Rensselaer Union, Volume 5, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 March 1873 — The Administration. [ARTICLE]

The Administration.

The twenty-second Presidential term has begun. General Grant stands midway in his civic career. His address upon passing the half-way milestone was delivered at noon yesterday, and read the same evening all over the land. The occasion admitted of no remarkable, utterdefinite suggestions to Congress is when that bocly convenes. Unless something special should occur to require the calling of an' extra session, we shall have no more national legislation for nine months. In the meantime the President has only to keep the machinery of the Government running in accordance with the laws of the land. President Grant regards his re-election as a vindication of himself from the charges of his enemies, and such it certainly was. Not that the people hold him above liability to Wunder, b;;t that they accord to him worthy motives and good judgment. He is a safe man to -have- at the head- of public affairs. Singularly modest and plain, his first term has passed into history crowned as no other four years of peace ever were. In all our national experience no parallel can be found to it in the completeness and importance of its accomplished facts? 4 The popular vindication of the Administration was richly deserved, and the developments of the past winter added emphasis to it. Names hitherto unsullied and familiar to the whole country were blackened by the exposures of last winter ; but not so much as the shadow of suspicion of corruption rests upon the Presb dent. No briber ever dared approach him with a specious offer of a good “in vestment." The whiteness of his reputa' tion is unspotted by a single fleck. Four years ago the country was in a deplorable condition, politically. The South was in a state bordering on chaos, and the civil service was fearfully demoralized- The quarrel between Congress and President Johnson necessarily poisoned the channels of national government. The attempt was at once made notpnly to remedy the evils of the Johnson rule, but to uproot the spoils.sy-stem inaugurated by General Jackson. In this the Executive was more successful than any of us dared hope, even though the hostility was desperate. With all its disguise, the contest . last fall -was over that issue. The opposition was con’ trolled and . impelled by the element in the Republican party which smarted under reform, and longed for a return to the old way of dispensing patronage. Besides this distinctive triumph, the late Administration cah point with peculiar pride to the complete restoration of friendliness with foreign powers, the reconstruction of every State once in rebellion, and the establishment of universal suffrage. Every issue growing out of the war and that which caused it has been squarely met. The dead past how sleeps' in the grave. The nation is prepared for whatever new labor the public good may require. The interval between the,inauguration and the first assembling of the new Congress will afford opportunity to cast about and mature plans tor the future, There are four grand conditions of national prosperity, viz.: 1. Relief of production from the exorbitant taxes levied by transportation monopolies; 2. Continuous development of our latent resources through manufactures. 3, Restoration of our commerce. 4. Lifting our paper money to the level of coin as a medium of exchange. * * * * * Judging the new Administration by the old, the four conditions of the nation’s thrift which have been named will be thoroughly met before U. 8. Grant retires to private life.— Chicago Journal.