Mantua. So will it honor Grant for the respect be showed to the feelings of his conquered foes. He was capable of appreciating their high courage, and he did more at that time to restrain the ferocity of the non-combatants of the North, and to tranquilize the unhappy people of the South, than was accomplished by his whole government.
Grant's interposition in behalf of General Lee and his bold resistance of the purpose of the government to disregard the paroles which we had given, gave great hope to our prostrate people that he would worthily sustain the grand role he had assumed.
But in sadness and sorrow we must now turn to the record of his civil life, and as we read it feel that Grant misunderstood the value and the uses of the great opportunity his sword had placed before him.
Had he justly appreciated his high responsibilities he would never have sold himself to the party whose principles he had all his life opposed, but content with the fame he had earned and with his position as head of the army, he would have remained faithful to his convictions, well knowing that with him rested the power to restrain the reckless men who had been undermining the foundations of the republic, and who have sought to overthrow it for their personal ends.
Instead of turning a deaf ear to the allurements of these conspirators against his country, we have seen Grant silently deliberate over the prizes before him, and then abandon his own party and pass at once without progression to the head of that which paid him best.
They won him from his life-long allegiance by the high prize of the Presidency, and so soon as he gained it he began to prostitute it to the accomplishment of the designs of the basest set of politicians this continent has ever known, and to his own personal convenience and emolument.
He gathered about him and filled the most responsible positions of the government with venal partisans or incompetent relations. His "republican court" became the focus of the chief gift-givers and gift-takers of the land; and from the moment of his acceptance of the supreme power it was evident there had been no "sweetness for him in the uses of adversity" for having been born
