Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 January 1880 — GRANT AND THE OLD RING. [ARTICLE]

GRANT AND THE OLD RING.

Chorpenning Creswell, who wants a “strong man” in the White House, and Boss Shepherd were among the last to shake hands with Grant when he started from Washington on his trip to Mexico. They were among his special intimates during two terms, and they look forward to a~third term in the hope of a permanent restoration of shoddy and stealing. This is the faith of all the ring chiefs and great thieves. They say, “Put ns once more in office, and, with the purse and the sword, we shall know how to retain possession, no matter which way elections may go.” The Grant movement involves, therefore, much more than a third term. It contemplates a radical ohange in our institutions, to be brought about by the agency of a subservient Supreme Court, which, in the event of success, would be appointed by Grant—there being four or five prospective vacancies—and a slanding army to support its decrees. He packed that court in 1870 to reverse the judgment in favor of specie payments, as obligatory under the constitution, and thus prepared the way for the crash of 1873.

Give him the opportunity and he would pack it again for even a worse object. Nothing would be easier than to find venal and partisan Judges, not only ready but anxious to overthrow the local Governments of the States, and to build up a centralized Government on the ruins of a system by which alone the Union can be preserved. Destroy it, and there will be no United States. Hence, the full meaning of the scheme which Conkling, Cameron and other Republican managers are now forwarding with recklees indifference to consequences and with supreme contempt of all rivalry, must be looked squarely in the face. It is a foul conspiracy to seize and to despoil the Government, by a corrupt cabal and by ambitions leaders who have staked money, character and hopes of distinction on the coming contest. The promoters of this plot want Grant out of the country during the political agitation in Congress. They kept him traveling for over two years, and footed the bills, with the Presidential campaign in view. They recalled him from a projected journey to Australia io start the recent costly ovations, which were a prepared part of the programme. They will bring him back through the South next spring just before the meeting of the National Convention. And then it is intended to rush his nomination through with the shout of a hired mob at Chicago. Perhaps this plan can be worked out successfully, and perhaps not. The friends of Blaine and Sherman and other aspirants will have to submit tamely before it can win. There is abundant time for reflection and for concentration in the next three or four months. But whether this opposition be well organized or not’, there are elements inside the Republican party quite independent of any leadership that will insure Grant’s defeat if the conservative opinion of the country is represented by a candidate known to have been faithful to the Union in its day of trial. —New York Sun.