In this comment there is now general concurrence. Even Ross has been

immortalized by his resolute adherence to what he believed to be right.

His trial was the hardest of all, because on the one hand he had no

accumulated reputation to fall back upon, and on the other hand he had

the most radical state in the Union to deal with. Moreover, he was

desperately poor, his only property being a starving country newspaper.

Ill-luck followed him after his term expired. A cyclone struck the town

of Coffeyville, Kansas, and scattered the contents of his newspaper

office over the adjacent prairie. Among the Trumbull papers is an appeal

from the local relief committee for help to start Ross's newspaper

again, and a donation from Trumbull of two hundred dollars for this

purpose. Some forty years later, Ross died in New Mexico, old and poor.

He had been a soldier in the Civil War. Congress by a special act voted

him a pension, before his death. This was a solace on the brink of the

grave and a tribute to his fidelity to principle in a trying hour. It

was recognized as such and applauded by the press of the country without

a discordant note. In the award of credit for adherence to convictions

of duty in the trial of Andrew Johnson, three other Senators have been

for the most part overlooked, namely, James Dixon, of Connecticut, James

R. Doolittle, of Wisconsin, and Daniel S. Norton, of Minnesota. All of

these were elected as Republicans and all of them walked in the fiery

furnace along with the Seven, or rather preceded them thither. The

reason why they have been neglected by the muse of history is that they

started two years earlier. They went to the Philadelphia Arm-in-Arm

Convention and thus became classified as Democrats. Edgar Cowan, of

Pennsylvania, did likewise. His term expired, however, before

impeachment reached the acute stage. Dixon and Doolittle had served

through Lincoln's entire term. They approved of his Reconstruction

policy and simply adhered to it after Johnson came in. They received a

larger share of contumely as turn-coats and outcasts than the Seven,

because they began to earn that distinction earlier. Doolittle accepted

political martyrdom without a murmur. The legislature of Wisconsin

passed resolutions denouncing his support of President Johnson and his

policy and demanded his resignation as a Senator, and these resolutions

were presented to the Senate by his colleague, Timothy O. Howe, and were

answered by Doolittle on the floor of the Senate in a manly way. If

there are laurels to be distributed at this late day, he and his three

allies are entitled to "a far more exceeding and eternal weight of

glory."

Trumbull received his quota of abuse and vilification for his vote

against impeachment from small-minded newspapers and local politicians.

To these it seemed an infernal shame that he had still five years to

serve in the Senate before they could turn him out. The only reply he

ever made in writing, so far as I know, was in a letter dated May 20 to

Gustave Koerner, which the latter caused to be published in the

Belleville _Advocate_, reiterating in brief the views expressed in his

opinion as a member of the court.

Fessenden's unexpired term was shorter than Trumbull's. He was read out

of the party rather prematurely. In the autumn following his vote on

impeachment, George H. Pendleton, of Ohio, made his appearance as a

stump speaker in Maine supporting the Democratic policy of "paying the

bonds in greenbacks." This was a new issue in the East, and a rather

puzzling one everywhere. Pendleton had been a candidate for the

presidency in the national convention on that platform, but had fallen

somewhat short of a nomination. Fessenden was the only man within reach

able to meet him and expose his fallacies on the stump. The party was in

danger of losing the state. It was obliged to call for the Senator's

help. He responded favorably, took the field and routed the Greenbackers

completely. This was his last victory. He had been in poor health for

some years. Overwork and over-anxiety as chairman of the Finance

Committee during the War, and later as Secretary of the Treasury, had

told upon a feeble frame. He died September 2, 1869, and with him passed

away the most clairvoyant mind, joined to the most sterling character,

that the state of Maine ever contributed to the national councils.

Whether, if his life and health had been spared, he could have been

reelected to the Senate, is doubtful. Gideon Welles was informed that he

had not a friend in the Maine legislature. When his death was announced

in the Senate, Trumbull said of him:

As a debater engaged in the current business of legislation the

Senate has not had his equal in my time. No man could detect a

sophistry or perceive a scheme or a job quicker than he, and

none possessed the power to expose it more effectually. He was

a practical, matter-of-fact man utterly abhorring all show,

pretension, and humbug.... But I did not rise so much to speak

of the great abilities and noble traits of character which have

made Mr. Fessenden's death to be felt as a national calamity,

as of the personal loss which I myself feel at his departure.

