XXXVIII GENERAL GRANT AS A STATESMAN*
General Grant's father was a Whig and an admirer and supporter of Mr. Clay. The public policy of Mr. Clay embraced three great measures: First, a national bank, or a fiscal agency as an aid to the Treasury in the collection and disbursement of the public revenues; secondly, a system of internal improvements to be created at the public expense and controlled by the National Government; and, thirdly, a tariff system which should protect the American laborer against the active competition of the laborers of other countries who were compelled to work for smaller compensation.
From the year 1834 to the year 1836 the country was engaged in an active controversy over the policy of the Whig Party, of which Mr. Clay was then the recognized head. Indeed, the controversy began as early as the year 1824, and it contributed, more than all other causes, to the new organization of parties under the leadership, respectively, of Mr. Clay and General Jackson.
General Grant was educated under these influences, and in the belief that the policy of the Whig Party would best promote the prosperity of the country. Those early impressions ripened into opinions, which he held and on which he acted during his public life. It happened by the force of circumstances that the Republican Party was compelled to adopt the policy of Mr. Clay—not in measures, but in the ideas on which his policy was based. It is not now necessary to inquire whether the weight of argument was with Mr. Clay or with his opponents. The war made inevitable the adoption of a policy which Mr. Clay had advocated as expedient and wise.
The Pacific Railways were built by the aid of the Government and under the pressure of a general public opinion that the East must be brought into a more intimate connection with our possessions on the Pacific Ocean, for mutual support and for the common defence.
The national banking system was established for the purpose of securing the aid of the banks as purchasers and negotiators of the bonds of the Government, at a time when the public credit was so impaired that it seemed impossible to command the funds necessary for the prosecution of the war.
The same exigency compelled Congress to enact, and the country to accept, a tariff system more protective in its provisions than any scheme ever suggested by Mr. Clay. The necessities of the times compelled free-traders, even, to accept the revenue system with its protective features; but General Grant accepted it as a system in harmony alike with his early impressions and with his matured opinions.
It has happened, by the force of events, that the policy of the old
Whig Party has been revived in the national banking system, while the
Independent Treasury, the leading measure of the old Democratic Party,
has been preserved in all its features as the guide of the Treasury
Department in its financial operations.
When General Grant became President, these three measures had been incorporated into the policy of the Republican Party. Their full acceptance by him did not require any change of opinion on his part. It was true that he had voted for Mr. Buchanan in 1856; but his vote was given in obedience to an impression that he had received touching the qualifications of General Fremont. The fact that he had voted for Mr. Buchanan excited suspicions in the minds of some Republicans, and it engendered hopes in the bosoms of some Democrats that he might act in harmony with the Democratic Party. The suspicions and the hopes were alike groundless.
As early as the month of August, 1863, in a letter to Mr. E. B. Washburne, he said: "It became patent to my mind early in the rebellion that the North and South could never live at peace with each other except as one nation, and that without slavery. As anxious as I am to see peace established, I would not, therefore, be willing to see any settlement until this question is forever settled."