CONKLING AND CURTIS AT ROCHESTER
1877
Two State governments in Louisiana, one under Packard, a Republican,
the other under Nicholls, a Democrat, confronted Hayes upon the day of
his inauguration. The canvassing boards which returned the Hayes
electors also declared the election of Packard as governor, and it
would impeach his own title, it was said, if the President refused
recognition to Packard, who had received the larger popular majority.
It was not unknown that the President contemplated adopting a new
Southern policy. His letter of acceptance presupposed it, and before
the completion of the Electoral Commission's work political and
personal friends had given assurance in a published letter that Hayes
would not continue military intervention in the South.[1555] Moreover,
the President's inaugural address plainly indicated such a purpose. To
inform himself of the extent to which the troops intervened,
therefore, and to harmonise if possible the opposing governments, he
sent a commission to New Orleans,[1556] who reported (April 21) a
returning board quorum in both branches of the Nicholls Legislature
and recommended the withdrawal of the army from the immediate vicinity
of the State House. This was done on April 24 and thenceforward the
Nicholls government controlled in State affairs.[1557]
[Footnote 1555: Letter of Stanley Matthews and Charles Foster, dated
February 17, 1877.--Appleton's _Cyclopædia_, 1877, p. 459.]
[Footnote 1556: This commission consisted of Charles B. Lawrence,
Joseph B. Hawley, John M. Harlan, John C. Brown, and Wayne
McVeigh.--_Ibid._, p. 465.]
[Footnote 1557: _Ibid._, pp. 456-465. Packard became consul to
Liverpool.]
The President's policy quickly created discontent within the ranks of
the Republican party. Many violently resented his action, declaring
his refusal to sustain a governor whose election rested substantially
upon the same foundation as his own as a cowardly surrender to the
South in fulfillment of a bargain between his friends and some
Southern leaders.[1558] Others disclaimed the President's obligation to
continue the military, declaring that it fostered hate, drew the
colour line more deeply, promoted monstrous local misgovernment, and
protected venal adventurers whose system practically amounted to
highway robbery. Furthermore, it did not keep the States under
Republican control, while it identified the Republican name with
vindictive as well as venal power, as illustrated by the Louisiana
Durrell affair in 1872,[1559] in the elections of 1874, and at the
organisation of the Louisiana Legislature early in 1875.[1560]
Notwithstanding these potent reasons for the President's action the
judgment of a majority of his party deemed it an unwise and
unwarranted act, although Grant spoke approvingly of it.[1561]
[Footnote 1558: The commission reported the Packard government's
insistence that the Legislature of 1870 had the power to create a
Returning Board with all the authority with which the Act clothed it,
and that the Supreme Court of the State had affirmed its
constitutionality. On the other hand, the Nichols government admitted
the Legislature's right to confide to a Returning Board the
appointment of electors for President and Vice-President, but denied
its power to modify the constitutional provision for counting the vote
for governor without first amending the State Constitution,
declaring the Supreme Court's decision to the contrary not to be
authoritative.--Appleton's _Cyclopædia_, 1877, pp. 403-404.]
[Footnote 1559: Durrell, a United States Circuit judge, sustained
Kellogg in his contest with McEnery.]
[Footnote 1560: "The President directs me to say that he does not
believe public opinion will longer support the maintenance of the
State government in Louisiana by the use of the military, and he must
concur in this manifest feeling." Grant's telegram to Packard, dated
Mar. 1, 1877.]
[Footnote 1561: New York _Tribune_, July 10, 1877.]
Similar judgment was pronounced upon the President's attempt to
reform the civil service by directing competitive examinations for
certain positions and by forbidding office-holders actively to
participate in political campaigns.[1562] "No officer should be
required or permitted to take part in the management of political
organisations, caucuses, conventions, or election campaigns," he wrote
to the Secretary of the Treasury. "Their right to vote and to express
their views on public questions, either orally or through the press,
is not denied, provided it does not interfere with the discharge of
their official duties. No assessments for political purposes should be
allowed." In a public order dated June 22 he made this rule applicable
to all departments of the civil service. "It should be understood by
every officer of the government that he is expected to conform his
conduct to its requirements."[1563] To show his sincerity the
President also appointed a new Civil Service Commission, with Dorman
B. Eaton at its head, who adopted the rules formulated under Curtis
during the Grant administration, and which were applied with a measure
of thoroughness, especially in the Interior Department under Carl
Schurz, and in the New York post-office, then in charge of Thomas L.
