Democratic Sentinel, Volume 4, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 April 1880 — How About a Fourth Term ? [ARTICLE]

How About a Fourth Term ?

The question of the expediency of a*| third term directly involves the expediency of a fourth term also. Gen. j Grant had scarcely retired from the Presidential chair before his closest personal and political friends began the demand, which has since grown so loud, for his return to the office. During all the years that have followed the American people have been kept wondering whether he desired or would accept a third election. A single word from him would have shown them just what they had to expect, but he did not choose to speak it. They know now that he is a candidate, because he makes no effort to check the efforts of his friends to nominate him. The silence of years remains unbroken. Let us suppose Gen. Grant nominated, elected, inaugurated. Does any one doubt that history would repeat itself ? Can any one doubt that the men who Vegan the present agitation for a third term would, in due time, begin another for a fourth term ? We should be told that the emergency he had been placed in office to meet was not yet ended; that his work would be left unfinished if he were compelled to retire at the end of one term. The absurd claim that he is the only “strongman” in a nation of freemen would be revived. Let any one who doubts this reflect that many men who are now in office, and will be in office until March 4, 1881, owe their places to Gen. Grant. (This is the secret strength of the third-term move-

ment.) Let it be remembered also that every man who is in office after March 4, 1881, would owe his continuance in office to President Grant. It would be astonishing, u?ider these circumstances, if, with the precedent of a third term already set, there were not a loud cry for a fourth. Gratitude has been defined on high authority to be “a lively sense of favors to come. ” Who can doubt that, if all this should come to pass, Gen. Grant would maintain the same absolute silence he has preserved for the past three years ? Who can doubt that the American people would be allowed to speculate for years about his intentions, only to find at last that he would not refuse a re-election if he could possibly secure it? Is any friend of Gen. Grant authorized to say now that, if he is elected for a third term, he will not be a candidate for a fourth ? Will Gen. Grant himself say so ? We think not— New York Tribune.