Grantism

The 1,'in; A r aiiiiuriil of ilir Ailminlfltra M of the ii -t Saven It Crimea, Outragc, Immoralitir aml Public Affronts- lts Agent Here and Abroad - A Succinct Kehcarsal ot Italf-forgotten Kvent. [Frointho New ïotk Worltl.] The jargon of nowspapera whioh oxplain Bolknap in tlic interest of party c&nnot much longer conceal from public apprehenaion the true diseaso of the American body politie from wbich Belknap and other oOioial pustules rose. The disease iu Grantism, Gen. Grant cmerging from dissipation and obacurity in a turbulent time, ascended to military rank and achieved military huccohh by grim obstinacy and a lavish use of greonbacks and human lives. It wül ono day be seon that ho actually prolonged and added to the coat of tho war for tho Union. Hi pursonal acquaintance was uaed by diehoneat quartermaflter, commissaries of subsiatenee, contractons, sutlera and other thieves dependont pan military operations ior the enormouH fortunes they accumulated at tho expenso of tho soldiere and ilio Governmeut. The Very man whoae doom ia now to follow that of the late Seeretary of War waa tnen iu high military poaition at Grantfs side. His adminiatration a President has been marked not only by the samo atubbornuea Hiid waste that diatinguished his part in the couduct of the war, but, of course, by much greater biuudors and scandals. Tlie future hi.ttorian, seeing thitt time in perepective, ill diacern in it the culmination of the heedlessness, moral dullness, widespread ignorance of tho true principies of goverument. sucoessful dcinagqguery, public knavery and theft, loose legislation and loose-handed rulership, social folly and extravagance and general drunkeu goings-on, which charterize the end of the experimental century of the republic. That culminatiou, I repeat is Grantism ! Beginning witb. miotakes (like the uneouBtitntional appointment of Jlr. A. T. Stewart to be Secretary of the Treasury) which denoted uot merely his foretfulnesa of the rudimentary principies of government and of the prdvlsions of the organic law which Weet Point taught him, but also his moral obtusenesa and lack of a proper notion of his great stewardship, lie announced by his aubsequeut acte, aa plainly aa ho could have proclaimed iu worda: 'lam Orant aud this is my Government. I have earned this place ; the pcoplo have paid me for my services by putting me in it ; and I propose to run it to Huit myaelf, my family aud my frienda." Declining to chooae his Cabinet from among mou trusted by the party who elected him and whom the oppositiou could not havo seriously objectod to see in suoh high office, he gathered ubout him as loada of the exeoutivo departments a cabal of Cronies. The Cabinet selected and maintained by Grant bas been the worst, and in some respecta the most ridiculous, known iu any country in modern times. It has included : Creswell, the hero of the Chorpenuing contract and other jobs ; Williams, the Attorney-General from Oregou, whose use of the public money in providmg h;u wife with a.'private laudaulct and misapplieation of the funds of his departinent for electioneeriug uses in the Southern States compcllud tho people to detnand his resigiiation; Delano, who was f orcod to retire by unref uted charges of corruption in connection with the Indian supplics ; Moutteell, tho Groton grocer, and as addlepated a meddler with financo as we read of ; Riehardson, Boutwell's scandalons auoceaaor. who was rewarded for his compelled resiguation by an appointment as Judge of the Gourt of Claims; Borie. the good-natured old Frenchman, who ioiuid himself too much out of his dopth and comfort to stick in tbs Navy Department, even to picase Grant ; liolxson, who Hucceeded Borio, and whose maladministration of the navy and navy yards has occasioned a coutiuued series of ugly charges and constant public diecouteut ; Mizzer Chandlxr, of Micnigan ; and Hktjcnaï ! The only man of established character except 5Ir. Fish who has been appointed by Grant to the Cabinet wa Cox, of Ohio, who, early perceiving that the roforma ho was disposed to start were stoutly and shamelessly opposed in tüe very heart of the administration, reuigned iu sorrow and disgust. Bristow and Pierrepont are stili on trial. Tho ugliost rejiorts are ailoat concerning tho action of Jndge Pierrepont in respect to tho Babcock case. He will have to dispose clearly of the charge of assisting the Preoident's military secretary in his defense before he can be rid iu the public noatrils of the taint of Grautism. From the cabinet oucward through every governmont department the evils of Grantism have made themsolves feit. The wrongs inflicte-1 upon the South ; the reign of carpet-bag Governors Hke Moaes, Holman and Ames ; the militaay supervisión of f randulent clectious and military procection of bogus Sate Legislaturea ; the Louisiana outrage ; other Federal oppressions, all ha ving