had already been preserved. 
 
 As we, the countrymen of Grant, have seen, 
 with equal emotions of wonder and admiration, 
 the great divisions of the earth — Europe with her 
 peoples, statesmen, warriors, and rulers, India 
 with her palaces of marble and massive temples 
 adorned with chaste minarets and lofty domes, 
 China with antiquities that reveal the misty legends 
 of an unknown age, Egypt with her mysterious 
 tombs and temples, Japan, old in her civilization, 
 young in her hope of adopting methods of modern 
 life — all bestowing for the first time upon an 
 American, honors reserved by the custom of coun- 
 tries for emperors, kings, and princes ; and as 
 beyond all this mere variety of ceremony we have 
 seen extended to our countryman a personal atten- 
 tion and regard coming from the very heart of 
 many races, we have been amazed and gratified 
 at a recognition such as the civilities of nations 
 have rarely lavished upon a guest. 
 
 Reaching the western shores of his native land, 
 his countrymen have shown an estimation for his 
 renown, and an admiration for his character, no 
 
THE NATIONAL NEED — "A STRONG MAN." 203 
 
 less general or intense than that which attended 
 him in strange lands. 
 
 To some of his fellow-citizens, more than any 
 glory won at arms, higher than any distinction in 
 civil affairs, dearer than ovations to his greatness, 
 purer and fairer than any laurel he wears, ranks 
 that tribute he has made to morality, that contri- 
 bution to the dignity of sober self-command. The 
 hearts of Christian men and women go out to him 
 for his adherence to the truth that social delight 
 and customs and personal gratification are nothing 
 compared with the grandeur of an example which 
 helps to lift the race to a standard of self-denial 
 and sobriety. 
 
 Tried as no other American has been, tested in 
 the fire and heat by which the calibre of true men 
 is determined, in a new danger that threatens *the 
 fruits of a war which reeked with blood, and the 
 gains of a peace terrible in its lessons, and the veri- 
 fication of the title of a government we are either 
 to administer or obey, — when all that we hold 
 priceless hangs trembling in the balance, human 
 nature would require re-creation, if it did not, in 
 the emergency before us, look to the citizen who 
 had so often been the providential agent of our 
 deliverance from peril in the past. 
 
 The underlying motive or instinct of that 
 mighty impulse that turns to him again is the 
 conviction, that, surer than by any other method, 
 another term of administration by Grant will 
 disperse the solidity of sections, bury the feuds 
 
204 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 and animosities of years, and bring about, on the 
 basis of equality for all, a final settlement of the 
 costly and unhappy division of the people. 
 
 In the presence of a political contest freighted 
 with issues bearing on the welfare of millions, 
 and the concern of a nation, it seems puerile to 
 question and dishonorable to deny the imperative 
 demand for a "strong man." Of Grant it can 
 be said, as Guizot said of Washington, " He had 
 in a superior degree the two qualities which in 
 active life render men capable of great things : 
 he could believe firmly in- his own ideas, and act 
 resolutely upon them, without fearing to take the 
 responsibility." Strong in the possession of at- 
 tributes that made Washington great, Grant of 
 living leaders is the strongest and safest, — strong 
 in the memories of a grateful people for his skill 
 and prowess as a soldier; strong in that histori- 
 cal position which places him in the front of the 
 foremost men of his day ; strong in that eminent 
 virtue of decision and judgment which enables 
 him to grapple successfully with the most com- 
 plicated difficulties ; strong in that patriotic in- 
 stinct which makes right action the sole means 
 to the "general good ; " strong in the possibilities 
 of peace, which he more than any man will be 
 able to secure for the whole land ; and, above all, 
 strong in those moral convictions, buttressed on 
 religious belief, that teach that the love, the lib- 
 erty, the justice, revealed to man as a divine 
 standard of conduct, when incorporated into 
 
THE NATIONAL NEED— "A STRONG MAN." 205 
 
 American laws, and reflected in daily American 
 life, will attain for us that "pursuit of happiness" 
 which was one of the fundamental promises of the 
 American Constitution, and will yet be the pos- 
 session of an approaching American civilization. 
 May we not, under the guidance of this " strong 
 man," realize for the Republic the glowing vision 
 imagined by Milton ? — 
 
 " Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation, 
 rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking 
 her invincible locks. 
 