James.
[Footnote 1562: The first step towards a change in the manner of
appointments and removals was a bill introduced in Congress on
December 20, 1865, by Thomas A. Jenckes of Rhode Island "to regulate
the civil service of the United States." A few months later Senator B.
Gratz Brown of Missouri submitted a resolution for "such change in the
civil service as shall secure appointments to the same after previous
examinations by proper Boards, and as shall provide for promotions on
the score of merit or seniority." On March 3, 1871, Congress appended
a section to an appropriation bill, authorising the President to
"prescribe such regulations for the admission of persons into the
civil service as may best promote efficiency therein and ascertain the
fitness of each candidate in respect to age, health, character,
knowledge and ability for the branch of service in which he seeks to
enter; and for this purpose he may employ suitable persons to conduct
such inquiries, prescribe their duties, and establish regulations for
the conduct of persons who may receive appointments." Under this
authority President Grant organised a commission composed of George
William Curtis, Joseph Medill, Alexander C. Cattell, Davidson A.
Walker, E.B. Ellicott, Joseph H. Blackfan, and David C. Cox. This
commission soon found that Congress was indisposed to clothe them with
the requisite power, and although in the three years from 1872 to
1875, they had established the entire soundness of the reform, an
appropriation to continue the work was refused and the labours of the
commission came to an end.]
[Footnote 1563: New York _Tribune_, June 25, 1877.]
This firm and aggressive stand against the so-called spoils system
very naturally aroused the fears of many veteran Republicans of
sincere and unselfish motives, who had used offices to build up and
maintain party organisation, while the order restricting freedom of
political action provoked bitter antagonism, especially among members
of the New York Republican State Committee, several of whom held
important Federal positions. To add to the resentment an official
investigation of the New York custom-house was ordered, which
disclosed "irregularities," said the report, "that indicate the peril
to which government and merchants are exposed by a system of
appointments in which political influence dispenses with fitness for
the work."[1564] The President concurred. "Party leaders should have no
more influence in appointments than other equally respectable
citizens," he said. "It is my wish that the collection of the revenue
should be organised on a strictly business basis, with the same
guarantees for efficiency and fidelity in the selection of the chief
and subordinate officers that would be required by a prudent
merchant."[1565]
[Footnote 1564: New York _Tribune_, July 28, 1877.]
[Footnote 1565: _Ibid._]
The Republican press, in large part, deplored the President's action,
and while managing politicians smothered their real grievance under
attacks upon the Southern policy, they generally assumed an attitude
of armed neutrality and observation.[1566] No doubt the President was
much to blame for this discontent. He tolerated the abuses disclosed
by the investigation in New York, continued a disreputable régime in
Boston, and installed a faction in Baltimore no better than the one
turned out. Besides, the appointment to lucrative offices of the
Republican politicians who took active part in the Louisiana Returning
Board had closely associated him with the spoils system.[1567]
Moreover, his failure to remove offending officials discredited his
own rule and created an unfavourable sentiment, because after
provoking the animosity of office-holders and arousing the public he
left the order to execute itself. Yet the people plainly believed in
the President's policy of conciliation, sympathised with his desire to
reform abuses in the civil service, and honoured him for his
frankness, his patriotism, and his integrity. During the months of
August and September several Republican State conventions, notably
those in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, and New Jersey
commended him, while Maine, under the leadership of Blaine, although
refusing to indorse unqualifiedly the policy and acts of the
Administration, refrained from giving any expression of
disapproval.[1568]
[Footnote 1566: In his speech at Woodstock, Conn., on July 4, Blaine
disapproved the President's action; a gathering of Republicans in New
Jersey, celebrating the return of Robeson from a foreign tour,
indicated an unfriendly disposition; the Camerons of Pennsylvania,
father and son, exhibited dissent; one branch of the New Hampshire
Legislature tabled a resolution approving the President's course; and
an early Republican State convention in Iowa indirectly condemned it.]
[Footnote 1567: In H.R. 45th Cong., 3d Sess., No. 140, p. 48 (Potter
report) is a list of those connected with the Louisiana count
"subsequently appointed to or retained in office."]
