George F. Hoar

If elected, I believe he would have administered the Presidency on the principles which a large majority of the people of Massachusetts hold.

No personal respect for General Grant could induce the Massachusetts Republicans to run the risk of having again a President who was subjected to personal influences like these.

Brave soldiers, honored Republicans, were turned out of post-offices, to be replaced by incompetent and dishonorable adventurers, odious in the neighborhoods from which they came, to please this ambitious and unscrupulous man.

Nothing could have prevented his carrying Massachusetts as by a great wave, but the fact that he had been, in his second term, subject to a most unworthy influence in the matter of appointments to public office.

Against this was the unwritten, but well-understood, rule of action by which the people had been governed since the time of Washington, that no person should be elected to the office of President for more than two terms.

He was strong not only in the powerful support of these great political leaders, but in the solid confidence of the great Methodist denomination to which he belonged, in the love of the old soldiers, in the memory of his great public…

Under these difficulties, it is greatly to his honor that so much of public good was accomplished in his time, and that he handed over the Government to a Republican successor.

He was in my judgment one of the wisest, sincerest and most honest and patriotic men who ever held the office.

I am satisfied, in looking back, that I myself underrated his strength as a candidate.

But I did not think it wise to put at the head of a movement for reform and for purity of administration, a man whose supporters must defend him against such charges, and who must admit that he had most unwisely of his own accord put…

I believed then, and now believe, that he would have been an admirable President of the United States.

The House of Representatives, by an almost unanimous vote, had adopted the resolution declaring that it was contrary to sound principle to elect a President for a third term.

I should as soon have thought of turning Tory because of like complaints in the Revolutionary War, or of asking George III. to take us into favor again because of like scandals which existed during the Administrations of Washington and…

I never though that the proper way to put an end to this state of things was to abandon what I deem sound political principles, or to abandon the party that was formed to establish them.

But the old political leaders, whom the people most trusted, were more and more strangers to his presence, and ambitious and designing men, adventurers who had gone South to make fortunes by holding office, men interested in jobs and…

He never wavered in his attachment to the doctrines of his party-- protection, sound principles of finance and currency, honesty in elections.

Wherever there was a contest in any State for political supremacy the least worthy faction frequently got his ear and his confidence.

While the great majority of the Republicans retained confidence in the personal integrity and patriotism of President Grant, it had become painfully manifest that he was often an easy victim to the influence of unscrupulous and designing…

The Republicans, however numerous, and although having a majority of lawful voters in most of these States, have been excluded from political power.

In many of the Southern States the Democratic Party consists almost entirely of whites who have possessed themselves of the forces of government by criminal processes, which have been a reproach not only to this country, but to…

It is remarkable, however, how often the nominating conventions have discarded the candidates who were favored by the holders of executive office or the two Houses of Congress.

He records and executes the will of the nominating convention of the party to which he belongs, in which the real power of selection is in fact lodged.

It was undoubtedly the chief object of this last provision to prevent the perpetuation of power in the same hands, or under the same influences, by removing the choice of President wholly from the control of persons wielding National…

It was to be committed to the discretion of men selected for patriotism, wisdom and sobriety, and removed as far as might be from all the excitements of popular passion.

It was intended that the choice of the President should not be a direct act of the people.