Threatened Trouble There Provided against

The 4th of March--the day prescribed for the inauguration of a new President of the United States--falling on Sunday, Mr. Hayes, to prevent any technical objections that might be raised, privately took the oath of office on that day, and on Monday, the 5th, he was publicly inaugurated in the presence of a vast concourse of well-behaved people, at the usual place, on the east front of the Capitol. The oath was administered by Chief-Justice Waite. In his inaugural address that followed, the new President substantially repeated the promises which he made in his letter of acceptance of the nomination. He did not definitely announce any line of policy to be pursued, but he plainly indicated that it would be conciliatory toward the late slave-labor States wherein rebellion had existed. Already President Grant had appeared to question the wisdom of the policy of sustaining Southern State governments by military force, and the new President entered into careful inquiries concerning the matter.

A special session of the Senate was opened on the day of the public inauguration, and received and confirmed the following cabinet nominations from President Hayes: William M. Evarts of New York, for Secretary of State; John Sherman of Ohio, Secretary of the Treasury; George W. McCrary of Iowa, Secretary of War; Richard W. Thompson of Indiana, Secretary of the Navy; Carl Schurz of Missouri, Secretary of the Interior; David M. Key of Tennessee, Postmaster-General; and Charles Devens of Massachusetts, Attorney-General.

The political situation in Louisiana--both parties claiming the right of the respective magistrates chosen by them to govern the State--was made the special subject for discussion in President Hayes's cabinet on the 20th and 21st of March, when it was decided to send a commission to that State to investigate the matter. There were two rival claimants to the governorship of the State, and each party declared that its own chosen officers were legally elected. There was a similar state of affairs in South Carolina, and the President sought diligently for the truth and right. The opponents of the late administration declared their readiness to submit to law and justice, and promised obedience and loyalty in the event of the removal of United States troops, the presence of which they regarded as a menace, and as a restraint upon the free action which every citizen has a right to exercise.

Upon the report of the commission sent to the South, the President resolved to trust the promises of the opposition in both Louisiana and South Carolina, and removed from them the restraints of military force. A salutary result was soon perceived, in an improved tone of public feeling there; and although that policy of conciliation is yet (December, 1877) an experiment, there are abundant evidences of its beneficence and success in re-establishing a brotherhood of feeling between the people of the North and the South to which they have long been strangers. Such an object is worth striving for; and if the experiment shall fail, it will fail in a good cause. This measure, and a reform in the civil service of the Republic, were the most conspicuous features of the public policy of the Administration. The most essential feature of that civil service reform may be found in the following circular letter addressed, by President Hayes, to all the Government office-holders on the 22d of June, 1877:

"SIR:--I desire to call your attention to the following paragraph in a letter addressed by me to the Secretary of the Treasury on the conduct to be observed by officers of the General Government in relation to the elections: 'No officer should be required or permitted to take part in the management of political organizations, caucuses, conventions, or election campaigns. Their right to vote and to express their views on public questions, either orally or through the press, is not denied, provided it does not interfere, with the discharge of their official duties. No assessments for political purposes on officers or subordinates should be allowed.' This rule is applicable to every department of the civil service. It should be understood by every officer of the General Government that he is expected to conform his conduct to its requirements."

This rule, strictly adhered to, would not only relieve office-holders of an enormous burden of taxation for partisan ends, but seal up, in a large degree, a prodigious fountain of official corruption and favoritism that has threatened, at times, to overwhelm our liberties and drown our free institutions.