[Footnote 1568: These conventions occurred as follows: Ohio, August 2;
Maine, August 9; Pennsylvania, September 6; Wisconsin, September 12;
Massachusetts, September 20; New Jersey, September 25. See New York
papers on the day following each.]
New York's Republican convention assembled at Rochester on September
26. The notable absence of Federal office-holders who had resigned
committeeships and declined political preferment attracted attention,
otherwise the membership of the assembly, composed largely of the
usual array of politicians, provoked no comment. Conkling and Cornell
arrived early and took possession. In 1874 and in 1875 the Senator's
friends fought vigorously for control, but in 1877 the divided
sentiment as to the President's policies and the usual indifference
that follows a Presidential struggle inured to their benefit, giving
them a sufficient majority to do as they pleased.
Thus far Conkling had not betrayed his attitude toward the
Administration. At the time of his departure for Europe in search of
health, when surrounded by the chief Federal officials of the city, he
significantly omitted words of approbation or criticism, and with
equal dexterity avoided the expression of an opinion in the many
welcoming and serenade speeches amidst which his vacation ended in
August. No doubt existed, however, as to his personal feeling. The
selection of Evarts for secretary of state in place of Thomas C. Platt
for postmaster general did not make him happy.[1569] George William
Curtis's ardent support of the President likewise aided in separating
him from the White House. Nevertheless, Conkling's attitude remained a
profound secret until Thomas C. Platt, as temporary chairman, began
the delivery of a carefully prepared speech.
[Footnote 1569: New York _Tribune_, February 28, 1877.]
Platt was then forty-four years old. He was born in Owego, educated at
Yale, and as a man of affairs had already laid the foundation for the
success and deserved prominence that crowned his subsequent business
career. Ambition also took him early into the activities of public
political life, his party having elected him county clerk at the age
of twenty-six and a member of Congress while yet in his thirties. His
friends, attracted by his promise-keeping and truth-telling, included
most of the people of the vicinage. He was not an orator, but he
possessed the resources of tact, simplicity, and bonhomie, which are
serviceable in the management of men.[1570] Moreover, as an organiser
he developed in politics the same capacity for control that he
exhibited in business. He had quickness of decision and flexibility of
mind. There was no vacillation of will, no suspension of judgment, no
procrastination that led to harassing controversy over minor details.
He seemed also as systematic in his political purposes as he was
orderly in his business methods. These characteristic traits, well
marked in 1877, were destined to be magnified in the next two decades
when local leaders recognised that his judgment, his capacity, and his
skill largely contributed to extricate the party from the chaotic
conditions into which continued defeat had plunged it.
[Footnote 1570: "Platt and I imbibed politics with our earliest
nutriment. I was on the stump the year I became a voter, and so was
he. I was doing the part of a campaign orator and he was chief of the
campaign glee club. The speech amounted to little in those days unless
it was assisted by the glee club. In fact the glee club largely drew
the audience and held it. The favorite song of that day was 'John
Brown's Body,' and the very heights of ecstatic applause were reached
when Brother Platt's fine tenor voice rang through the arches of the
building or the trees of the woodland, carrying the refrain, 'We'll
hang Jeff Davis on a sour apple tree, while John Brown's soul goes
marching on.'"--Chauncey M. Depew, _Speeches_, 1896 to 1902, p. 237.]
Conkling early recognised Platt's executive ability, and their
friendship, cemented by likeness of views and an absence of rivalry,
kept them sympathetically together in clearly defined fields of
activity. In a way each supplemented the other. Platt was neither
self-opinionated nor overbearing. He dealt with matters political with
the light touch of a man of affairs, and although without sentiment or
ideals, he worked incessantly, listened attentively, and was anxious
to be useful, without taking the centre of the stage, or repelling
support by affectations of manner. But like Conkling he relied upon
the use of patronage and the iron rule of organisation, and too little
upon the betterment of existing political conditions.
This became apparent when, as temporary chairman, he began to address
the convention. He startled the delegates by calling the distinguished
Secretary of State a "demagogue," and other Republicans who differed
with him "Pecksniffs and tricksters." As he proceeded dissent blended
with applause, and at the conclusion of his speech prudent friends
regretted its questionable taste. In declining to become permanent
president Conkling moved that "the gentleman who has occupied the
chair thus far with the acceptance of us all" be continued. This
aroused the Administration's backers, of whom a roll-call disclosed
110 present.[1571]
[Footnote 1571: The vote stood 311 to 110 in favour of the motion.]
