recall the negro's right to vote, the Fifteenth Amendment of the Constitution was framed, providing that "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."

found

Thus Grant, in entering upon the Presidency, the first strictly civil office he had ever held, himself confronted by political conditions in the South which might have staggered a statesman of lifelong experience and for which he was in no way responsible, while domestic questions affecting the nation's financial credit and foreign problems affecting its standing among the nations of the world pressed for consideration. Those who criticize the course of his Administration and condemn him for his choice of advisers might first point out what statesman of the day would have done better in his place and what advisers would have aided him to more beneficent results.

CHAPTER XXX

PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

WHEN Grant became President, it seemed for the moment as though a second "era of good feeling" were at hand. Democrats as well as Republicans looked on him as their chosen leader. There was only one unpleasant feature about his assumption of office. Grant refused to ride in the same carriage with Johnson from the White House to the Capitol on inauguration day. He could not forget that Johnson had called his truthfulness in question.

Grant's first inaugural was written entirely by himself; no one saw a draft of it until the day of its delivery. As the 4th of March approached without an intimation of what Grant had in mind, A. R. Corbin- a prospective brother-in-law who was gaining a livelihood on the fringe of Wall Street handed the President a complete draft of an inaugural. But, without glancing at the contents, Grant handed the document to Badeau, telling him to lock

it

up in a desk, keep the key, and let no one look at it until after the 4th of March.

The inaugural was brief, only twelve hundred words, yet in spite of its brevity it contained sen

tences which stuck in the mind and some of which have since become embedded in our common speech: "The responsibilities of the position I feel, but accept them without fear. The office has come to me unsought; I commence its duties untrammeled." "All laws will be faithfully executed, whether they meet my approval or not. I shall on all subjects have a policy to recommend, but none to enforce against the will of the people. Laws are to govern all alike those opposed as well as those who favor them. I know no method to repeal bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution."

In spite of some criticism of certain seemingly selfsufficient passages, the inaugural took well; but when the new Cabinet was announced, Republican politicians gasped with dismay. Only two of the names had ever been guessed and some were not suspected by the nominees themselves until they appeared in the list. Elihu B. Washburne, of Illinois, was named Secretary of State; it had been assumed that Grant would recognize in some way the services of his earliest influential friend, but this particular distinction had not been foreseen. When it appeared in a few days that the appointment was intended as a personal compliment, and that Washburne was to hold the position just long enough to enjoy the title, the criticism was general. To one who complained that

the occupant of the position of Secretary of State ought to be able to speak the French language correctly, the reply was made, "He ought at least to be able to speak his own." But Washburne's creditable record as Minister to France, during the FrancoPrussian War and during the trying days of the Commune, saved his reputation in the end.

A. T. Stewart was named Secretary of the Treasury. The Senate promptly confirmed his nomination, and until somebody recalled a long-buried law, enacted early in the century, providing that this particular office should not be filled by any man engaged in commerce, no one in Washington realized that the great merchant and importer was ineligible to the place. Grant, with sublime indifference to technicalities, asked the Senate to repeal the law and John Sherman, himself to be Secretary of the Treasury later, moved the repeal; but owing to Sumner's opposition the motion was defeated. Grant was no more to blame for making the nomination than the Senate for confirming it. They might have been expected to be familiar with the law. Sumner in his subsequent attacks on Grant denounced him for trying to upset a statute which "had stood unquestioned until it had acquired the character of fundamental law," yet Sumner himself must have been ignorant of this "fundamental law" when he first aquiesced in

Stewart's confirmation. George S. Boutwell, a member of the House from Massachusetts, once a business man in a small way, Commissioner of Internal Revenue during the Civil War, was named in place of Stewart an unexceptionable appointment.

E. Rockwood Hoar, of Massachusetts, was made Attorney-General; he was a learned lawyer of distinguished antecedents and high character, a member of the House, a friend of Sumner, a scholar of pungent wit and exalted ideals of public duty. He gained the ill-will of certain Republican Senators because of his austerity in rebuking their demands for the appointment of judges, district attorneys, and United States marshals in the South whom he believed to be unfit, and when Grant subsequently nominated him to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Bench caused by Stanton's death, these Senators, urged on by Butler who hated him, brought about the rejection of the nomination. Grant stood squarely with Hoar in his effort to preserve the quality of the Federal Bench. The story of his final withdrawal from the Cabinet is an interesting chapter in the history of the times.

General Schofield, whom Johnson had made Secretary of War after Stanton's retirement, was requested by Grant to retain his place for a while. A personal compliment this. Schofield was succeeded in a few weeks by Rawlins whom Grant needed always