signed No binding
1872 · Newport [R.I.]
by WILLIAM BEACH LAWRENCE
Newport [R.I.], 1872. No binding. Fine. Autograph Letter Signed, to Henry Anthony. Newport [R.I.], November 25, 1872. 4 pp. A detailed, despairing letter on campaign politics after the reelection of Ulysses S. Grant. Lawrence observes the humiliating defeat of Democrats and ""Liberal Republicans"" - who united behind Horace Greeley because of corruption in the Grant administration - in the Election of 1872. Lawrence laments the elevation of personality over merit and virtue in elections, an observation which resonates today. He also expresses concern about how newly enfranchised African Americans tended to vote. ""The negroes are naturally disposed to support those who are in power & whom they invest with superior dignity, on account of the possession of power. ...the extraordinary denouement of the Cincinnati Convention has placed in bold relief the mode most unsatisfactory to an intelligent people, by which party conventions are constituted & which are readily made, the instruments of the vilest partisan combinations, carried on by men without character & without principle."" Complete Transcript Ochre Point, Newport 25 Nov. 1872Dear Governor Anthony Your kindness in supplying me in former years with the Congressional Globe induces me to solicit the favor of the sequel to my set. I have to the end of the 41st. Congress 2d. Session 1869-70. I have not the 1s. or 2d. Session of the 42d. Congress.- nor the annual reports, accompanying the last message. I have not forgotten my promise to write a paper on the changes to be effected in the character of the Executive office, for which the existing arrangement in Subjects furnishes valuable suggestions, but the task which I somewhat hastily [2] assured, to enter on the, (to rue,) novel task of a lecturer, has occupied all the time that I could give to my library, while the events of the late elections and the matters, which preceeded it, induce me to think that the question of a constitutional amedmt does not stand precisely as it did some months since. The utter dissolution of the Democratic party, by the insane nomination of Greeley, gives to General Grant the power of retaining his position, by repeated election, as long as he may desire it. Not only is all outside opposition removed, but the plan of those, who attempted, in the party itself, to secede from the support of administration has been signally defeated, that the same cause is not likely to be repeated by any of those who remained steadfast to their chief. If the principle of the civil service bill is carried out, as was professed, the same panacea [3]which attaches to subordinate places may readily be applied to the highest, especially, when it is considered that it is a remedy for those periodical agitations, which Presidential elections formerly occasioned. There is another element not hereafter to be overlooked & that is the negro vote - the negroes are naturally disposed to support those who are in power & whom they invest with superior dignity, on account of the possession of power. Moreover, the extraordinary denouement of the Cincinnati Convention has placed in bold relief the mode most unsatisfactory to an intelligent people, by which party conventions are constituted & which are readily made, the instruments of the vilest partisan combinations, carried on by men without character & without principle. I know not that Belmont's cause, in deferring the Democratic Convention, till after the nondescript assemblage at Cincinnati, is to be ascribed to any cause other [4] incompetency to deal with such matters, but if his object had been, in furtherance of the interests of Rothschild's financial scheme, to affect the reelection of General Grant, he could not have taken a more effectual course than he adopted, for the purpose. In giving it as my opinion, in these rambling remarks, that the election of General Grant for a third & fourth term is as certain as any event, which has not actually occurred, I wish to be understood n... (See website for full description) (Inventory #: 20020)