The platform neither approved nor criticised the President's Southern
policy, but expressed the hope that the exercise of his constitutional
discretion to protect a State government against domestic violence
would result in peace, tranquillity, and justice. Civil service reform
was more artfully presented. It favoured fit men, fixed tenure, fair
compensation, faithful performance of duty, frugality in the number of
employés, freedom of political action, and no political assessments.
Moreover, it commended Hayes's declaration in his letter of acceptance
that "the officer should be secure in his tenure so long as his
personal character remained untarnished and the performance of his
duty satisfactory," and recommended "as worthy of consideration,
legislation making officers secure in a limited fixed tenure and
subject to removal only as officers under State laws are removed in
this State on charges to be openly preferred and adjudged."[1572] This
paralleled the President's reform except as to freedom of political
action, and in support of that provision it arrayed a profoundly
impressive statement, showing by statistics that Hayes's order, if
applied to all State, county, and town officials in New York, would
exclude from political action one voter out of every eight and
one-half. If this practical illustration exhibited the weakness of the
President's order it also anticipated what the country afterwards
recognised, that true reform must rest upon competitive examination
for which the Act of March 3, 1871 opened the way, and which President
Hayes had directed for certain positions.
[Footnote 1572: Appleton's _Cyclopædia_, 1877, pp. 562-563.]
But despite the platform's good points, George William Curtis,
construing its failure to endorse the Administration into censure of
the President, quickly offered a resolution declaring Hayes's title to
the presidency as clear and perfect as that of George Washington, and
commending his efforts in the permanent pacification of the South and
for the correction of abuses in the civil service.[1573] Curtis had
never sought political advantage for personal purposes. The day he
drifted away from a clerkship in a business firm and landed among the
philosophers of Brook Farm he became an idealist, whom a German
university and years of leisure travel easily strengthened. So fixed
was his belief of moral responsibility that he preferred, after his
unfortunate connection with _Putnam's Magazine_, to lose his whole
fortune and drudge patiently for sixteen years to pay a debt of
$60,000 rather than invoke the law and escape legal liability. He was
an Abolitionist when abolitionism meant martyrdom; he became a
Republican when others continued Whigs; and he stood for Lincoln and
emancipation in the months of dreadful discouragement preceding
Sheridan's victories in the Shenandoah. He was likewise a civil
service reformer long in advance of a public belief, or any belief at
all, that the custom of changing non-political officers on merely
political grounds impaired the efficiency of the public service,
lowered the standard of political contests, and brought reproach upon
the government and the people. It is not surprising, therefore, that
he stood for a President who sought to re-establish a reform that had
broken down under Grant, and although the effort rested upon an
Executive order, without the permanency of law, he believed that any
attempt to inaugurate a new system should have the undivided support
of the party which had demanded it in convention and had elected a
President pledged to establish it. Moreover, the President had offered
Curtis his choice of the chief missions, expecting him to choose the
English. Remembering Irving in Spain, Bancroft in Germany, Motley in
England, and Marsh in Italy, it was a great temptation. But Curtis,
appreciating his "civic duty," remained at home, and now took this
occasion to voice his support of the Executive who had honoured
him.[1574]
[Footnote 1573: New York _Tribune_, September 27.]
[Footnote 1574: Curtis declined chiefly from the motive ascribed in
Lowell's lines:
"At courts, in senates, who so fit to serve?
And both invited, but you would not swerve,
All meaner prizes waiving that you might
In civic duty spend your heat and light,
Unpaid, untrammelled, with a sweet disdain.
Refusing posts men grovel to attain."
--_Lowell's Poems_, Vol. 4, pp. 138-139.]
His speech, pitched in an exalted key, sparkled with patriotic
utterances and eloquent periods, with an occasional keen allusion to
Conkling. He skilfully contrasted the majority's demand for harmony
with Platt's reference to Evarts as a "demagogue" and to civil service
reform as a "nauseating shibboleth." He declared it would shake the
confidence of the country in the party if, after announcing its
principles, it failed to commend the agent who was carrying them out.
Approval of details was unnecessary. Republicans did not endorse
Lincoln's methods, but they upheld him until the great work of the
martyr was done. In the same spirit they ought to support President
Hayes, who, in obedience to many State and two or three National
conventions, had taken up the war against abuses of the civil service.
