AN AMERICAN MONARCHY.
THERE is a long time to elapse before 1875, when the next Presidential campaign formally opens in the United States ; but there is a class of politicians there who are always at work, and we are assured on authority we cannot dis- regard that they have decided already on a most exceptional and novel course. They intend to run General Grant for a third term, and are already laying their wires in every direc- tion, interfering more especially in local elections. The can- didate who will support this design is, it is said, pretty sure of the support of the Administration. The President, as the story runs, has already been secured, and though he is not likely to betray his secret, there is much to make this ex- ceedingly probable. His grand objection to being elected at all was his doubt whether the Command-in-Chief was not a much more permanent office. There is no position in the world which must seem so disagreeable to a strong man as that of passed President. He has been a King with three times the power of a King, and he descends from his throne to become the least important man in the Union, a politi- cian who can gracefully hold no post, who is virtually dead. Life, if such a fall happens to a young man, must seem in- tolerably insipid. General Grant likes power, likes position, likes money, hopes yet for a chance that might give him a permanent name in history, and is strongly of opinion that the people are still, on the whole, with him, and no other man. The Democrats are almost powerless, as is shown by their incessant attempts and failures to obtain "a new departure," or platform of distinctive principles, and no man has risen, or is rising, to eminence among the Republican party. No General would have a chance against Grant, and these appears to be no civilian who attracts the national regard. The Republicans therefore would have to select a dark or at the best a grey horse—a-man wholly or partially unknown—and the wire-pullers believe they can prevent this by a determined use of the national patronage, and of all the means of corruption which a party in power for fourteen years always has at its disposal. They think that the electors, as a body, have no dislike to the General, that they have no great wish to change if their leaders would let them alone, and that the latter can be slowly but success- fully manipulated. There is no doubt that, without hinting at corruption, the power of the Central Government, under the taxation laws, and the laws giving it a control over the currency, and therefore over business, have been very greatly increased ; while the wire-pullers have an immense weapon in their hands in their power of promising that, in all appoint- ments, the Executive will favour the new principle. They hold the South still at their mercy, as witness the re- markable steps taken to conciliate the Kuklux Klan —steps which involve an informal amnesty for that irregular association—and they have found out that the mass of the Negro vote will for years to come be thrown for the Government in possession. Even " Massa Greeley " could not move them from that prepossession, and no one will ever be known to them as the conductor of the Tribune was. They still want protection, and they still therefore obtain it by appeals to the only power which can effectively protect them. If, then, no new event should occur discreditable to General Grant, and no new man rise suddenly to eminence, it is by no means certain that so heavy a following might not be collected for the President as to make opposition ruinous in a party sense. In that case the Republicans, reasoning from the ordinary conduct of political parties, would give way, and the "mass vote" would once more be thrown for the "soldier who saved the Union," and whose soldiers are still to the front as electors in every State. The journals might thunder as much as they liked, as the Herald has already begun to do, but their want of power when attacking a known man was conspicuously shown during the last election, which was dis- tinguished by an amount of slander and vituperation without precedent even in American political history, yet wholly with- out effect. General Grant might be a Catholic, a thief, or a drunkard in the papers as much as the printers liked, but meanwhile he should have a second term.
We write, of course, as mere observers, but we cannot doubt, if General Grant is eager, if his immediate party are firm, and if no very great change takes place in American politics, such
/11 ata stroke may be possible, nor can we doubt that it would be extremely injurious to the United States. There is, of course, no danger of the change so feared by some Liberals in England, the apparition of the man on horseback who is to introduce Cassarism into the United States. The idea of a despot there is foolishness, based upon the analogy of countries as unlike the United States as they are unlike England. America is too big, the State organisations too strong, the Army too weak, and the people too accustomed to the use of arms, to admit of any attempt of that kind, which, supposing it begun, Massachusetts alone would be able to overthrow. Rather it is in the very certainty of the people that no such result could follow their novel expression of their will, that we see the greatest fear that their will may be so expressed. We say fear, for while General Grant has been a sufficiently effective President, though haunted by dreams of annexations and given to allow wealth to be accumulated on him, we do not mean to insinuate corruption, but a readiness to accept legal gifts and increases of salary—such an election might be repeated, and even if not repeated, would set an example of long Presidencies under almost the worst con- ceivable conditions. It is true that the Americans would avoid the greatest danger of the Union, as it is also of France, the chance of an irreparable disagreement between the head of the Executive and the people—suppose Andrew Johnson had been by law President for life !—for the people would re- tain their power of removal, but not one of the gains either of long terms of Presidency, or of Kingship, or of Premier- ship could be realised. The practice must increase the eagerness both for the Presidency and for party victory, must develop to the fullest degree the excitement of the quad- rennial election, and must increase corruption almost tenfold. The mere chance of so long a period of power must be worth three or four times the money now paid to secure it. It will not increase the stability of the President's tenure, if that be a good, but on the contrary, must inspire him with that feel- ing from which none but Kings and "strict term " Presidents can be free,—that striking eminence in any department should be kept down, lest the hero, or the lawgiver, or the social reformer might be a possible rival in the affection of 'the People. Napoleon III. never in his twenty years' career dis- covered a statesman beyond the rank of M. Rouher who could help to avert his fall. There would be always the liability to deposition almost as great as that of a Premier, but without its compensation that if we differ greatly with our Premier we can change him either at a day's notice if Parliament is sitting, or at six months' notice if it is in recess. The struggle 'to continue to reign would be as bad as it is now, with this important difference, that while it must end now in four years, leaving four years for independent and disinterested action, it would then last the whole term, however long it might be, -of every President in succession. Even if the President built up around him a party so strong as to make him virtually immovable—as, for example, by securing a heavy party vote, and the Negro and Catholic vote in addition—he could only build it by concessions either to factions or localities which must be more or less injurious to the nation. Such concessions were made to the South by successive Presidents for fifty years, till at the first symptom of a change of policy that section sprang to arms, and the existence of the Union became at stake ; and such concessions might be made to the Catholic interest as would end in civil war.
We are not, of course, opposing Life Presidencies. If the American people ever decided on that change, they would also change the method of administration till it would practi- cally be like our own ; but we are opposed to life Pre- sidencies or long Presidencies, fettered by the necessity of re-election every four years. These must be mischiev- ous, except in those rare cases where a successful and popular President leaves his re-election to the people, and is elected, like Mr. Lincoln, by a popular power which overbears all wire- pullers, and reduces intrigue to an imbecile waste of power. They must deprive the President of his last relic of superiority to party, and reduce him to the position of wire-puller for himself, the very worst attitude in which, for the national interest, he could pose. It is unfortunate for the States that even now their quadrennial elections should shake them so severely, but not half so unfortunate as it would be never to have a respite, never to enjoy an Executive Chief released from the wish to postpone every national interest to his own.
Previous page