Only three others are now left who were here when I came to the

Senate, and there is but one who came with me. There has been

no one here since I came to whom I oftener went for counsel and

whose opinions I have been accustomed more to respect than

those of our departed friend. There were occasions during our

fourteen years of service together when we differed about minor

matters and had controversies, for the time unpleasant, but I

never lost my respect for him, nor do I believe that he ever

did for me. He was my friend more closely, perhaps, the last

year or two than ever before. Like other Senators I shall miss

him in the daily transactions of this chamber, and perhaps more

than any other shall miss him as the one person from whom I

most frequently sought advice. I am not one of those, however,

who believe that constitutional liberty, our free institutions,

or the progress of the age depend upon any one individual. When

the great and good Lincoln was stricken down, I did not believe

that the Government would fail, or liberty perish. Though his

loss may have subjected the country to many trials it would not

otherwise have had, still our Government stands and liberty

survives. Another has taken Mr. Fessenden's place; others will

soon occupy ours, to discharge their duties better, perhaps,

than we have done, and he among us to-day will be fortunate,

indeed, if, when his work on earth is done, he shall leave

behind him a life so pure and useful, a reputation so

unsullied, a patriotism so ardent, and a statesmanship so

conspicuous as William Pitt Fessenden.[112]

Grimes had a stroke of paralysis while the impeachment trial was in

progress, and it was feared that he could not be in his seat when the

time for voting came, but he rallied sufficiently to be carried into the

Senate Chamber and to rise upon his feet when his name was called. When

he learned the nature of his malady he announced that he would not be a

candidate for reelection. Thus he was taken out of the reach of party

vengeance, but though as pure as ice, he did not escape calumny.

John B. Henderson died while this book was passing through the press. He

was the only one of the Seven Traitors whom the Republican party

publicly and formally forgave. He lost his seat in the Senate as he

expected, and he retired to private life as a lawyer in the city of St.

Louis. Twelve years passed. Two presidential lustrums of Grant and one

of Hayes had erased from the hearts of men the burning sensations of

impeachment. In 1884, a convention assembled in Chicago to nominate a

candidate of the Republican party for the presidency. I happened to be

there. On the second day of its sitting, the Committee on Permanent

Organization reported the name of John B. Henderson, of Missouri, for

permanent chairman. The assembled multitude knew at once the

significance of the nomination and gave cheer after cheer of applause

and approval. It was the signal that all was forgiven on both sides.

Which side most needed forgiveness was not asked.

In August, 1868, all the sorrows of Trumbull's public life were

submerged and belittled by a domestic affliction. His wife, Julia Jayne

Trumbull, died on the 16th of that month, at her home in Washington

City, in the forty-fifth year of her age, and was buried in the cemetery

of her native place, Springfield, Illinois. She was the mother of six

children, all boys, three of whom were living at the time of her death.

FOOTNOTES:

[103] On the 3d of August, 1868, shortly after his acquittal, Johnson

wrote a letter to Benjamin C. Truman, his former secretary, which gives

his estimate of Grant and throws some new light on the politics of the

time. There is nothing to show which of the Blairs was referred to as

giving him advice as to the make-up of his Cabinet, but it was probably

Montgomery. He says:

"I may have erred in not carrying out Mr. Blair's request by putting

into my Cabinet Morton, Andrew, and Greeley. I do not say I should have

done so had I my career to go over again, for it would have been hard to

have put out Seward and Welles, who had served satisfactorily under the

greatest man of all. Morton would have been a tower of strength,

however, and so would Andrew. No senator would have dared to vote for

impeachment with those two men in my Cabinet. Grant was untrue. He meant

well for the first two years, and much that I did that was denounced was

through his advice. He was the strongest man of all in the support of my

policy for a long while and did the best he could for nearly two years

in strengthening my hands against the adversaries of constitutional

government. But Grant saw the radical handwriting on the wall and heeded

it. I did not see it, or, if seeing it, did not heed it. Grant did the

proper thing to save Grant, but it pretty nearly ruined me. I might have

done the same thing under the same circumstances. At any rate, most men

would.... Grant had come out of the war the greatest of all. It is true

that the rebels were on their last legs and that the Southern ports were

pretty effectually blockaded, and that Grant was furnished with all the

men that were needed, or could be spared, after he took command of the

Army of the Potomac. But Grant helped more than any one else to bring

about this condition. His great victories at Donelson, Vicksburg, and

Missionary Ridge all contributed to Appomattox." (_Century Magazine_,

January, 1913.)

