PRESIDENT HAYES
President Hayes's Administration began under circumstances
of peculiar difficulty. In the first Congress of his term
the Democrats had a majority in the House. They had refused
to pass the Army Appropriation Bill the winter before and
would not consent to such a bill in the following winter without
a condition that no military force should be used to maintain
order at elections, or to keep in power state governments
obnoxious to them. But his worst foes were of his own household.
There were two factions among the Republicans, one led by
Mr. Blaine and the other by Conkling and Cameron. Blaine
and Conkling had been disappointed aspirants for the Presidency.
Mr. Hayes and his advisers were in favor of what was called
reform in the civil service and utterly rejected the claim
of Senators and Representatives to dictate nominations to
executive and judicial offices. With the exception of Stanley
Matthews of Ohio and my colleague, Mr. Dawes, I was, I believe,
the only cordial supporter of the President in the Senate.
Mr. Blaine was disposed, I think, in the beginning, to give
the President his support. But he was rendered exceedingly
indignant by the refusal of President Hayes to appoint Mr.
Frye to a seat in the Cabinet, which Mr. Blaine desired, as
it would smooth the way of Mr. Eugene Hale, his most intimate
friend and strongest supporter, to succeed Mr. Hamlin in
the Senate. President Hayes was willing to appoint Mr. Hale
to a Cabinet office. But Mr. Hale, I think very wisely, declined
the overture, as he had before declined the tender of a seat
in the Cabinet from President Grant. He would have made an
excellent Cabinet officer. But he was specially fitted for
the more agreeable and permanent public service of Senator.
I do not know what occasioned President Hayes's reluctance
to comply with Mr. Blaine's desire. But it was a fortunate
decision for Mr. Frye. If he had gone into the Cabinet,
in all likelihood the people of Maine would have chosen another
Senator when Mr. Blaine became Secretary of State under Garfield
in 1881, and according to the habit of the people of that
State would have continued him in their service. So Mr.
Frye's brilliant and useful career in the Senate would have
been wanting to the history of the Republic.
I had myself something to do with the selection of the Cabinet.
I had been a member of the Convention held at Cincinnati that
had nominated President Hayes. The Massachusetts delegation
had turned the scale between him and Blaine. Their votes
gave him the slender majority to which he owed his nomination.
I had also been a member of the Electoral Commission to which
the contest between him and Tilden had been submitted and
I had been on the committee that framed the bill under which
that Commission was created. I had voted with the Democrats
of the House to support that bill against the judgment of
a large majority of the Republicans. I agreed with President
Hayes in the matter of a reform in the civil service and in
his desire to free the Executive power from the trammel of
senatorial dictation.
I had formed a strong friendship with Mr. McCrary in the House
of Representatives and had earnestly commended him to the
President for appointment to the office of Attorney-General.
I did not expect to make any other recommendation. There
had been an unfortunate estrangement between the Republicans
of Massachusetts and of Maine by reason of the refusal of
the Massachusetts delegation to support Mr. Blaine for the
Presidency. I thought it desirable for the interest of the
Republican Party that that breach should be healed and especially
desirable that the incoming administration, so beset with
difficulty, should have the powerful support of Mr. Blaine
and of those Republicans of whom he was the leader and favorite.
So I thought it best that he should be consulted in the matter
of the selection of a Cabinet officer from New England and
that I should keep aloof.
But the day after President Hayes's inauguration, rather
late in the afternoon, Mr. Blaine came into the Senate Chamber
and told me with some appearance of excitement that he thought
the President wanted to see the Massachusetts Senators. I
did not, however, act upon that message, and did not go to
the White House that day. I was at my room in the evening
when Senator Morrill of Vermont came and told me that President
Hayes wished him to inquire of me what Massachusetts man I
desired to have appointed to a place in the Cabinet. I told
Mr. Morrill that there were two gentlemen of great capacity
and high character, either of whom would make an excellent
Cabinet officer. One of them was William B. Washburn, and
the other Alexander H. Rice. Each of them had held the office
of Governor of the Commonwealth, and each of them had been
a very eminent member of the House of Representatives. But
I said that each belonged to what might be called a separate
faction or division in the Republican Party, and the appointment
of either would be distasteful to some of the supporters of
the other. I added that there was one man of whom I thought
very highly indeed, an intimate friend of mine, whose appointment
I thought would give pleasure to everybody in Massachusetts.
That was General Charles Devens, then Judge of the Supreme
Court, a very eminent advocate and orator, and one of the
most distinguished soldiers the State had sent into the war.
Mr. Morrill went back to the President with the message.
