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Secretary of War, for corruption in office, from whom the President parted with a too friendly acceptance of his resignation.
Later Administrations,—those of Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, Cleveland, and Harrison,—have happily escaped the succession of scandals which distinguished the civil service from 1869 to 1877.
The demoralization of that period is chargeable in some degree to war, which always brings vices in its train; but it was also due largely to the President's too good opinion of men of easy virtue and his lax treatment of them when they were found out. This came to be the opinion of the American people, who, ever grateful for his service in the army and ready to confer on him any military rank or emolument, were determined in the purpose not to prolong his civil administration by a third election, either at the end of his second term or after the intervening term of his immediate successor.
The Republican State convention of Pennsylvania, nearly a year before his second term expired, took a definite position against a third term for the President in a resolution which called out a reply from him, May 29, 1875.1 He declined a re-election, but there was in his letter an underlying tone of regret that such an announcement from him had been expected.2 There being still a popular conviction that, notwithstanding his withdrawal, the general might yet be a candidate, the House of Representatives, Dec. 15, 1875, passed a resolution, by a vote of two hundred and thirty-three to eighteen, declaring that ‘a departure from the time-honored custom [that of a President retiring after a second term] would be unwise, unpatriotic, and fraught with peril to our free institutions.’
This ended the question of a third term in 1876; but it was revived again in 1880, when the scheme was supported by Conkling, Cameron, Logan, and Fish.
The better sentiment of the country was aroused against it, and it again failed, though this time materially aided by the idea that ‘a strong man’ or ‘savior of society’ was needed to maintain order in the Southern States.3 No State was so fixed against a
1 New York Tribune, May 31, 1875.
2 The New York Tribune, June 1, went so far as to say of the letter, ‘It has shown to all intelligent people his desire for a third term and his utter unfitness for it.’ Estimates of General Grant's character as a civil magistrate may be found in the New York Nation, March 1, 1877. Dec. 6, 1878, July 30, 1885 (by J. D. Cox); New York Evening Post, July 1, 1870; New York Tribune, Oct. 16, 30, 31, 1872, March 3, 1877.
3 Among Republicans openly protesting in 1880 against General Grant's candidacy were President Woolsey, Thurlow Weed, Murat Hastead, E. R. Hoar, Henry L. Pierce, Rev. Henry W. Bellows, and Rev. James Freeman Clarke. For articles and opinions adverse to a third term, see New York Nation, Aug. 22, 1878, Oct. 16, 1879; Boston Transcript, Jan. 21, 1880 (containing opinions of college presidents); and address of General John B. Henderson at St. Louis, April 10, 1880.
Cambridge, MA. Press of John Wilson and Son. 1877.
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