If the convention did not concur in all his acts, it should show the
Democratic party that Republicans know what they want and the man by
whom to secure such results.
In speaking of abuses in the civil service he told the story of
Lincoln looking under the bed before retiring to see if a
distinguished senator was waiting to get an office,[1575] referred to
the efforts of Federal officials to defeat his own election to the
convention, and declared that the President, by his order, intended
that a delegate like himself, having only one vote, should not meet
another with one hundred votes in his pocket obtained by means of
political patronage. Instead of the order invading one's rights it was
intended to restore them to the great body of the Republicans of New
York, who now "refuse to enter a convention to be met--not by brains,
not always by mere intelligence, not always by convictions, or by
representative men, but by the forms of power which federal patriots
assume." He did "not believe any eminent Republican, however high his
ambition, however sore his discontent, hoped to carry the Republican
party of the United States against Rutherford B. Hayes. Aye, sir, no
such Republican, unless intoxicated with the flattery of parasites, or
blinded by his own ambition." He spoke of Conkling's interest in
public affairs as beginning contemporaneously with his own, of their
work side by side in 1867, and of their sustaining a Republican
President without agreement in the details of his policy, and he
closed with the prayer that they might yet see the Republican party
fulfilling the hope of true men everywhere, who look to it for
honesty, for reform, and for pacification.[1576]
[Footnote 1575: See Chapter XII., p. 166.]
[Footnote 1576: New York _Tribune_, September 27, 1877.]
Conkling had been waiting for Curtis as the American fleet waited for
the Spanish at Santiago. Curtis had adorned the centre of opposition
until he seemed most to desire what would most disappoint Conkling.
For months prior to the Cincinnati convention _Harper's Weekly_
bristled with reasons that in its opinion unfitted the Senator for
President, and advertised to the country the desire at least of a
large minority of the party in New York to be rid of him. With
consummate skill he unfolded Conkling's record, and emphasised his
defence of the questionable acts that led to a deep distrust of
Republican tendencies. To him the question was not whether a National
convention could be persuaded to adopt the Senator as its candidate,
but whether, "being one of the leaders that had imperilled the party,
it was the true policy for those who patriotically desired Republican
success." Furthermore, Curtis had a habit of asking questions. "With
what great measure of statesmanship is his name conspicuously
identified?"[1577] and, as if this admitted of no reply, he followed it
with more specific inquiries demanding to know "why the Senator had
led a successful opposition to Judge Hoar for the Supreme Bench," and
become "the ardent supporter of Caleb Cushing for chief justice, and
of Alexander Shepherd for commissioner of the District of Columbia?"
These interrogatories seemed to separate him from statesmen of high
degree and to place him among associates for whom upright citizens
should have little respect.
[Footnote 1577: "He [Conkling] never linked his name with any important
principle or policy."--_Political Recollections_, George W. Julian, p.
359.
"Strictly speaking Senator Conkling was not an originator of
legislative measures. He introduced few bills which became laws. He
was not an originator, but a moulder of legislation.... It may be said
that during his last seven years in the Senate, no other member of
that body has, since the time of Webster and Clay, exercised so much
influence on legislation."--Alfred R. Conkling, _Life of Conkling_,
pp. 645-649.]
Nor was this all. The part Greeley took at Chicago to defeat Seward,
Curtis played at Cincinnati to defeat Conkling. He declared him the
especial representative of methods which the best sentiment of the
party repudiated, and asserted that his nomination would chill
enthusiasm, convince men of the hopelessness of reform within the
party, and lose the vote indispensable for the election of the
Republican candidate. If his words were parliamentary, they were not
less offensive. Once only did he strike below the belt. In the event
of the Senator's nomination he said "a searching light would be turned
upon Mr. Conkling's professional relations to causes in which he was
opposed to attorneys virtually named by himself, before judges whose
selection was due to his favour."[1578]
[Footnote 1578: _Harper's Weekly_, March 11, 1876. For other editorials
referred to, see February 5; April 8, 15, 29; May 20; June 3, 17,
1876; March 24; April 21; July 21; August 11; September 22, 1877.]