[104] Rhodes, _History of the United States_, VI, 104.

[105] McPherson, _Reconstruction_, p. 307.

[106] _Diary of Gideon Welles_, III, 335.

[107] _Diary of Gideon Welles_, III, 355.

[108] _Diary of Gideon Welles_, III, 358.

[109] This fact is mentioned in Dunning's _Reconstruction_, p. 107, on

the authority of ex-senator Henderson. The latter verbally made the same

statement to me.

[110] _Century Magazine_, January, 1913.

[111] _History of the United States_, VI, 156.

[112] _Cong. Globe_, 1869, p. 113.

CHAPTER XXI

THE McCARDLE CASE--GRANT'S CABINET--THE FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT

In November, 1867, General Ord, commanding the military district of

Mississippi, arrested and imprisoned an editor named W. H. McCardle, for

alleged libelous and incendiary publications. McCardle applied to the

United States Circuit Court for a writ of _habeas corpus_ under the same

act of Congress which Milligan had successfully invoked. The writ was

granted, a hearing was had, and the prisoner was remanded to the custody

of the military authorities. McCardle took an appeal to the Supreme

Court. The Attorney-General of the United States, Mr. Henry Stanbery,

decided not to appear in the case. General Grant was at this time

Secretary of War _ad interim_, and Stanbery notified him of the pending

case and suggested to him the propriety of employing counsel to

represent the military authorities having McCardle in custody. As this

was a case involving the validity of the Reconstruction laws of

Congress, General Grant took steps to defend, and addressed a letter to

Senator Trumbull, dated January 8, 1868, saying: "This Department

desires to engage your professional services, for that object." Trumbull

replied on the 11th, accepting the employment, and saying that he should

desire to have other counsel associated with him. A few days later he

secured the assistance of Matt. H. Carpenter, of Wisconsin. A brief was

prepared, and both Trumbull and Carpenter made oral arguments. McCardle

was represented by Jeremiah S. Black.

Trumbull's argument was made on the 4th of March. He contended that the

court had no jurisdiction, and that, therefore, the appeal should be

dismissed. The legislation of Congress on the subject was as follows:

The Act of 1789, establishing the judiciary, did not give the right of

appeal to the Supreme Court in _habeas corpus_ cases. It was omitted in

order to avoid lumbering the docket of the highest tribunal with petty

details. On the 5th of February, 1867, Congress passed an act granting

the right of appeal to the Supreme Court in such cases, in order to

protect negroes and white Unionists in the South. The last clause of the

act was in these words:

This act shall not apply to the case of any person who is or

may be held in the custody of the military authorities of the

United States _charged with any military offense_, or with

having aided or abetted rebellion against the Government of the

United States prior to the passage of this act.

It was Trumbull's contention that McCardle fell within this exception,

and hence that the right of appeal, so far as he was concerned, did not

exist.

Congress was in trepidation as to the outcome of the case and was

resolved to take no chances on it. Various legislative remedies were

proposed. One was to require a unanimous vote of the Supreme Court to

pronounce any act of Congress unconstitutional and void. A bill

requiring a two-thirds vote of the court in such cases actually passed

the House on the 13th of January by yeas 116, nays 39, but it was never

considered by the Senate. The end was accomplished, however, in a

different way. The Senate had passed a bill of only one section,

reported by Williams, of Oregon, from the Committee on Finance, to amend

the code of judicial procedure in revenue cases. The House attached to

this bill another section repealing so much of the Act of February 5,

1867, as authorized an appeal to the Supreme Court in the class of

cases therein named, and withdrawing from the Supreme Court jurisdiction

as to appeals already taken. This bill passed the House March 13, 1868,

without a division. It was taken up in the Senate on the motion of

Senator Williams and passed by a vote of 32 to 6 the same day, although

Senators Buckalew and Hendricks asked for an explanation of its meaning,

which was not given to them.

