Scandal in the White House

View this email in your browser

Need something new to read? You’re in luck—we put our latest issue, Scandal, in our webstore ahead of schedule, so everyone can gobble up the gossip and messes of the past from the comfort of their couches. Start with Charles Sumner complaining about President Ulysses S. Grant: “I do fear a quarrelsome pilot, unused to the sea but pretentious in command, who occupies himself in loading aboard his own unserviceable relations and personal patrons, while he drives away the experienced seamen who know the craft and her voyage. Here is a peril which no lifeboat can stand.”

1872 | Washington, DC First in War, First in Nepotism Charles Sumner To sit behind is the presidential occupation, watching and feeding the animals. If this were an amusement only, it might be pardoned; but it must be seen in a more serious light. Some nations are governed by the sword—in other words, by central force commanding obedience. Our president governs by offices—in other words, by the appointing power, being a central force by which he coerces obedience to his personal will. Let a senator or representative hesitate in the support of his autocracy, or doubt if he merits a second term, and forthwith some distant consul or postmaster, appointed by his influence, begins to tremble. Can such tyranny, where the military spirit of our president finds a congenial field, be permitted to endure? In adopting him as a candidate for reelection, we undertake to vindicate his presidency and adopt in all things the insulting, incapable, aide-de-campish dictatorship which he has inaugurated. Presenting his name, we vouch for his fitness, not only in original nature but in experience of civil life, in aptitude for civil duties, in knowledge of republican institutions, and elevation of purpose; and we must be ready to defend openly what he has openly done. Can Republicans honestly do this thing? Let it be said that he is not only the greatest nepotist among presidents but greater than all others together, and what Republican can reply? Let it be said that he is not only the greatest gift taker among presidents but the only one who repaid his patrons at the public expense, and what Republican can reply? Let it be said that he has openly violated the Constitution and international law in the prosecution of a wretched contrivance against the peace of San Domingo, and what Republican can reply? Let it be said that wielding the power of the great republic, he has insulted the black republic with a menace of war involving indignity to the African race, and what Republican can reply? Let it be said that he has set up presidential pretensions without number, constituting an undoubted Caesarism or personal government, and what Republican can reply? And let it be added, that unconscious of all this misrule, he quarrels without cause even with political supporters, and on such a scale as to become the greatest presidential quarreler of our history, quarreling more than all other presidents together, and what Republican can reply?