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of health to undergo the strain of such antagonisms; and politicians well disposed towards him, and at the same time supporters of the President, saw with regret the widening breach between him and the Administration.
Some thought that he made too much of irregularities which, even if existing to the extent he suspected, are incident to public affairs, and that it was not for him to lead in an exposure which would weaken his own party.
To such indifferentism Sumner was at all times proof.
Early in 1872 it became evident that a considerable body, calling themselves ‘Liberal Republicans,’ would refuse to support General Grant for re-election.
Their objections were largely to his personal characteristics, which were alleged to be unbecoming in a chief magistrate, and to the abuses which he allowed to prevail in the public service.
His close alliance with certain leaders in Congress,—Conkling, Cameron, Chandler, and Carpenter in the Senate, and Butler in the House,—whom he allowed to use the public patronage in their respective States in contests with their rivals, stimulated the opposition not only of those who felt the adverse weight of Executive influence, but of others who believed in an entire separation of politics from patronage.1 His arbitrary methods in attempting to acquire San Domingo and the removal of Sumner from the foreign relations committee as the sequel of his failure, entered largely into the discussion.
One of the points made against him was his interference through the army with the governments and elections of the restored rebel States; but in this respect he had only done what Republicans generally had approved, and even demanded.2 This point was certainly not open to those who had pressed nationalism in the interest of loyal people at the South, of both races, to the limit of constitutional law. Amnesty to the rebels was put by Greeley in the foreground; but the President could not be charged with having been obstructive to this measure, as
1 General J. D. Cox resigned as Secretary of the Interior in November, 1870; and his resignation was accepted by the President with a tacit admission, as stated by General Cox in a letter to Sumner. Aug. 3, 1872, that he found it impolitic to sustain the secretary against the antagonism excited by his efforts for civil service reform. George William Curtis resigned from the civil service commission for a similar reason, in March, 1873.
2 His acts in this line in Louisiana during his second term were less defensible; but just before he finally left office he signified that the country had had enough of this kind of interference.
Cambridge, MA. Press of John Wilson and Son. 1877.
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