General Grant as a Presidential candidate was likely to draw heavily on the Democratic voters of the Northern States, and Republicans felt assured that his quarrel with Johnson would cause no loss even in that direction.

In every point of view, therefore, the political situation was satisfactory to the Republicans--the last possible suggestion of discontent with General Grant's expected nomination for the Presidency having been banished from the ranks of the party.
By the Senate's refusal to concur in the suspension of Secretary Stanton, a confidential adviser under the Constitution was forced upon the President against his earnest and repeated protest.

This action appears the more extraordinary, because when the Tenure-of-office Bill was pending before the Senate, the expression of opinion on the part of the majority was against any attempt to compel the President to retain an unwelcome adviser.

In fact the Senate voted by a large majority to except Cabinet officers from the operation of the law.

The expressions of opinion by individual senators were very pointed on this question.
-- Mr.Edmunds said it was "right and just that the Chief Executive of the Nation in selecting these named Secretaries, who, by law and by the practice of the country, and officers analogous to whom, by the practice of all other countries, are the confidential advisers of the Executive respecting the administration of all his Departments, should be persons who are personally agreeable to him and in whom he can place entire confidence and reliance; and whenever it should seem to him that the state of relations between him and any of them had become so as to render this relation of confidence and trust and personal esteem inharmonious, he should in such case be allowed to dispense with the services of that officer in vacation and have some other person act in his stead." -- Mr.Williams of Oregon sustained the position of Mr.Edmunds, but added: "I do not regard the exception as of any great practical consequence, because I suppose if the President and any head of Department should disagree so as to make their relations unpleasant, and the President should signify a desire that that head of Department should retire from the Cabinet, that would follow without any positive act of removal on the part of the President.