Although Buckalew and Hendricks did not have time to find out the nature

of this bill, Andrew Johnson did. In due time he returned it to the

Senate with a veto message, exposing it as a measure to deprive citizens

of their rights under existing law and to arrest proceedings already in

course of judicial determination. On this veto there was a debate in the

Senate beginning on March 25, 1868, in which the Democrats, led by

Hendricks, had decidedly the best of it. The supporters of the bill had

very little to say for themselves. Trumbull contended that the bill did

not affect any case then pending in the court, but in this debate he was

worsted by Doolittle, who showed that it applied to the McCardle case.

Trumbull and Carpenter had argued that the Supreme Court had no

jurisdiction, since military cases were not appealable under the Act of

February 5, 1867. The court had ruled against them because McCardle was

arrested, not for a military, but for a civil offense. It still remained

to be determined whether the court below had jurisdiction. Trumbull was

confident that the Supreme Court would hold that the lower court had no

such jurisdiction, in which case the appeal would fail and the bill

vetoed by the President would be nugatory as to McCardle. Doolittle in

reply showed that the bill did cut off McCardle's rights as an

appellant, and the Supreme Court so held in the month of December

following, when it dismissed the petition expressly on the ground that

its jurisdiction had been withdrawn by the Act of March 27, 1868. The

bill was passed over the veto on that date, by 33 to 9 in the Senate and

by 115 to 34 in the House. It was partisan legislation. The Republicans

drew a long breath after its passage because they had apprehended

another Milligan decision, undermining, perhaps, the whole fabric of

Congressional Reconstruction. Had not the court been deterred by the

critical condition of public affairs, it might with perfect propriety

have retained its jurisdiction and decided in favor of McCardle, since

the Act of March 27 was glaringly unjust as to him. But the judges were

intimidated by the awful pother o'er their heads and were glad of an

excuse to drop McCardle.

It was not so easy to drop Trumbull, however. He was both Senator and

retained counsel in this case. Therefore he ought not to have used the

former position to help his own side in the litigation. The bill did not

originate with him, or his committee, but he voted for it twice,

although his vote was not needed. There was a two-thirds majority

without him. True, he maintained that the bill did not apply to

McCardle, but most of the Senators who took part in the debate held that

it did. In a case of doubt involving the rights of a litigant, he ought

to have refrained from voting.

Eventually he received $10,000 as compensation for legal services in

this and one other case in which he had been retained by the War

Department. The amount was fixed by Stanton, and was paid in part by him

and in part by Secretary Rawlins after Grant became President. Somewhat

later this payment became a subject of criticism in hostile newspapers;

and inasmuch as the McCardle case had been tried during Johnson's

Administration, it was hastily assumed that it had had some shady

connection with Trumbull's vote of not guilty in the impeachment case.

When it became evident that the opponents of Johnson were the ones who

had employed him and fixed the amount to be paid, the accusers said that

his action was contrary to law and that he ought not to have taken any

pay at all for legal services to the Government while he was a Senator.

This charge was made by Chandler, of Michigan, on the floor of the

Senate, and it led to a sharp debate, in which Chandler was called to

order by the Vice-President for using unparliamentary language.

There was a law, enacted in 1808, prohibiting executive officers of the

Government from making contracts with members of Congress, and

prohibiting the latter from receiving payment therefor. This law did not

apply in terms to legal services, and the presumption was that it did

not apply to them in spirit, since there were precedents for such

employment of members of Congress as late as 1864, when Roscoe Conkling,

then a member of the House from New York, had been employed by the War

Department and had been paid for the service rendered.

Chandler, in the debate, quoted an opinion of Attorney-General Wirt,

given in 1828, to the effect that although the circumstances attending

the passage of the Act of 1808 showed that Congress was then legislating

on contracts for carrying the mails and for the purchase of supplies and

not for legal services, yet, in his belief, the law was broad enough to

include such services. An opinion of an Attorney-General, however, was

not binding on Senators.

Trumbull replied that the law had been settled differently as to legal

services, and that the only prohibition then in force was against

Congressmen practicing for compensation in the Court of Claims or before

the executive departments. In this contention he could hardly fail to

be correct, since all such laws later than 1861 had emanated from, or

had passed through, the committee of which he was chairman. The

governing statute was the act of June 11, 1864, introduced by Senator

Wade, in 1863. As originally drawn, it prohibited Congressmen from

practicing for or against the Government before any court, or

department; but the word "court" was stricken out while it was pending

in the Senate, and this was good evidence to show what the intention of

Congress was.