the effect to foist upon the Southern people rulera not of their choico, to send as Southern Senators and ' ' Kepresenttivcs" to Washington a set of Bcheming Hcoundreis and ignoramuses whoso elections were bought, and to heap up burdens of debt and discomfort upon Sonthcru men and women which in the unwhipped and energetic North would have provoked another civil war - these are among the fruit of Grantism. Powerf ui rings, representing great oorporatimif, monopolios and organized combinations to plunder the treaeury, appeared. They gradually came to own every avenue le&ding to the White House, and for five yeara they have abeolutoly contrqlled the Government. The Custom-house ring, the Indiau ring, tho Credit Ktobilier ring, and the Northern Pacific railroad ring, the District of Columbiaring, the Pension ring, tho Postollice ring, the Navy-yard ring aud the Whisky ring, havo heil the machinery hy which the llepublican party organiaalion is ruu, have uominated Governors and members of Congresa, ent to the Senate their retained attorneys, and coutributed the vast umus of money by which olectiona were fraudulently carried and counttd. It is estimated, accordiug to good authority, that at least tweuty-flve per cent. of the entire revenuea, foreign aud domestio, has boen stolen, or diverted from the trcasnry by frauda at the cpstom-houses aud the iuternal revenue office. The Commissioner of Cust-jiu.i tated in an official report that tho customs were defrauded more man one hundro! nnt tirenty millions exery year. Contracta for supplies in all departmenta of the public service, which couut up by tens of miihons, are manipulated by tliesê things, each of which has its specialty, and all combine against the treasury. It is now commouly reported that a ring neareat the President, composed of his most intímate personal friendo like lloraco K. Porter, Babcock, lioss Shepherd, liufns Ingalls and otherg, has made hundreds aud thousands of dollars by farming out oincea which Grant waa iuducod to give to the payeea. Suoh are ppecimon fruits of Grautism. The President' offioial favors to members of his own and his wife's family early became as notorious as his complaisance toward ïiU croiiios outnide of that domeHtic circle. Brothcr-iu law Caaey's connection with the woi-at phassa of poHtbellum ilissisdippi politics, tho dominion of tlie Douta at the White House, tbc monopoly in Indian tradernhip given to Orvil ( Irant, the caroer of Cramor as a foreign Minister, and, wowe thau all, tho personal complication of tlio President himself with the atro010118 Black Friday speculation, in which bis brother-ui-law Corbin figntfd along with Fisk and Oould, - these but, part ir lly Ilústrate the baleful iuliaenco of tho Grant family upon our Govoriiment and social concerua. The list of pensionarles upon the United States Treamuy, related by tice of bloodaudj maiTiago to Grant, ouce numbored betweeu twenty and thirty, and the ltest instance of uepotinm waa the promotion of the PresidenVs eldet son, Frcd. (who left West Point with very moderate honors), to bo colouel óver the headg of a score of gruy-haired veterrms. Tho robbery of the merchants of New York by bonded warchousemen authorizcd directly from Waahiugtou : the uhameful exposurea ifi connection with the mouopolyof Leet A Stocking ; the case of Hodge, who stolo half a inilliou within a hundred yards of t.!i White House : the scandalsof tho Freedmen'u Bureau under the direction of Parson-General Howard ; the overbearing and corrupt career of the Washington Ring, and the chargos. novcruccesBfnlly refutod, against tho Presideut'a military secretan1, Babcock, in oonnection with the meaflurement of pnblic worka in Washington, prolong but do not complete the index to the serie of iuitrnhlo scheiueH aguinpt tho treivsury au'l public rightg in which (rant'H intímate hnvo ever Hince his accosii'oii to the Prc-t-i ieney ber-ii engaged. Jte;i;;s w. exorcised from theQuartermastergeuoralship that "Rufe" lugalla inight be put I in. Murpbywas set at the head of the New York OtiMtom-houHO for no other apparent roaeoii thiii that lio mi;:ht get neb and bo on hand t to hob-nub with the President at Long Branob. ' These are furt'jer frutta of GrantiMii- tli friute of government prfhided overbyanunHtocked. nnculivated, umegatated mind, unuscil to meditf'tion even upon the great problema of civil law and ordor, regarding tlie moet PXilteti public station aa a diapentjary of pf;roual favoid iuetead of a gunrd-houee'ovor the natiunal welf aro. Ho ovoriwing is Grantium, that it has sub3uod not only the government of Str.Uw but tbeir courtii, and at laat it obtained control over tbehighest cóurt to which Auiericans can.appo;l. Tho subatrvienoy uf United States jnd;;es in Boafahem Btstea bHw })aKhcl into ootoiiety ; fhe dcferfjnce of Judge Dillon to tvery poict but could bo coustrued iu tíaboock'ri favor ifl idmitted