The principle of One Term for President is the corner-stone of a
reformed civil service. So plain is this to my apprehension, that I am
at a loss to understand how any one sincerely in favor of such reform
can fail to insist upon this principle. All experience shows that the
employment of the appointing power to promote the personal ends of
the President is the great disturbing influence in our civil service.
Here is the comprehensive abuse which envelops all the offices of the
country, making them tributary to one man, and subordinate to his
desires. Let this be changed, and you have the first stage of reform,
without which all other measures are dilatory, if not feeble and
inefficient. How futile to recommend, as is done by the Commissioners
on Civil Service, “an honest competitive examination,” while the rules
for this system are left to the discretion of a President seeking
reëlection! “Lead us not into temptation” is part of the brief prayer
we are all taught to repeat; nor are Presidents above the necessity of
this prayer. The misuse of the appointing power to advance ambitious
aims is a temptation to which a President must not be exposed. For his
sake, and for the sake of the country, this must not be.
In attributing peril to this influence, I speak not only from my own
careful observation, but from the testimony of others whose words are
authoritative. You do not forget how Andrew Jackson declared that
the limitation of the office to one term was required, in order to
place the President “beyond the reach of any improper influences” and
“uncommitted to any other course than the strict line of constitutional
duty,”[183]--how William Henry Harrison announced, that, with the
adoption of this principle, “the incumbent would devote all his time
to the public interest, and there would be no cause to misrule the
country,”[184]--how Henry Clay was satisfied, after much observation
and reflection, “that too much of the time, the thoughts, and the
exertions of the incumbent are occupied during his first term in
securing his reëlection,”[185]--and how my senatorial associate of
many years, Benjamin F. Wade, after denouncing the reëligibility of
the President, said, “There are defects in the Constitution, and
this is among the most glaring.”[186] According to this experienced
Senator, the reëligibility of the President is not only a defect in the
Constitution, but one of its most glaring defects.
And such also was the declared opinion of the present incumbent before
his election and the temptation of a second term. It has been stated
by one who conferred with him at the time, that immediately before
his nomination General Grant said, in the spirit of Andrew Jackson,
“The liberties of the country cannot be maintained without a One-Term
Amendment of the Constitution”; and another writes me, that while on
a walk between the White House and the Treasury, just at the head of
the steps, near the fountain, the General paused a moment, and said,
“I am in favor of restricting the President to a single term, and of
abolishing the office of Vice-President.” By the authority of this
declaration, the “Morning Chronicle,”[187] the organ of the Republican
party at Washington, proclaimed of its Presidential candidate, “He is,
moreover, an advocate of the One-Term principle, as conducing toward
the proper administration of the law”; and then at a later date,[188]
after calling for the adoption of this principle, the same Republican
organ said, “General Grant is in favor of it.” Unquestionably at
that time, while the canvass was proceeding, he allowed himself to
be commended as a supporter of this principle. That he should now
disregard it gives new reason for the prayer, “Lead us not into
temptation.”
Never before was the necessity for this beneficent Amendment more
apparent; for never before was the wide-spread abuse from the
reëligibility of the President more grievously conspicuous. De
Tocqueville, the illustrious Frenchman, who saw our institutions with a
vision quickened by genius and chastened by friendly regard, discerned
the peril, when he said:--
“Intrigue and corruption are the natural vices of elective
government; but when the head of the State can be reëlected, these
evils rise to a great height and compromise the very existence of
the country. When a simple candidate seeks to rise by intrigue,
his manœuvres must be limited to a very narrow sphere; _but when
the Chief Magistrate enters the lists, he borrows the strength of
the Government for his own purposes_.… If the representative of
the Executive descends into the combat, the cares of Government
dwindle for him into second-rate importance, and the success of his
election is his first concern.”[189]
Nothing can be more true than these remarkable words, which are
completely verified in what we now behold. The whole diversified
machinery of the National Government in all its parts, operating in
State, District, Town, and Village, is now at work to secure the
reëlection of the President, as for some time before it worked to
secure his renomination,--the whole being obedient to the central touch.
Look for a moment at this machinery, or, if you please, at this
political hierarchy, beginning with Cabinet officers, and reaching
to the pettiest postmaster, every one diligent to the single end of
serving Presidential aspiration. The Jeffersonian rule was, “Is he
honest? Is he capable? Is he faithful to the Constitution?” But this
is now lost in the mightier law, “Is he faithful to reëlection?”
