The Electoral Commission Bill was considered with great secrecy by the
joint committees of the House and Senate. Its terms were in direct
contravention of Mr. Tilden’s plan. This was simplicity itself. He was
for asserting by formal resolution the conclusive right of the two
Houses acting concurrently to count the electoral vote and determine
what should be counted as electoral votes; and for denying, also by
formal resolution, the pretension set up by the Republicans that the
President of the Senate had lawful right to assume that function. He
was for urging that issue in debate in both Houses and before the
country. He thought that if the attempt should be made to usurp for the
president of the Senate a power to make the count, and thus practically
to control the Presidential election, the scheme would break down in
process of execution.
Strange to say, Mr. Tilden was not consulted by the party leaders in
Congress until the fourteenth of January, and then only by Mr. Hewitt,
the extra constitutional features of the electoral-tribunal measure
having already received the assent of Mr. Bayard and Mr. Thurman, the
Democratic members of the Senate committee.
Standing by his original plan and answering Mr. Hewitt’s statement that
Mr. Bayard and Mr. Thurman were fully committed, Mr. Tilden said: “Is
it not, then, rather late to consult me?”
To which Mr. Hewitt replied: “They do not consult you. They are public
men, and have their own duties and responsibilities. I consult you.”
In the course of the discussion with Mr. Hewitt which followed Mr.
Tilden said: “If you go into conference with your adversary, and can’t
break off because you feel you must agree to something, you cannot
negotiate—you are not fit to negotiate. You will be beaten upon every
detail.”
Replying to the apprehension of a collision of force between the
parties Mr. Tilden thought it exaggerated, but said: “Why surrender
now? You can always surrender. Why surrender before the battle for fear
you may have to surrender after the battle?”
In short, Mr. Tilden condemned the proceeding as precipitate. It was a
month before the time for the count, and he saw no reason why
opportunity should not be given for consideration and consultation by
all the representatives of the people. He treated the state of mind of
Bayard and Thurman as a panic in which they were liable to act in haste
and repent at leisure. He stood for publicity and wider discussion,
distrusting a scheme to submit such vast interests to a small body
sitting in the Capitol as likely to become the sport of intrigue and
fraud.
Mr. Hewitt returned to Washington and without communicating to Mr.
Tilden’s immediate friends in the House his attitude and objection,
united with Mr. Thurman and Mr. Bayard in completing the bill and
reporting it to the Democratic Advisory Committee, as, by a caucus
rule, had to be done with all measures relating to the great issue then
before us. No intimation had preceded it. It fell like a bombshell upon
the members of the committee.
In the debate that followed Mr. Bayard was very insistent, answering
the objections at once offered by me, first aggressively and then
angrily, going the length of saying, “If you do not accept this plan I
shall wash my hands of the whole business, and you can go ahead and
seat your President in your own way.”
Mr. Randall, the Speaker, said nothing, but he was with me, as were a
majority of my colleagues. It was Mr. Hunton, of Virginia, who poured
oil on the troubled waters, and somewhat in doubt as to whether the
changed situation had changed Mr. Tilden I yielded my better judgment,
declaring it as my opinion that the plan would seat Hayes; and there
being no other protestant the committee finally gave a reluctant
assent.
In open session a majority of Democrats favored the bill. Many of them
made it their own. They passed it. There was belief that Justice David
Davis, who was expected to become a member of the commission, was sure
for Tilden. If, under this surmise, he had been, the political
complexion of “8 to 7” would have been reversed.
Elected to the United States Senate from Illinois, Judge Davis declined
to serve, and Mr. Justice Bradley was chosen for the commission in his
place.
The day after the inauguration of Hayes my kinsman, Stanley Matthews,
said to me: “You people wanted Judge Davis. So did we. I tell you what
I know, that Judge Davis was as safe for us as Judge Bradley. We
preferred him because he carried more weight.”
The subsequent career of Judge Davis in the Senate gave conclusive
proof that this was true.
When the consideration of the disputed votes before the commission had
proceeded far enough to demonstrate the likelihood that its final
decision would be for Hayes a movement of obstruction and delay, a
filibuster, was organized by about forty Democratic members of the
House. It proved rather turbulent than effective. The South stood very
nearly solid for carrying out the agreement in good faith.
Toward the close the filibuster received what appeared formidable
reinforcement from the Louisiana delegation. This was in reality merely
a bluff, intended to induce the Hayes people to make certain
concessions touching their State government. It had the desired effect.
Satisfactory assurances having been given, the count proceeded to the
end—a very bitter end indeed for the Democrats.
The final conference between the Louisianans and the accredited
representatives of Mr. Hayes was held at Wormley’s Hotel and came to be
called “the Wormley Conference.” It was the subject of uncommon
interest and heated controversy at the time and long afterward. Without
knowing why or for what purpose, I was asked to be present by my
colleague, Mr. Ellis, of Louisiana, and later in the day the same
invitation came to me from the Republicans through Mr. Garfield.
Something was said about my serving as a referee.
Just before the appointed hour Gen. M. C. Butler, of South Carolina,
afterward so long a Senator in Congress, said to me: “This meeting is
called to enable Louisiana to make terms with Hayes. South Carolina is
as deeply concerned as Louisiana, but we have nobody to represent us in
Congress and hence have not been invited. South Carolina puts herself
in your hands and expects you to secure for her whatever terms are
given to Louisiana.”
So of a sudden I found myself invested with responsibility equally as
an agent and a referee.