by lawyers who have Htudied his :harge ; aud the packing of the Suprenie Coai t y Graut for the plaiu purpoBe of obtainiüg from a new majority of t'mt tribunal tlio rovereal of a well-cousidored and righteoua decisión, is a towerinK incident of the countrv'H. or rather tho Republican party'a ahame. Congresa, very soon after Grant's inauguration, bücnnio the acene of auch legislativo spohations upoli the tfessury. and dircctly upon tho people, as have been witneBaed in no other rivilized country. Washington, and the halls of the capítol, ffere crammed with lobbyiata who pressed upon Senator and membcrs of the House altérnate argument and seductious. The interest at se wero, in ome inatances HO eiiormouri thataat &urns were haüardcd to" procure favorable legislaron ; so that undor nuprecedented pecuniary tomptationa the consciencos of men of high tálente and stainless reputations snccumbed along with the weaker oousciencea 'of tho mas of the majority in power, lirains and brilliant speeches and the votes that gave huge subsidie to powerf ui corporationa were bought with greonbacks, bonds, and stocks. For Mitnptuous and often for scaly bribes men honorcd by the nat ion sold themselvoa hcodlessly or deliborately away. In the Credit-mobilier investigation the Uien VicePresideut Colfax, tho late Vice-Preeident Wil8on, Dawea, Kelley, Allison, Bingham, Patteroon, Scofield, aud othors were found with the scrip and the magnillcent dividends in their pöaseesion. Not a department or avenue of Ooverument ia free from tho curso, the atrong inlluenco of Grantism. The Republican party ia rotten with it. The Republican majority in the Sonate has for years boen under it. One Dy one the veterans, the earnest, indomitable men of that purty of hom the hole country was reauonably próud - Iho Sumhcrs, the ftlmibulls, the Schurzes - have been oatracized to make way for mere servile hangers-on aud whitowasliera of the White House, including ! Cameron, (ïonkling, Morton, Logan, Bhermau, Edmunds, and the low Senatorial interlopers from the South, The patronage of the Government, distributed through these men, was nsed to aggrandize Grant and to keep the Senftto aubBel'viont to hia wiH. To-day thero ia not one of these Öenatofa who doea not look more to Grant than to his Btate for power and Conkliug and Morton, boch ambitioua for the Presidency, are ready to mirrender their düuious chancos of obtaininp; the next Republit!an nomination for the cel'tainty of aomfithmg sure under Grant, should he be the favorte candidato. It ia a paií of the humiliation of the Republic that the vulgar, self-willed man at its head should havo coerced Dy aheer selllsh arbitiary miause of power three-fonrths of the ability of bis own political party to his side, by means of a diatribution of oilicial patronage which lias oorrupted the machiuery of our politics and made massen of voterj, and even newspapers, ïu every Stato depondent upon tho noa of a favorite Senator. To-day Senator Ooniling, the elave of Grant, holds the Republican patronage and vote of New York in bis right httnf.. So irreaistible han beén tliin influéuco of Grant (who never wout back on a personal friend whatever liia criminality) that when Ckngreasmen were accused or convicted of bribe-taking, all the powers of tho Federal Government have aeemed to be set? at werk to vindícate them by returuing them to the capítol. The spectaelo was presented in tho laat Congrese of men ahaping tho most important legislation who had been oonvicted in the previous Congress of solling their votes. Belknap's downfall - the first throb of the earthtjuake which is to npset the fabric of Grantiam - may aet citizens reíleoting upon a hundred iudications of wroug-doing under (Jrant'H administration, rumora and aasertions of which have passed by their ears unheeded HUe whiffing wmds. Thoro is uo rcom whatover to doubt that all departments of the Fedoral Government are iufested with just such guilt as every friend of Gen. BelUnap is tortured to hear he has confeaaed. The coat of all tuis to the people of the whole country has been fearful. For, bo it reniembered, the people have to pay overy dollar which goes into the pockota of dishonost oflicials and which ia directed by diahoneat legialators into the hands of monopolista. 'Last year the net ordinary expenditiures of the I eriunent were $171,529,848, and the intereft on ! tho public debt was $103,093,545- total. #274,923,393. We are paying for war expensca twenty-fonr millions more than in 1860, with absolutely nothing to how for it except military usurpatioua in the South and dilatory movemei.ts on the Western plaina. The navy costa nearly ten millions more than it uaed to, and (relatively) a more worthless navy waí nev launched. The Iudian Bureau costs five millions more tbau it did in 1860, or eveu in 1866, and this with a constant decrease of the Western Tndian population.