This thrust penetrated the realm of personal integrity, a
characteristic in which Conkling took great pride. Perhaps the hostile
insinuation attracted more attention because it prompted the public,
already familiar with the occult influences that persuaded Tweed's
judges, to ask why men who become United States judges upon the
request of a political boss should not be tempted into favourable
decisions for the benefactor who practises in their courts? Curtis
implied that something of the kind had happened in Conkling's
professional career. Disappointment at Cincinnati may have made the
presidential candidate sore, but this innuendo rankled, and when he
rose to oppose Curtis's resolution his powerful frame seemed in a
thrill of delight as he began the speech which had been laboriously
wrought out in the stillness of his study.
The contrast in the appearance of the two speakers was most striking.
Curtis, short, compact, punctilious in attire, and exquisitely
cultured, with a soft, musical voice, was capable of the noblest
tenderness. Conkling, tall, erect, muscular, was the very embodiment
of physical vigour, while his large, well-poised head, his strong
nose, handsome eyes, well-cut mouth, and prominent chin, were
expressive of the utmost resolution. The two men also differed as much
in mind as in appearance. Curtis stood for all the force and feeling
that make for liberal progressive principles; Conkling, the product of
a war age, of masterly audacity and inflexible determination,
represented the conservative impulse, with a cynical indifference to
criticism and opposition.
The preface to his attack was brief. This was a State convention to
nominate candidates, he said in substance, and the National
Administration was not a candidate or in question. He repelled the
idea that it suggested or sanctioned such a proceeding, and although
broad hints had been heard that retribution would follow silence, any
one volunteering for such a purpose lacked discretion if not
sincerity. "Who are these men who, in newspapers or elsewhere, are
cracking their whips over me and playing schoolmaster to the party?
They are of various sorts and conditions. Some of them are the
man-milliners, the dilettante and carpet knights of politics, whose
efforts have been expended in denouncing and ridiculing and accusing
honest men.... Some of them are men who, when they could work
themselves into conventions, have attempted to belittle and befoul
Republican administrations and to parade their own thin veneering of
superior purity. Some of them are men who, by insisting that it is
corrupt and bad for men in office to take part in politics, are
striving now to prove that the Republican party has been unclean and
vicious all its life.... Some of these worthies masquerade as
reformers. Their vocation and ministry is to lament the sins of other
people. Their stock in trade is rancid, canting self-righteousness.
They are wolves in sheep's clothing. Their real object is office and
plunder. When Dr. Johnson defined patriotism as the last refuge of a
scoundrel, he was unconscious of the then undeveloped capabilities and
uses of the word reform.... Some of these new-found party overseers
who are at this moment laying down new and strange tenets for
Republicans, have deemed it their duty heretofore, upon no
provocation, to make conventions and all else the vehicle of
disparaging Republican administrations. Some of them sat but yesterday
in Democratic conventions, some have sought nominations at the hands
of Democrats in recent years, and some, with the zeal of neophytes and
bitterness of apostates, have done more than self-respecting Democrats
would do to vilify and slander their government and their
countrymen.... They forget that parties are not built up by
deportment, or by ladies' magazines, or gush.... The grasshoppers in
the corner of a fence, even without a newspaper to be heard in,
sometimes make more noise than the flocks and herds that graze upon a
thousand hills.... For extreme license in criticism of administrations
and of everybody connected with them, broad arguments can no doubt be
found in the files of the journal made famous by the pencil of Nast.
But a convention may not deem itself a chartered libertine of
oracular and pedantic conceits."
Conkling could not comprehend why Republicans of New York should be
thought predisposed to find fault with Hayes. Without their votes he
could not have become the candidate. "Even the member from Richmond
was, I believe, in the end prevailed upon, after much difficulty, to
confer his unique and delicate vote also." New York congressmen, with
few exceptions, heartily supported the measure without which Hayes
would never have been effectually inaugurated. No opposition had come
from New York. What, then, is the meaning and purpose of constantly
accusing Republicans of this State of unfriendly bias? Wanton assaults
had been made upon Republicans, supposed to be inspired by the
champions and advisers of the President. For not doing more in the
campaign of 1876, he, an office-holder, had been denounced by the same
men who now insist that an office-holder may not sign even a notice
for a convention. No utterance hostile to men or measures had
proceeded from him. Not a straw had been laid in the way of any man.
