--Such a career in these days was possible only in this country, and here it will probably be impossible hereafter. Of civil war we have, we may be sure, seen the last, as it was really the first, that was ever fought on our soil. And indeed it was big enough to suffice for our share of that sort of thing for ever. That we shall ever be called upon to wage war with a foreign foe is in the extremest degree improbable. No other power wants any of our territory, at the price, at least, which it would cost to get it; and we have taken all that we want from other people. Cuba, if we get it--the advantage of which is not clear to all minds--we shall get by purchase. We shall, therefore, it would seem, never be so greatly indebted again to a successful general. In case we should be so, and he should be one of General Sherman's successors, it may be reasonably doubted if, with General Grant's experience before his eyes, he will give up the assured life position of General-in-Chief for the temporary honors and troubles of the Presidential chair. It is not necessary to be a blind admirer of General Grant, or a member of the party which made him twice President, to do him the justice of admitting that his resignation of the office which he won with such eclat, and held with such general honor, the world over, was a sacrifice to the good of the Union for which he fought. He had for life a position equally honorable with that of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and more striking in its distinction. He had no superior but the President of the United States; not a certain man, but the incumbent of the office for the time being. He might, and probably would, have seen a succession of such men rise, and pass into powerless privacy, while he maintained his high position. He gave up this permanent distinction, with its well-assured emoluments, at what we must admit that he regarded as the call of duty, of patriotism. And now he is, so to speak, a nobody. Admitting all the errors that have been charged against him--and he doubtless committed many--admitting even that the party which he represented is hostile to the best interests of the country (we do not say that it is so, for we speak for no party and in no political interest in these pages)--the spectacle of the passage of such a man into absolute public insignificance, without any public care or public thought for his future, is a very impressive one, and one not in all respects admirable. As his career was possible only in this country, so also was the close of it. The government, the people of no other great nation, would drop a man who had done what he did, and held the positions which he held, into an unprovided, obscure future, putting him off, like an old shoe. Once the victorious commander of an army of half a million of men, a man whose name was in the mouths of all the civilized world, for eight years the ruler, with more than kingly power,