It is hardly worth while repeating in detail all that passed at this
Wormley Conference, made public long ago by Congressional
investigation. When I entered the apartment of Mr. Evarts at Wormley’s
I found, besides Mr. Evarts, Mr. John Sherman, Mr. Garfield, Governor
Dennison, and Mr. Stanley Matthews, of the Republicans; and Mr. Ellis,
Mr. Levy, and Mr. Burke, Democrats of Louisiana. Substantially the
terms had been agreed upon during the previous conferences—that is, the
promise that if Hayes came in the troops should be withdrawn and the
people of Louisiana be left free to set their house in order to suit
themselves. The actual order withdrawing the troops was issued by
President Grant two or three days later, just as he was going out of
office.
“Now, gentlemen,” said I, half in jest, “I am here to represent South
Carolina; and if the terms given to Louisiana are not equally applied
to South Carolina I become a filibuster myself to-morrow morning.”
There was some chaffing as to what right I had there and how I got in,
when with great earnestness Governor Dennison, who had been the bearer
of a letter from Mr. Hayes, which he had read to us, put his hand on my
shoulder and said: “As a matter of course the Southern policy to which
Mr. Hayes has here pledged himself embraces South Carolina as well as
Louisiana.”
Mr. Sherman, Mr. Garfield and Mr. Evarts concurred warmly in this, and
immediately after we separated I communicated the fact to General
Butler.
In the acrimonious discussion which subsequently sought to make
“bargain, intrigue and corruption” of this Wormley Conference, and to
involve certain Democratic members of the House who were nowise party
to it but had sympathized with the purpose of Louisiana and South
Carolina to obtain some measure of relief from intolerable local
conditions, I never was questioned or assailed. No one doubted my
fidelity to Mr. Tilden, who had been promptly advised of all that
passed and who approved what I had done.
Though “conscripted,” as it were, and rather a passive agent, I could
see no wrong in the proceeding. I had spoken and voted in favor of the
Electoral Tribunal Bill, and losing, had no thought of repudiating its
conclusions. Hayes was already as good as seated. If the States of
Louisiana and South Carolina could save their local autonomy out of the
general wreck there seemed no good reason to forbid.
On the other hand, the Republican leaders were glad of an opportunity
to make an end of the corrupt and tragic farce of Reconstruction; to
unload their party of a dead weight which had been burdensome and was
growing dangerous; mayhap to punish their Southern agents, who had
demanded so much for doctoring the returns and making an exhibit in
favor of Hayes.
X
Mr. Tilden accepted the result with equanimity.
“I was at his house,” says John Bigelow, “when his exclusion was
announced to him, and also on the fourth of March when Mr. Hayes was
inaugurated, and it was impossible to remark any change in his manner,
except perhaps that he was less absorbed than usual and more interested
in current affairs.”
His was an intensely serious mind; and he had come to regard the
presidency as rather a burden to be borne—an opportunity for public
usefulness—involving a life of constant toil and care, than as an
occasion for personal exploitation and rejoicing.
How much of captivation the idea of the presidency may have had for him
when he was first named for the office I cannot say, for he was as
unexultant in the moment of victory as he was unsubdued in the hour of
defeat; but it is certainly true that he gave no sign of disappointment
to any of his friends.
He lived nearly ten years longer, at Greystone, in a noble homestead he
had purchased for himself overlooking the Hudson River, the same ideal
life of the scholar and gentleman that he had passed in Gramercy Park.
Looking back over these untoward and sometimes mystifying events, I
have often asked myself: Was it possible, with the elements what they
were, and he himself what he was, to seat Mr. Tilden in the office to
which he had been elected? The missing ingredient in a character
intellectually and morally great and a personality far from
unimpressive, was the touch of the dramatic discoverable in most of the
leaders of men; even in such leaders as William of Orange and Louis XI;
as Cromwell and Washington.
There was nothing spectacular about Mr. Tilden. Not wanting the sense
of humor, he seldom indulged it. In spite of his positiveness of
opinion and amplitude of knowledge he was always courteous and
deferential in debate. He had none of the audacious daring, let us say,
of Mr. Elaine, the energetic self-assertion of Mr. Roosevelt. Either in
his place would have carried all before him.
I repeat that he was never a subtle schemer—sitting behind the screen
and pulling his wires—which his political and party enemies discovered
him to be as soon as he began to get in the way of the machine and
obstruct the march of the self-elect. His confidences were not
effusive, nor their subjects numerous. His deliberation was unfailing
and sometimes it carried the idea of indecision, not to say actual love
of procrastination. But in my experience with him I found that he
usually ended where he began, and it was nowise difficult for those
whom he trusted to divine the bias of his mind where he thought it best
to reserve its conclusions.
I do not think in any great affair he ever hesitated longer than the
gravity of the case required of a prudent man or that he had a
preference for delays or that he clung tenaciously to both horns of the
dilemma, as his training and instinct might lead him to do, and did
certainly expose him to the accusation of doing.
He was a philosopher and took the world as he found it. He rarely
complained and never inveighed. He had a discriminating way of
balancing men’s good and bad qualities and of giving each the benefit
of a generous accounting, and a just way of expecting no more of a man
than it was in him to yield. As he got into deeper water his stature
rose to its level, and from his exclusion from the presidency in 1877
to his renunciation of public affairs in 1884 and his death in 1886 his
walks and ways might have been a study for all who would learn life’s
truest lessons and know the real sources of honor, happiness and fame.
[Illustration: Henry Watterson—Fifty Years Ago]