1

AUTHOR'S NOTE.

The Press of the country has given to the public from time to time full details of all the scenes, facts, incidents, and ceremonies connected with the later years of General Grant's life. These have been telegraphed far and near with a dispatch and copiousness worthy of all praise.

The people everywhere have known all that was passing, and in these pages I have, after carefully verifying their accuracy, freely used the contributions of journalists and reporters, in all matters of which I had not personal knowledge.

O. H. T.

CHAPTER XLIII.

GENERAL GRANT'S LATER YEARS.

WELCOMED HOME.

HE return of the first American citizen to the

TH

land of his birth was anxiously awaited by the American people. The heights around San Francisco where he landed were thronged with a populace that pressed to be earliest in its greeting. He was regarded not only as a great soldier and an honored magistrate, but pre-eminently and typically an American; one who exhibited in his history the possibilities which our American civilization alone affords of rising from the humblest beginnings to the realization of the proudest hopes. Nowhere else on the round globe could a man born in a cabin expect to reside in the White House or to be received as an honored guest in the palaces of kings; nowhere else could a man who had failed to achieve distinguished success in gaining a livelihood as farmer, tanner, wood-seller, real estate broker have opportunity to become the chief object of a nation's thought and care. President Grant had demonstrated that in this country a man, once put upon the right track, who had faith, persistency, and courage, was certain to win fame. To some extent, indeed, he was made by circumstances, but the difference between him and other men, similarly situated, was that he was prepared to take advantage of

circumstances, to make the most of accidents, and so the people sought to welcome him back from his journeying to the land whose history he had helped to make, and where he had his place in the hearts of all and his home in their affections. He received wonderful ovations in California, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and, indeed, wherever he went.

He also made a tour of the Southern States, which was of great importance to the welfare of the country at large, for it did more, than any efforts previously made, to conciliate the South and to draw it into closer union with the rest of the country. Everywhere he was received with the greatest enthusiasm, and many who had been bitter foes during the war assured him personally that nothing could ever induce them to again take up arms against the country.

He visited Cuba and Mexico, prompted by a desire to see closer commercial relations established between those countries and our own. His tour around the world had broadened his views and shown him how necessary it was to secure facilities for ridding ourselves of our surplus products. To this end our treaties with foreign countries were of great importance, and with none more so than with our "next-door neighbors," Cuba and Mexico.

While he did not travel in an official capacity nor with a distinguished retinue, no American citizen carried more weight in himself or had greater personal influence, and it is largely due to him that we now enjoy an advantageous commercial treaty with Mexico, which favors us more than all other foreign nations.

A THIRD PRESIDENTIAL TERM.

General Grant neither desired nor sought a nomina

tion for a third term of the Presidency at the hands of the Republican National Convention, which met at Chicago during the month of June, 1880. No man had more respect for the unwritten law laid down by Washington, declaring a third term in the Presidential chair inimical to the best interests of the Republic. It is more than probable that had he been nominated, he would have declined the honor thus thrust upon him.

The movement was, however, a generous one. The men who conducted it are too well known to be suspected of having acted with selfish or personal motives. The extraordinary enthusiasm which had greeted General Grant on his return home from his tour around the world proved undoubtedly that he was the most popular man in the United States, and that no single man of any prominence in the Republican party held the affection of the masses as he did.

This fact naturally turned the attention of the leaders of that party to General Grant as the most fitting candidate for the highest office in the gift of the people and the one most sure to be elected. They were fearful of consulting him beforehand, and one of the leaders of the movement has assured me that they did not do so; they dreaded to allow him an opportunity of declining to be a candidate before the Convention, and flattered themselves with the hope that if he were nominated, even against his will, they might be able to induce him to remain in the field.

So tenaciously did they hold to this idea, that for thirty-six ballots in the Convention three hundred and six of the delegates cast their votes for General Grant, and even on the decisive ballot, when General Garfield was nominated, they refused to make the vote unanimous, exclaiming: "The Old Guard dies, but never surrenders!"

General Grant's position was asserted in a letter addressed to General Harry White, president of the Pennsylvania Convention, in which he said he had considered it beneath the dignity of his office to notice the cry of "Cæsarism" and a "Third Term," which had been started by the press, " a portion of it hostile to the Republican party, and particularly so to the Administration," but he deemed it proper to speak when the question was considered by a Convention of the second State in the Union. He recited the circumstances under which he was elected and re-elected, and said of the third term, "I do not want it any more than I did the first." He said that until a Constitutional Amendment should be adopted fixing the number of terms, the people could not be "restricted in their choice by resolution." He added: “It may happen in the future history of the country that to change an Executive because he had been eight years in office will prove unfortunate, if not disastrous. The idea that any man could elect himself President, or renominate himself, is prepos terous. To recapitulate, I am not, nor have I ever been, a candidate for a renomination. I would not accept a nomination if it were tendered, unless it should come under such circumstances as to make it an imperative duty-circumstances not likely to arise."

even

General Garfield secured the nomination; but early in the campaign it became clear to all concerned that unless General Grant put himself in the front, the battle would be lost and the campaign result in disaster. Gen eral Grant never had his popularity more thoroughly tested, more absolutely demonstrated, than when he yielded to the persuasions of his Republican friends and made the grand tour of the States, beginning in Ohio, journeying through Indiana, and winding up in the Em