When he was appointed to the command of the district of which New Orleans is the headquarters it was not known what his executive power in that kind might be, and it was supposed that, like most soldiers, he had, in the common phrase, no politics. But like every man who went into the rebel section without politics he very soon acquired them. During the summer of 1866, when by the complicity of inaction the President of the United States sanctioned the effort of the rebels to massacre Union men, General Sheridan was the man who told the whole truth to the country, and Andrew Johnson has never forgiven him. From that time General Sheridan has wholly approved the Radical policy, and the President has inflexibly resolved upon his removal.

But General Grant was known to sympathize with General Sheridan, and their published correspondence shows how faithfully the General supported his subordinate. It is therefore plain that General Grant was as disagreeable to the President as General Sheridan. The President knew that there was no man more steadily hostile to his policy; no man more suspicious of his purposes, no man more desirous that he should be closely watched and checked by Congress than General Grant. Moreover, it was becoming very evident that this man, so hostile to the Presidential policy, and of so vast a popularity, was very likely to be the next President, upon the nomination of the party which elected Mr. Johnson, and which he had betrayed. The President thus found himself face to face with Congress, with the vast loyal political organization in every part of the country, and with the great soldiers of the war, excepting General Sherman. In this position he has also and naturally found himself practically paralyzed. He has been conscious of the disastrous failure of his administration, and that he was drifting amidst universal distrust into the great and final contempt of history. For he has no friends. The Democrats use him only to perplex their political foes. The late rebels, like Forsyth of Mobile, and others, reproach him with indecision and timidity. The New York Herald, which to-day tries to prop the Presidential purpose to withstand the popular will, yesterday cried lustily for his impeachment for resisting it. Those who appear to support him are more to be feared by him than those who unswervingly and frankly denounce and resist him.

Under these circumstances the President has naturally sought to take some course by which with one blow he could reach any enemies. And he has found it in the suspension of Mr. Stanton, and the direction of General Grant to assume ad interim the duties of the Secretary of War, and to transmit the order of removal to General Sheridan. This at once excites a tendency toward distrust of General Grant upon the part of the Republican party; it tends to poison the personal relations of Grant and Sheridan; it raises Sheridan as a candidate for the Presidency; and it kindles the hope of that ludicrous political Micawber, the Democratic party, that something may "turn up." The President’s double object is to ruin Grant politically and to defy the Republican Party.

But we suppose that nobody in the country, Democrat or Republican, doubts that General Grant is as hostile as ever to the policy of the President, and that he warmly opposed the removal of General Sheridan. The only question is why he went into the Cabinet, and why he is willing to appear to acquiesce in the policy of the President. But it is not necessary to look far for the reason. General Grant may have considered himself ordered by the Commander-in-Chief, or he may have wished to prevent the entrance of some one into the Cabinet less hostile than he to the President’s system. It is folly to say that every member of the Cabinet must be presumed to sympathize with the President. Was Mr. Stanton presumed to be in such sympathy?

It is , therefore, it seems to us, unfair in the Tribune to insinuate that General Grant has any sympathy whatever with the President. It does not say so, indeed, openly; but such is the impression it produces. As we have before suggested, this is not the way to defeat General Grant as a Presidential candidate. That must be done, if at all, by showing that the Republican party does not know what he thinks or where he stands. It is evident that in the present situation of the country, which no one probably understands better than General Grant, no man can expect to receive the nomination of the dominant party who is not willing to say that he wholly and heartily agrees with its policy, and feels the necessity of its ascendancy. General Grant has not yet publicly expressed himself upon this point, although all his actions show his general sympathy with that party. It is, therefore, premature both to insist that he must be the candidate and that under no circumstances can he or ought he to be the candidate.