The day after the election I wired Mr. Tilden suggesting that as
Governor of New York he propose to Mr. Hayes, the Governor of Ohio,
that they unite upon a committee of eminent citizens, composed in equal
numbers of the friends of each, who should proceed at once to
Louisiana, which appeared to be the objective point of greatest moment
to the already contested result. Pursuant to a telegraphic
correspondence which followed, I left Louisville that night for New
Orleans. I was joined en route by Mr. Lamar and General Walthal, of
Mississippi, and together we arrived in the Crescent City Friday
morning.
It has since transpired that the Republicans were promptly advised by
the Western Union Telegraph Company of all that had passed over its
wires, my dispatches to Mr. Tilden being read in Republican
headquarters at least as soon as they reached Gramercy Park.
Mr. Tilden did not adopt the plan of a direct proposal to Mr. Hayes.
Instead he chose a body of Democrats to go to the “seat of war.” But
before any of them had arrived General Grant, the actual President,
anticipating what was about to happen, appointed a body of Republicans
for the like purpose, and the advance guard of these appeared on the
scene the following Monday.
Within a week the St. Charles Hotel might have been mistaken for a
caravansary of the national capital. Among the Republicans were John
Sherman, Stanley Matthews, Garfield, Evarts, Logan, Kelley, Stoughton,
and many others. Among the Democrats, besides Lamar, Walthal and
myself, came Lyman Trumbull, Samuel J. Randall, William R. Morrison,
McDonald, of Indiana, and many others.
A certain degree of personal intimacy existed between the members of
the two groups, and the “entente” was quite as unrestrained as might
have existed between rival athletic teams. A Kentucky friend sent me a
demijohn of what was represented as very old Bourbon, and I divided it
with “our friends the enemy.” New Orleans was new to most of the
“visiting statesmen,” and we attended the places of amusement, lived in
the restaurants, and saw the sights as if we had been tourists in a
foreign land and not partisans charged with the business of adjusting a
Presidential election from implacable points of view.
My own relations were especially friendly with John Sherman and James
A. Garfield, a colleague on the Committee of Ways and Means, and with
Stanley Matthews, a near kinsman by marriage, who had stood as an elder
brother to me from my childhood.
Corruption was in the air. That the Returning Board was for sale and
could be bought was the universal impression. Every day some one turned
up with pretended authority and an offer to sell. Most of these were,
of course, the merest adventurers. It was my own belief that the
Returning Board was playing for the best price it could get from the
Republicans and that the only effect of any offer to buy on our part
would be to assist this scheme of blackmail.
The Returning Board consisted of two white men, Wells and Anderson; and
two negroes, Kenner and Casanave. One and all they were without
character. I was tempted through sheer curiosity to listen to a
proposal which seemed to come direct from the board itself, the
messenger being a well-known State Senator. As if he were proposing to
dispose of a horse or a dog he stated his errand.
“You think you can deliver the goods?” said I.
“I am authorized to make the offer,” he answered.
“And for how much?” I asked.
“Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars,” he replied. “One hundred
thousand each for Wells and Anderson, and twenty-five thousand apiece
for the niggers.”
To my mind it was a joke. “Senator,” said I, “the terms are as cheap as
dirt. I don’t happen to have the amount about me at the moment, but I
will communicate with my principal and see you later.”
Having no thought of entertaining the proposal, I had forgotten the
incident, when two or three days later my man met me in the lobby of
the hotel and pressed for a definite reply. I then told him I had found
that I possessed no authority to act and advised him to go elsewhere.
It is asserted that Wells and Anderson did agree to sell and were
turned down by Mr. Hewitt; and, being refused their demands for cash by
the Democrats, took their final pay, at least in patronage, from their
own party.