Still he had been persistently assaulted and misrepresented by those
claiming to speak specially for the Administration. A word of greeting
to his neighbours had drawn down bitter and scornful denunciations
because it did not endorse the Administration.
"These anxious and super-serviceable charioteers seem determined to
know nothing but the President and his policy and them crucified....
The meaning of all this is not obscured by the fact that the new
President has been surrounded and courted by men who have long purred
about every new Administration.... Some of these disinterested
patriots and reformers have been since the days of Pierce the friends
and suitors of all Administrations and betrayers of all. The assaults
they incite are somewhat annoying. It would have been a luxury to
unfrock some of them, but it has seemed to me the duty of every
sincere Republican to endure a great deal rather than say anything to
introduce division or controversy into party ranks.... I am for
peace.... I am for everything tending to that end.... I am for one
thing more--the success of the Administration in everything that is
just and wise and real."
The Senator thought Hayes deserved the same support other Republican
administrations had received. Whenever he is right he should be
sustained; whenever misled by unwise or sinister advice, dissent
should be expressed. This right of judgment is the right of every
citizen. He exercised it in Congress under Lincoln and Grant, who
never deemed an honest difference of opinion cause for war or quarrel,
"nor were they afflicted by having men long around them engaged in
setting on newspapers to hound every man who was not officious or
abject in fulsomely bepraising them. The matters suggested by the
pending amendment," he continued, "are not pertinent to this day's
duties, and obviously they are matters of difference. They may promote
personal and selfish aims, but they are hostile to concord and good
understanding between Republicans at a time when they should all be
united everywhere, in purpose and action. Let us agree to put
contentions aside and complete our task. Let us declare the purposes
and methods which should guide the government of our great State."
After this plea for harmony, the Senator commented briefly upon the
remarks of other delegates, complimented Platt, and then turned again
upon Curtis. Being assured that the latter did not refer to him as the
Senator for whom Lincoln looked under the bed, he concluded: "Then I
withhold a statement I intended to make, and I substitute for it a
remark which I hope will not transgress the proprieties or liberties
of this occasion. It is this: If a doubt arose in my mind whether the
member from Richmond intended a covert shot at me, that doubt sprang
from the fact that that member has published, in a newspaper, touching
me, not matters political--political assaults fairly conducted no man
ever heard me complain of--but imputations upon my personal integrity
so injurious and groundless, that as I think of them now, nothing but
the proprieties of the occasion restrain me from denouncing them and
their author as I feel at liberty to do in the walks of private life.
Mr. President, according to that Christian code which I have been
taught, there is no atonement in the thin lacquer of public courtesy,
or of private ceremonial observance, for the offence one man does
another when he violates that provision of the Decalogue, which,
speaking to him, says, 'Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy
neighbour,' and which means thou shalt not do it, whatever thy
personal or political pique or animosity may be. The member from
Richmond did me honour overmuch in an individual if not personal
exhortation wherein he was pleased to run some parallel between
himself and me.... Let me supplement the parallel by recalling a
remark of a great Crusader when Richard of England and Leopold of
Austria had held dispute over the preliminaries of battle: 'Let the
future decide between you, and let it declare for him who carries
furthest into the ranks of the enemy the sword of the cross.'"[1579]
[Footnote 1579: Conkling, _Life of Conkling_, pp. 538-549; New York
_Tribune_, October 1, 1877.]
From a mere reading of this speech it is difficult, if not impossible,
to realise its effect upon those who heard it.[1580] As an oratorical
exhibition the testimony of friends and of foes is alike offered in
its unqualified praise. He spoke distinctly and with characteristic
deliberation, his stateliness of manner and captivating audacity
investing each sentence with an importance that only attaches to the
utterances of a great orator. The withering sneer and the look of
contempt gave character to the sarcasms and bitter invectives which he
scattered with the prodigality of a seed-sower. When he declared
Curtis a "man-milliner," his long, flexible index finger and eyes
ablaze with resentment pointed out the editor as distinctly as if he
had transfixed him with an arrow, while the slowly pronounced
syllables, voiced in a sliding, descending key, gave the title a
cartoon effect. Referring to the parallel in Curtis's peroration, he
laid his hand on his heart, bowed toward his antagonist with mock
reverence, and distorted his face with an expression of ludicrous
scorn. In repelling the innuendo as to his "personal integrity," the
suppressed anger and slowly spoken words seemed to preface a challenge
to mortal combat, and men held their breath until his purpose cleared.