 " Methinks I see her as an eagle mewing her mighty 
 youth, and kindling her undazzled eye at the full midday 
 beam ; purging and unsealing her long-abused sight at the 
 fountain itself of heavenly radiance ; while the whole noise 
 of timorous and flocking birds, with those also that love the 
 twilight, flutter about, amazed at what she means." 
 
 The meaning of the American Republic is to 
 live up to its own ideal. Her citizens, whether 
 they number fifty or thrice fifty millions, whether 
 they be black men from Africa, yellow men from 
 China, red men of the forests, or men of whiter 
 hue, must enjoy entire recognition of those rights, 
 and that exact and equal balance of political will, 
 given them by the laws of God, and re-enacted 
 for their benefit by the laws of the land. The 
 American nation has no meaning, unless, in the 
 spirit with which our ancestors sang, " A church 
 without a bishop, a state without a king," we cause 
 all class-distinction and every remnant of caste 
 to recede and vanish before our advancing civili- 
 
206 ABOUT GRANT. 
 
 zation. It is no blind worship of brute force as 
 such, no unmanly idolatry for a military con- 
 queror, which inspires the appeal of freemen for 
 a " strong man." Time has taught them that no 
 event, great in its consequences for good in the 
 world, has ever come unattended with a man of 
 nerve and strength to direct it, — that nerve and 
 strength described by Tennyson, when he mourns 
 Wellington, as a man 
 
 "Who never sold the truth to serve the hour; 
 Nor paltered with eternal God for power ; 
 Who let the turbid streams of rumor flow 
 Through either babbling world of high or low; 
 Whose life was work, whose language rife 
 With rugged maxims hewn from life ; 
 Who never spoke against a foe." 
 
 Such a man, if ever, is now a national necessity. 
 As the nation moves forward to unfold the genius 
 of government born on the deck of " The May- 
 flower ; " as she seeks to realize for man the rights 
 promulgated in the charter of independence ; as 
 she strives to hold to the sublime purpose for 
 which the blood of her children was consecrated ; 
 and as she struggles for that equality sacredly 
 ordained in the amended Constitution, she asks, 
 " Who shall lead on ? " The answer is upon the 
 lips of millions of patriotic citizens : " Let us once 
 more be led by Grant." 
 
Books of Travel. 
 
 OVER THE OCEAN; 
 
 OK, 
 
 SIGHTS AND SCENES IN FOREIGN LANDS. 
 
 By Curtis Guild, editor of " The Boston Commercial Bulletin." Crown 8va 
 
 Cloth. $2.50. 
 " This is certainly a collection of some of the most perfect pen-pictures of sights 
 and scenes in foreign lands we have ever seen." — Albion. 
 
 ABROAD AGAIN; 
 
 OR, 
 
 FRESH FORAYS IN FOREIGN FIELDS. 
 
 Uniform with " Over the Ocean." By the same author. Crown 8vo. Cloth. $2.50. 
 
 AN AMERICAN GIRL ABROAD. 
 
 By Miss Adeline Trafton, author of " His Inheritance," " Katherine Earle," 
 &c. i6mo. Illustrated. $1.50. 
 " ' The American Girl-' is a bright, good, merry -hearted girl, off for a good time; 
 and her readers are of the opinion that the journey was a decided success." — 
 Liberal Christian. 
 
 BEATEN PATHS; 
 
 OR, 
 
 A WOMAN'S VACATION. 
 
 By Ella W. Thompson. i6mo. Cloth. $1.50. 
 " The author seems to have hit on just the most charming things to see, and 
 talks of them in a charming manner." — Tribune. 
 
