President Grant has published a letter denying that he wishes
for a third term in a rather curious way. The Republican Con- vention of Pennsylvania has resolved that third terms are opposed to the "unwritten law" of the Constitution, and informed General Grant of their decision. The President consequently writes to say that he "does not want the third term any more than he did the first," that the Constitution cannot be altered by resolution, but that he is not a candidate, and would not accept a renomina- tion "unless it should come under such circumstances as to make it an imperative duty,--circumstances not likely to arise." This means, we presume, that General Grant will accept a third term if war seems close at hand, but the words used leave him a very large loophole indeed. An unanimous nomination, for example, is not a "circumstance likely to arise," but the President might say it was just the contingency he had contemplated.
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