ls of administration
which are not so flagrant as to warrant proceedings for impeachment.
Such evils may be borne for brief periods, when if the term of the
President were extended to six or eight years the dissatisfied elements
of society might be tempted to engage in revolutionary movements. Nor
is there wisdom in limiting the Presidential office to a single term in
the same person. The thought that one has a future is a great stimulus
to careful and energetic action in the performance of public duties.
For a President there is no future except a re-election, which is in
fact an approval by the country of his administration. A wise man will
strive to so conduct affairs as to merit that approval. A House of
Representatives already condemned by a popular verdict is but a poor
guardian of the rights of the people; and a defeated administration
performs its duties in the most indifferent manner. After a defeat
appointments will be made and acts done that would not have been
hazarded pending an election. It is true, probably, of every
administration, not excepting that of General Washington, that the
second term was less acceptable to the country than the first. Mr.
Lincoln had no second term, and it is useless to speculate upon its
probable character, if he had lived to perform its duties.

It was my habit to be at the Treasury every morning at nine o'clock,
and I usually sent immediately for one or more heads of division or
chiefs of bureau for conference upon some matter connected with their
duties. By frequent interviews I acquired such knowledge of their
duties and of pending questions that I always had a reason for those
interviews. By this course I maintained relations of familiarity with
the officers who constituted the department for administrative
purposes, and I also established a system of punctuality in the matter
of attendance. When the head of a division is tardy, the clerks soon
venture to follow his example, and if he is prompt they are ashamed
to be dilatory unless they have an adequate excuse. The same relation
exists between the bureau officers and the head of a department.

One of my first acts in the nature of a financial policy was to
establish the Sinking Fund, agreeably to the act of February 25, 1862.
Seven years had passed since the passage of the law and four years
since the end of the war and yet nothing had been done to provide for
the redemption of the public debt agreeably to the