 A THOUSAND MILES' WALK ACROSS SOUTH 
 
 AMERICA, 
 
 OVER THE PAMPAS AND THE ANDES. 
 By Nathaniel H. Bishop. i2mo. Illustrated. $1.50. 
 
 VOYAGE OF THE PAPER CANOE. 
 
 A Geographical Journey of Twenty-five Hundred Miles from Quebec to the Gulf 
 of Mexico. By the same author. With numerous illustrations and maps 
 specially prepared for this work. Crown 8vo. $2.50. 
 
 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 
 
 A Boat- Voyage of Twenty-six Hundred Miles down the Ohio and Mississippi 
 Rivers, and along the Gulf of Mexico. By the same author. With nu- 
 merous maps and illustrations. $2.50. 
 
 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. 
 
 Being the Adventures of a Naturalist Bird-Hunting in the West India Islands. 
 By Fred A. Ober. Crown 8vo. With maps and illustrations. 
 
 For sale by all booksellers and newsdealers, and sent by mail, postpaid, on 
 
 receipt of price. 
 
 LEE & SHEPARD, Publishers Boston 
 
MISS AMANDA M. DOUGLAS'S NOVELS. 
 
 BETWEEN FRIEND AND SWEETHEART. 
 
 i2mo. Cloth. $1.50. 
 " Amanda Douglas is one of the favorite authors among American novel-readers. 
 She writes in a free fresh, and natural way, and her characters are never over- 
 drawn." — Manchester Mirror. 
 
 FROM HAND TO MOUTH. 
 
 i2mo. Cloth. $150 
 " The charm of the story is the perfectly natural and homelike air which per- 
 vades it The young ladies are not stilted and shown off in their ' company man- 
 ners,' but are just jolly home-girls, such as we like to find, and can find any day. 
 There is real satisfaction in reading this book, from the fact that we can so readily 
 ' take it home ' to ourselves.'* — Portland A rgus. 
 
 NELLY KINNARD'S KINGDOM. 
 
 i2mo Cloth. $1 50. 
 The Hartford "Religious Herald" says, "This story is so fascinating, that 
 one can hardly lay it down after taking it up," 
 
 IN TRUST; 
 
 OR, 
 
 DR. BERTRAND'S HOUSEHOLD. 
 
 i2mo. Cloth. $1.50. 
 
 Miss Douglas possesses the genuine art of telling a story naturally and well. 
 
 She is far removed from those sensational novelists whose prurient writings are 
 
 oftenest found in the hands of the rising generation. The present story is quite 
 
 fascinating, with an obvious lesson running through it, which no one can mistake. 
 
 CLAUDIA. 
 
 i2mo. Cloth. $1.50. 
 " The plot is very dramatic, and the denument startling. Claudia, the heroine, 
 is one of those self-sacrificing characters which it is the glory of the female sex to 
 produce." — Boston Journal. 
 
 STEPHEN DANE. 
 
 i2mo. Cloth. $1.50. 
 " This is one of this author's happiest and most successful attempts at novel- 
 writing, for which a grateful public will applaud her." — Herald. 
 
 HOME NOOK; 
 
 OR, 
 
 THE CROWN OF DUTY. 
 
 i2mo. Cloth. -$1.50. 
 "An interesting story of home-life, not wanting in incident, and written in 
 forcible and attractive style. Miss Douglas's previous novels have all been very 
 popular." — New-York Graphic. 
 
 SYDNIE ADRIANCE; 
 
 OR, 
 
 TRYING THE WORLD. 
 
 i2mo. Cloth. $1.50. 
 " The works of Miss Douglas have stood the test of popular judgment, and be- 
 come the fashion. They are true, natural in delineation, pure and elevating in 
 their tone." — Express, Easton, Penn. 
 
 For sale by all booksellers and newsdealers, and sent by mail, postpaid, on 
 
 •receipt of price. 
 
 LEE & SHEPARD, Publishers Boston.