The nomination of Horace Greeley in 1872 and the overwhelming defeat that
followed left the Democratic party in an abyss of despair. The old Whig
party, after the disaster that overtook it in 1852, had been not more
demoralized. Yet in the general elections of 1874 the Democrats swept the
country, carrying many Northern States and sending a great majority to the
Forty-fourth Congress.
Reconstruction was breaking down of its very weight and rottenness. The
panic of 1873 reacted against the party in power. Dissatisfaction with
Grant, which had not sufficed two years before to displace him, was growing
apace. Favoritism bred corruption and corruption grew more and more
flagrant. Succeeding scandals cast their shadows before. Chickens of
carpetbaggery let loose upon the South were coming home to roost at the
North. There appeared everywhere a noticeable subsidence of the sectional
spirit. Reform was needed alike in the State Governments and the National
Government, and the cry for reform proved something other than an idle
word. All things made for Democracy.
Yet there were many and serious handicaps. The light and leading of the
historic Democratic party which had issued from the South were in obscurity
and abeyance, while most of those surviving who had been distinguished in
the party conduct and counsels were disabled by act of Congress. Of the few
prominent Democrats left at the North many were tainted by what was called
Copperheadism--sympathy with the Confederacy. To find a chieftain wholly
free from this contamination, Democracy, having failed of success in
presidential campaigns, not only with Greeley but with McClellan and
Seymour, was turning to such Republicans as Chase, Field and Davis. At last
heaven seemed to smile from the clouds upon the disordered ranks and to
summon thence a man meeting the requirements of the time. This was Samuel
Jones Tilden.
To his familiars Mr. Tilden was a dear old bachelor who lived in a fine old
mansion in Gramercy Park. Though 60 years old he seemed in the prime of
his manhood; a genial and overflowing scholar; a trained and earnest
doctrinaire; a public-spirited, patriotic citizen, well known and highly
esteemed, who had made fame and fortune at the bar and had always been
interested in public affairs. He was a dreamer with a genius for business,
a philosopher yet an organizer. He pursued the tenor of his life with
measured tread.
His domestic fabric was disfigured by none of the isolation and squalor
which so often attend the confirmed celibate. His home life was a model
of order and decorum, his home as unchallenged as a bishopric, its
hospitality, though select, profuse and untiring. An elder sister presided
at his board, as simple, kindly and unostentatious, but as methodical as
himself. He was a lover of books rather than music and art, but also of
horses and dogs and out-of-door activity.
He was fond of young people, particularly of young girls; he drew them
about him, and was a veritable Sir Roger de Coverley in his gallantries
toward them and his zeal in amusing them and making them happy. His
tastes were frugal and their indulgence was sparing. He took his wine not
plenteously, though he enjoyed it--especially his "blue seal" while
it lasted--and sipped his whisky-and-water on occasion with a pleased
composure redolent of discursive talk, of which, when he cared to lead
the conversation, he was a master. He had early come into a great legal
practice and held a commanding professional position. His judgment was
believed to be infallible; and it is certain that after 1871 he rarely
appeared in the courts of law except as counsellor, settling in chambers
most of the cases that came to him.
It was such a man whom, in 1874, the Democrats nominated for Governor of
New York. To say truth, it was not thought by those making the nomination
that he had any chance to win. He was himself so much better advised that
months ahead he prefigured very near the exact vote. The afternoon of the
day of election one of the group of friends, who even thus early had the
Presidency in mind, found him in his library confident and calm.
"What majority will you have?" he asked cheerily.
"Any," replied the friend sententiously.
"How about fifteen thousand?"
"Quite enough."
"Twenty-five thousand?"
"Still better."
"The majority," he said, "will be a little in excess of fifty thousand."
It was 53,315. His estimate was not guesswork. He had organized his
campaign by school districts. His canvass system was perfect, his
canvassers were as penetrating and careful as census takers. He had before
him reports from every voting precinct in the State. They were corroborated
by the official returns. He had defeated Gen. John A. Dix, thought to be
invincible by a majority very nearly the same as that by which Governor Dix
had been elected two years before.
V
The time and the man had met. Though Mr. Tilden had not before held
executive office he was ripe and ready for the work. His experience in the
pursuit and overthrow of the Tweed Ring in New York, the great metropolis,
had prepared and fitted him to deal with the Canal Ring at Albany, the
State capital. Administrative reform was now uppermost in the public mind,
and here in the Empire State of the Union had come to the head of affairs
a Chief Magistrate at once exact and exacting, deeply versed not only in
legal lore but in a knowledge of the methods by which political power
was being turned to private profit and of the men--Democrats as well as
Republicans--who were preying upon the substance of the people.
