This theory had been very widely discussed by the various shades of opposition to the Republicans, but the Pendleton movement for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency dignified it as a national issue, and it succeeded in making the New York Democratic platform go more than half way in favor of repudiation of our obligations by payment in greenbacks. The greenback issue thus vitalized became a very important one in many of the States and caused strange political revolutions, such as the election of Democratic Governors and Democratic Legislatures in Maine and Ohio. It is doubtful whether the Republicans could have been lined up squarely in the support of the national credit with any other candidate than Grant, and one of the first acts that he signed as President distinctly provided for the payment in coin of all bonds of the Government bearing interest, and declared also that specie payments should be resumed as speedily as practicable. The Greenback party not only figured largely in State politics, but became formidable as a third party in national contests, and the free-silver theory of to-day is simply the old greenback issue of cheap money in another form. THE GRANT-GREELEY CONTEST 1872 General Grant was a thorough soldier, with little qualification for civil duties and a natural distaste for politics. I doubt whether he had any defined political policy when he entered the Presidency. He believed in maintaining the credit of the Government, and accepted in a conservative way the general policy of the Republican party, but he knew little or nothing of the political leadership of the nation, and his friends generally felt that the success of his administration would depend very largely upon surrounding him with a Cabinet composed of the ablest and most sagacious men of the party, but Grant cherished no such ideas himself. He evidently assumed that politics could be run by general orders, as an army could be commanded, and it was that mistake that alienated a very large portion of the Republicans from him in the early period of his administration, and culminated in the Liberal Republican Convention at Cincinnati in 1872.