The Grant Party and the Third Term
An 1873 editorial warns that the political machine forming around President Grant is less the Republican Party than a personal faction bent on securing him a third term, foreshadowing the era's long controversy over presidential term limits.
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The Cairo Bulletin · July 11, 1873 · Page 2
1 min readThe dominant party in this country is the Grant party, the personal following of Gen. Grant, ready to hoist him into the presidential chair for the third time. They are the Grant party, not the Republican party of its days of strength and vigor, whatever indefiniteness there may be in the term.
[...] the situation, with an eye to the effect of it on his own political fortunes; notwithstanding the position and prestige of Grant, it could not fail to work, if left alone, to carry their point.
The politicians who support him, and who owe rank and station to his patronage, are men who are scrupulous and careful only when their own interests are concerned — men who, by the exercise of these qualities, have amassed enormous fortunes during their public lives, and who will hold on to the reins now in their hands with a grip only second to that with which they would cling to life in the presence of the great conqueror, death.
The early announcement of the scheme of the Grantites shows that it is far-seeing and deep-laid, and that its manipulators intend to have no flaw in it. It is not improbable that it will succeed, but its success would involve the loss of much that the American people are now forewarned to save.
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