The striking delivery of several keen thrusts fixed them in the
memory. Given in his deep, sonorous tones, one of these ran much as
follows: "When Doc-tor-r-r Ja-a-awnson said that patr-r-riotism-m was
the l-a-w-s-t r-r-refuge of a scoundr-r-rel he ignor-r-red the
enor-r-rmous possibilities of the word r-refa-awr-rm."[1581] Other
sentences, now historic, pleased opponents not less than friends. That
parties are not upheld by "deportment, ladies' magazines, or gush"
instantly caught the audience, as did "the journal made famous by the
pencil of Nast," and the comparison suggested by Edmund Burke of the
noise of "grasshoppers in the corner of a fence even without a
newspaper to be heard in."[1582]
[Footnote 1580: After the death of Thomas B. Reed of Maine, this speech
was found in his scrap-book among the masterpieces of sarcasm and
invective.]
[Footnote 1581: White, _Autobiography_, Vol. 1, p. 171.]
[Footnote 1582: "Because half-a-dozen grasshoppers under a fern make
the field ring with their importunate chink, while thousands of great
cattle beneath the shadow of the British oak chew the cud and are
silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only
inhabitants of the field, that of course they are many in number, or
that, after all, they are other than the little, shrivelled, meagre,
hopping, though loud and troublesome, insects of the hour."--Edmund
Burke. George H. Jennings, _Anecdotal History of the British
Parliament_, p. 159.]
Nevertheless, these moments of accord between speaker and hearers
deepened by contrast the depth of bitterness existing between him and
the friends of the President. His denunciation of Curtis had included
Evarts if not other members of the Administration, and during the
recital of the rhythmical sentences of arraignment dissent mingled
with applause. "He was hissed," said a reporter of long experience,
"as I have never heard any speaker hissed at a convention
before."[1583] A friend to whom Conkling read the speech on the
preceding Sunday pronounced it "too severe," and the nephew excluded
the epithet "man-milliner" from the address as published in his
uncle's biography.[1584] The contemporary press, reflecting the injury
which Conkling's exuberance of denunciation did his cause, told how
its effect withered as soon as oratory and acting had ceased. Within
an hour after its delivery Charles E. Fitch of the Rochester
_Democrat-Chronicle_, voicing the sentiment of the Senator's best
friends, deprecated the attack. Reading the article at the breakfast
table on the following morning, Conkling exclaimed, "the man who wrote
it is a traitor!" It was "the man" not less than the criticism that
staggered him. Fitch was a sincere friend and a writer with a purpose.
His clear, incisive English, often forcible and at times eloquent, had
won him a distinct place in New York journalism, not more by his
editorials than by his work in various fields of literature, and his
thought usually reflected the opinion of the better element of the
party. To Conkling it conveyed the first intimation that many
Republican papers were to pronounce his address unfortunate, since it
exhorted to peace and fomented bitter strife.
[Footnote 1583: New York _Tribune_ (correspondence), September 28.]
[Footnote 1584: Alfred R. Conkling, _Life of Conkling_, p. 540.]
Curtis refused to make public comment, but to Charles Eliot Norton,
his intimate friend, he wrote: "It was the saddest sight I ever knew,
that man glaring at me in a fury of hate, and storming out his foolish
blackguardism. I was all pity. I had not thought him great, but I had
not suspected how small he was. His friends, the best, were
confounded. One of them said to me the next day, 'It was not amazement
that I felt, but consternation.' I spoke offhand and the report is
horrible. Conkling's speech was carefully written out, and therefore
you do not get all the venom, and no one can imagine the
Mephistophelean leer and spite."[1585]
[Footnote 1585: Edward Cary, _Life of Curtis_, p. 258.]
Conkling closed his speech too late at night for other business,[1586]
and in the morning one-half of the delegates had disappeared. Those
remaining occupied less than an hour in the nomination of
candidates.[1587]
[Footnote 1586: Curtis's amendment was defeated by 311 to 110.]
[Footnote 1587: The candidates were: Secretary of State, John C.
Churchill, Oswego; Comptroller, Francis Sylvester, Columbia;
Treasurer, William L. Bostwick, Ithaca; Attorney-General, Grenville
Tremaine, Albany; Engineer, Howard Soule, Onondaga.]