Early the next morning I received notice from the White
House that the President wished to see me. I complied with
his desire at once. Mr. Dawes had also been sent for and
was there. The President said he could offer General Devens
the Department of War, or perhaps the Navy. Mr. Dawes thought
that he would not be willing to accept the latter. I told
the President that I thought he would; that General Devens
was a native of Charlestown. He had always taken a great
interest in the Navy. He had known a great many of the old
and famous naval officers, and some of his near relatives
had been in that service. But the President finally authorized
me to send a telegram to General Devens offering him the Department
of War. I sent the telegram and requested Devens to come
at once to Washington, which he did. At the same time, the
President stated his purpose to offer Mr. McCrary the Department
of Justice. In the course of the day, however, it was reported
to the President that Mr. McCrary had formed a decided opinion
in favor of the McGarrahan claim, a claim which affected large
and valuable mining properties in California. Most persons
who had investigated the claim believed it to be utterly fraudulent.
There were many persons of great influence who were interested
in the mining property affected. They strongly appealed to
the President not to place in the office of Attorney-General
a man who was committed in favor of the claim. The President
then asked me if I thought General Devens would be willing
to accept the office of Attorney-General, and exchange it
for that of Secretary of War later, when the McGarrahan claim
had been disposed of so far as Executive action was concerned.
I told the President that I thought he would. When General
Devens arrived I stated the case to him. He said he should
be unwilling to agree to such an arrangement. He would be
willing to accept the office in the beginning, but if he were
to give up the office of Attorney-General after having once
undertaken it, he might be thought to have failed to discharge
his duties to the satisfaction of the President, or that of
the public. He was unwilling to take that risk.
So the President determined to offer the Department of Justice
to General Devens, and the Department of War to Mr. McCrary,
a good deal to the disappointment of the latter. All McCrary's
ambitions in life were connected with his profession. He
took the first opportunity to leave the Executive Department
for a judicial career.
The other members of the Cabinet were: William M. Evarts,
Secretary of State; John Sherman, Secretary of the Treasury;
Carl Schurz, Secretary of the Interior; David M. Key, Postmaster-
General; Richard M. Thompson, of Indiana, Secretary of the
Navy.
President Hayes was a simple-hearted, sincere, strong and
wise man. He is the only President of the United States who
promised, when he was a candidate for office, not to be a
candidate again, who kept his pledge. He carried out the
principles of Civil Service Reform more faithfully than any
other President before or since down to the accession of President
Roosevelt. General Grant in his "Memoirs" praises the soldierly
quality of President Hayes very highly. He was made Brigadier-
General on the recommendation of Sheridan, and brevetted Major-
General for gallant and distinguished services. He wrote,
after the Presidential election, to John Sherman, as follows:
"You feel, I am sure, as I do about this whole business. A
fair election would have given us about forty electoral votes
at the South, at least that many; but we must not allow our
friends to defeat one outrage by another. There must be
nothing curved on our part. Let Mr. Tilden have the place
by violence, intimidation and fraud rather than undertake
to prevent it by means that will not bear the severest scrutiny."
He upheld the good faith of the nation in his veto of the
bill to authorize the coinage of the silver dollar of 412-1/2
grains, and to restore its legal tender character in 1879; and
in his veto of the bill violating our treaty with China. He
grew steadily in public favor with all parties, and with all
parts of the country, as his Administration went on. Under
his Administration the resumption of specie payments was accomplished;
and, in spite of the great difficulties caused by the factional
opposition in his own party, he handed down his office to
a Republican successor.
The weakness and folly of the charge against the decision
of the Electoral Commission, that it was unconstitutional
or fraudulent, and the fact that the American people were
never impressed by these charges, is shown by the fact that
General Garfield, one of the majority who gave that decision,
was elected to succeed President Hayes, and that six of the
eight members of that majority, now dead, maintained, every
one them, throughout their honored and useful lives, the respect
and affection of their countrymen, without distinction of
party. Certainly there can be found among the great men of
that great generation no more pure and brilliant lights than
Samuel F. Miller, William Strong, Joseph P. Bradley, Frederick
T. Frelinghuysen, Oliver P. Morton and James A. Garfield.
There are two survivors of that majority, Mr. Edmunds and
myself. Neither has found that the respect in which his countrymen
held him has been diminished by that decision.