This failing, all merit fails. Every office-holder, from highest to
lowest, according to his influence, becomes propagandist, fugleman,
whipper-in. Members of the Cabinet set the example, and perambulate
the country, instructing the people to vote for reëlection. Heads of
Bureaus do likewise. Then, in their respective localities, officers of
the Customs, officers of the Internal Revenue, marshals with their
deputies, and postmasters, each and all, inspired from the National
Capitol, are all calling for reëlection. This organized power,
variously estimated at from sixty to eighty thousand in number, all
paid by the Government, and overspreading the whole country in one
minute network, has unprecedented control at this moment, partly from
increased facilities of communication, and partly from the military
drill which still survives the war, but more, perhaps, from the
determined will of the President, to which all these multitudinous
wills are subjugated. This simple picture, which nobody can question,
reveals a tyranny second only to that of the Slave Power itself,--which
Jefferson seems to have foreseen, when, after portraying the
Legislature as most to be feared in his day, he said, “The tyranny of
the Executive will come in its turn.”[190] Even his prophetic vision
did not enable him to foresee the mournful condition we now deplore,
with the One-Man Power lording itself through all the offices of the
country.
The recent election in North Carolina made this practically manifest.
Even without a telescope, all could discern the operations of the
field. Postmasters and officers of Internal Revenue were on hand,
each in his place; then came the Marshal, with files of deputies,
extemporized for the occasion; while, ranging over the extensive
circuit, was the Supervisor of the Revenue; the whole instructed and
animated by members of the Cabinet, who abandoned their responsible
duties to help reëlection, which for the time was above all departments
of Government and all exigencies of the public service. In the same way
the chief Custom-Houses of the country have been enlisted. Each has
become a political centre whose special object is reëlection. Authentic
evidence before a Congressional Committee shows that Thomas Murphy,
while Collector of New York, acting as Lieutenant of the President,
sought to control the Republican State Convention by tendering office
to four men, in consideration of the return of certain delegates,
promising that “he would immediately send their names on to Washington
and have them appointed”; and by way of enforcing the Presidential
supremacy, he announced with startling effrontery that “President Grant
was the representative and head of the Republican party, and all good
Republicans should support him in all his measures and appointments,
and any one who did not do it should be _crushed out_.”[191] If this
were not authenticated under oath, it would be hard to believe. But
the New Orleans Custom-House has a story much worse. Here Presidential
pretension is mixed with unblushing corruption, in which the Collector,
a brother-in-law, is a chief actor. And all for reëlection.[192]
This prostitution of the offices of the country to the Presidential
will can be upheld only by unhesitating partisan zeal, discarding
reason and patriotism. Already it has been condemned in an official
Report made to the House of Representatives, November 25, 1867, by Mr.
Boutwell, as Chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary, and signed by
him. His direct object was to arraign Andrew Johnson; but these words
declare a rule applicable to all Presidents:--
“The presence and active participation of _two of the Heads of
Departments_ in a political convention at Philadelphia, having
for its object the organization of a party to sustain the policy
of the President and defeat the will of Congress and the people,
and one of those functionaries the prime agent in the removals
from and appointments to office for ‘political reasons,’ is a fact
well known to the country. The like had not happened before in its
history. In the view of right-minded men, it was something more
than a public scandal.”[193]
The Report adduces the authority of John Locke, the eminent
philosopher, as declaring “the employment of ‘the force, treasure, and
_offices of the society to corrupt the representatives, or openly to
preëngage the electors, and prescribe what manner of persons shall be
chosen_,’ as among those breaches of trust in the executive magistrate
which amounts to a dissolution of the Government; for ‘what is it,’ he
says, ‘but to cut up the Government by the roots, and poison the very
fountains of public security?’”[194] But all this we witness here.
The offices are employed to preëngage the electors, and prescribe the
persons to be chosen. Nor do I see any corrective of this undoubted
abuse, especially after the example now set in high quarters, so long
as the President is a candidate for reëlection.
Therefore, to arrest a flagrant tyranny, and to secure purity in the
Government, also to save the President from himself, should this
Amendment be adopted; and since Horace Greeley is known to be its
strenuous supporter, we have an unanswerable reason in his behalf.