The story of the two years that followed relates to investigations that
investigated, to prosecutions that convicted, to the overhauling of popular
censorship, to reduced estimates and lower taxes.
The campaign for the Presidential nomination began as early as the autumn
of 1875. The Southern end of it was easy enough. A committee of Southerners
residing in New York was formed. Never a leading Southern man came to town
who was not "seen." If of enough importance he was taken to No. 15 Gramercy
Park. Mr. Tilden measured to the Southern standard of the gentleman in
politics. He impressed the disfranchised Southern leaders as a statesman
of the old order and altogether after their own ideas of what a President
ought to be.
The South came to St. Louis, the seat of the National Convention,
represented by its foremost citizens, and almost a unit for the Governor of
New York. The main opposition sprang from Tammany Hall, of which John Kelly
was then the chief. Its very extravagance proved an advantage to Tilden.
Two days before the meeting of the convention I sent this message to Mr.
Tilden: "Tell Blackstone"--his favorite riding horse--"that he wins in a
walk."
The anti-Tilden men put up the Hon. S.S.--"Sunset"--Cox for temporary
chairman. It was a clever move. Mr. Cox, though sure for Tammany, was
popular everywhere and especially at the South. His backers thought that
with him they could count a majority of the National Committee.
The night before the assembling Mr. Tilden's two or three leading friends
on the committee came to me and said: "We can elect you chairman over Cox,
but no one else."
I demurred at once. "I don't know one rule of parliamentary law from
another," I said.
"We will have the best parliamentarian on the continent right by you all
the time," they said.
"I can't see to recognize a man on the floor of the convention," I said.
"We'll have a dozen men at hand to tell you," they replied. So it was
arranged, and thus at the last moment I was chosen.
I had barely time to write the required keynote speech, but not enough to
commit it to memory; nor sight to read it, even had I been willing to adopt
that mode of delivery. It would not do to trust to extemporization. A
friend, Col. J. Stoddard Johnston, who was familiar with my penmanship,
came to the rescue. Concealing my manuscript behind his hat he lined the
words out to me between the cheering, I having mastered a few opening
sentences.
Luck was with me. It went with a bang--not, however, wholly without
detection. The Indianans, devoted to Hendricks, were very wroth.
"See that fat man behind the hat telling him what to say," said one to his
neighbor, who answered, "Yes, and wrote it for him, too, I'll be bound!"
One might as well attempt to drive six horses by proxy as preside over a
national convention by hearsay. I lost my parliamentarian at once. I
just made my parliamentary law as we went. Never before or since did any
deliberate body proceed under manual so startling and original. But
I delivered each ruling with a resonance--it were better called an
impudence--which had an air of authority. There was a good deal of quiet
laughter on the floor among the knowing ones, though I knew the mass was
as ignorant as I was myself; but realizing that I meant to be just and was
expediting business the convention soon warmed to me, and feeling this I
began to be perfectly at home. I never had a better day's sport in all my
life.
One incident was particularly amusing. Much against my will and over my
protest I was brought to promise that Miss Phoebe Couzins, who bore a
Woman's Rights Memorial, should at some opportune moment be given the floor
to present it. I foresaw what a row it was bound to occasion.
Toward noon, when there was a lull in the proceedings, I said with an
emphasis meant to carry conviction: "Gentlemen of the convention, Miss
Phoebe Couzins, a representative of the Woman's Association of America, has
a memorial from that body, and in the absence of other business the chair
will now recognize her."
Instantly and from every part of the hall arose cries of "No!" These put
some heart into me. Many a time as a schoolboy I had proudly declaimed the
passage from John Home's tragedy, "My Name is Norval." Again I stood upon
"the Grampian hills." The committee was escorting Miss Couzins down the
aisle. When she came within the radius of my poor vision I saw that she was
a beauty and dressed to kill.
That was reassurance. Gaining a little time while the hall fairly rocked
with its thunder of negation I laid the gavel down and stepped to the edge
of the platform and gave Miss Couzins my hand.
As she appeared above the throng there was a momentary "Ah!" and then a
lull, broken by a single voice:
"Mister Chairman. I rise to a point of order."
Leading Miss Couzins to the front of the stage I took up the gavel and gave
a gentle rap, saying: "The gentleman will take his seat."
"But, Mister Chairman, I rose to a point of order," he vociferated.
"The gentleman will take his seat instantly," I answered in a tone of one
about to throw the gavel at his head. "No point of order is in order when a
lady has the floor."
After that Miss Couzins received a positive ovation and having delivered
her message retired in a blaze of glory.