President Hayes has been accused of abandoning the reconstruction
policy of his party. It has also been said that he showed
a want of courage in failing to support the Republican State
Governments in Louisiana and South Carolina; that if the votes
of those States were cast for him they were cast for Packard
and Chamberlain at the elections for Governor held the same
day, and that he should have declined the Presidency, or have
maintained these Governors in place. But these charges are,
at the least, inconsiderate, not the say ignorant. It ought
to be said also that President Grant before he left office
had determined to do in regard to these State Governments
exactly what Hayes afterward did, and that Hayes acted with
his full approval. Second, I have the authority of President
Garfield for saying that Mr. Blaine had come to the same
conclusion. The Monday morning after the electoral count
had been completed and the result declared, Blaine had a long
talk with Garfield, which Garfield reported to me. He told
him that he had made up his mind, if he had been elected,
to offer the office of Secretary of State to Mr. Evarts,
or, if anything prevented that, to Judge Hoar. He further
said that he thought it was time to discontinue maintaining
Republican State Governments in office by the National power
and that the people of the Southern States must settle their
State elections for themselves. Mr. Blaine by his disappointment
in the formation of President Hayes's Cabinet was induced
to make an attack on him which seems inconsistent with this
declaration. But Mr. Blaine soon abandoned this ground,
and, so far as I now remember, never afterward advocated interference
with the control of the Southern States by National authority.
It seems to me that President Hayes did only what his duty
under the Constitution peremptorily demanded of him. I entirely
approved his conduct at the time, and, so far as I know and
believe, he agreed exactly with the doctrine on which I always
myself acted before and since. The power and duty of the
President are conferred and limited by the Constitution. The
Constitution requires that no appropriation shall be made
for the support of the Army for more than two years. In practice
the appropriation is never for more than one year. That is
for the express purpose, I have always believed, of giving
to Congress, especially to the House of Representatives, which
must inaugurate all appropriation bills, absolute control
over the use of the Army, and the power to determine for what
purposes the military power shall be used. At the session
before President Hayes's inauguration the Democratic House
of Representatives had refused to pass an Army Bill. The
House refused to pass an Army Bill the next year, except on
condition that the soldiers should not be used to support
the State Government.
It became necessary to call a special session of Congress
in October, 1877, by reason of the failure of the Army Appropriation
Bill the winter before. The first chapter of the Statutes
of that session, being an act making appropriations for the
support of the Army for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1878,
and for other purposes, enacts "that none of the money hereby
appropriated shall be expended, directly or indirectly, for
any use not strictly necessary for, and directly connected
with, the military service of the Government; and this restriction
shall apply to the use of public animals, forage, and vehicles."
It was, therefore, President Hayes's Constitutional duty,
in my judgment, to desist from using the military power of
the Government on the 30th day of June, 1877, when the fiscal
year expired for which there was an appropriation for the
support of the Army. In fact he removed the troops a little
earlier. But he received assurances from the Democratic leaders--
whether they were made good I will not now undertake to inquire--
that there should be no unlawful force on their part after
the removal of the troops. Mr. Hayes was right and wise
in securing this stipulation if he could, by freeing these
communities from military grasp a few weeks before he would
have been compelled to do it at any rate. Obedience to this
clear mandate of Constitutional duty was not in the least
inconsistent with a faithful and vigorous use of all the other
powers which were lodged in his hands by the Constitution
for securing the rights of the colored people, or the purity
and integrity of National elections. It is true that substantially
the same vote elected Packard of Louisiana as that which chose
the Hayes electors. But the authority to declare who is the
President lawfully chosen, and the Constitutional power to
maintain the Governor in his seat by force are lodged in
very different hands. The latter can only be used by the
National Executive under the circumstances specially described
in the Constitution, and it can never be used by him for any
considerable period of time contrary to the will of Congress,
and without powers put in his hands by legislation which must
originate in the body which represents the people.
The infinite sweetness and tact of his wife contributed greatly
to the success of the Administration of President Hayes. She
was a woman of great personal beauty. Her kindness of heart
knew no difference between the most illustrious and the humblest
of her guests. She accomplished what would have been impossible
to most women, the maintenance of a gracious and delightful
hospitality while strictly adhering to her principles of total
abstinence, and rigorously excluding all wines and intoxicating
liquors from the White House during her administration. The
old wine drinkers of Washington did not take to the innovation
very kindly. But they had to console themselves with a few
jests or a little grumbling. The caterer or chef in charge
of the State dinners took compassion on the infirmity of our
nature so far as to invent for one of the courses which came
about midway of the State dinner, a box made of the frozen
skin of an orange. When it was opened you found instead of
the orange a punch or sherbet into which as much rum was crowded
as it could contain without being altogether liquid. This
was known as the life-saving station.
Somebody who met Mr. Evarts just after he had been at a dinner
at the White House asked him how it went off. "Excellently,"
was the reply, "the water flowed like champagne."