Although the payment was certainly legal, it would have been better for

Trumbull if he had not taken it. Whenever he came before the people for

public preferment thereafter, the Chandler accusation was brought

against him afresh and it required a new refutation.

* * * * *

After the impeachment fiasco was ended, the nomination of Grant for

President by the Republican party was inevitable--not because he was a

Republican, but because he was the only man whom the party could

certainly elect. Until he quarreled with Andrew Johnson, nobody knew

which side he favored. Indeed, the Democrats, until that time, had

looked hopefully to him as a possible candidate for themselves.

The convention which nominated him was confronted by the fact that

Congress had imposed negro suffrage on the South, while some of the

largest Northern States had not yet adopted it, but had flatly refused

to do so. The platform committee, therefore, reported, and the

convention adopted, a resolution declaring:

The guaranty by Congress of equal suffrage to all loyal men at

the South was demanded by every consideration of public safety,

of gratitude, and of justice, and must be maintained, but the

question of suffrage in all the loyal states properly belongs

to the people of those states.

Grant was nominated unanimously May 20, 1868, and Schuyler Colfax was

nominated as Vice-President. The Democrats nominated Horatio Seymour for

President and Frank P. Blair for Vice-president. In the election, Grant

and Colfax received 214 electoral votes and Seymour and Blair 80.

Grant's first Cabinet was a conglomerate which stupefied the

politicians. For Secretary of State he named Elihu B. Washburne, of

Illinois. Washburne had represented the Galena District in Congress

continuously and creditably for twelve years, and was just entering upon

a new term. He was a fellow townsman of Grant when the war broke out and

had recommended him to Governor Yates as a military helper, and from

that time onward had been his stanch and unwavering supporter. When

Grant fell into disfavor after the battle of Shiloh, and almost

everybody in Washington was clamoring against him, Washburne fairly

roared on the other side, and contended not only that he ought to be

retained in his place, but that he ought to be promoted to Halleck's

place in command of all the Western armies--and here he was right. His

personal relations with the General had been so close and his services

so conspicuous that there was a general expectation that he would have a

place in the Cabinet; but nobody supposed that it would be the

Department of State, for which he was wholly unfitted. Although a man of

ability, tenacity, and long experience in public affairs, he was

impulsive, headstrong, combative, and unbalanced. The Department of

State was regarded then as the premier position, where equipoise was the

chief requisite, and this quality Washburne lacked.

Grant had chosen James F. Wilson, of Iowa, as Secretary of State and

Wilson had accepted the appointment. He had been a leading member of the

House and chairman of its Judiciary Committee, and had been consulted by

Grant on the most important matters connected with his duties as

Secretary of War _ad interim_, including his correspondence with Andrew

Johnson after he had resigned that office. Wilson had declined a

reelection to Congress because he wished to retire from public life, and

he accepted the appointment offered by Grant with reluctance and only at

the urgent solicitation of the latter.

Washburne had been promised the office of Minister to France. When he

knew that Wilson was to be appointed Secretary of State, he went to

Grant and asked that the appointment of Secretary might be conferred

upon himself temporarily so as to give him prestige in his office as

Minister. Grant saw no objection to this, but he asked Wilson's

permission first. Wilson did not relish the proposition, but he

consented, on condition that Washburne should not take any action as

Secretary, either in the way of appointments to office or the

announcement of policies. As soon as Washburne had been confirmed by the

Senate, he began to make appointments and announce policies, and Grant

did not immediately call him to order. Wilson accordingly notified Grant

that as the conditions had been broken he would not now accept the

office. Grant then compelled Washburne to resign. But meanwhile Wilson

had gone to New York en route to his home in Iowa, and a messenger (A.

D. Richardson) was sent after him by Grant to urge him to change his

mind; he declined to do so, in terms, however, which preserved their

friendship unimpaired.[113]

"Who ever heard before of a man nominated Secretary of State merely as a

compliment?" was Fessenden's comment on the Washburne episode.

Wilson afterward served a term in the United States Senate. He was a

good lawyer, a man of sound judgment, of probity and stability of

character, and would have filled the office of Secretary of State

creditably if not brilliantly. When Grant found that Wilson's purpose to

withdraw could not be changed he offered the place to Hamilton Fish, who

accepted it.

Grant's mishaps in filling the Treasury Department were quite as droll

as the foregoing. He first sent in the name of Alexander T. Stewart, the

great dry-goods merchant of New York, as Secretary. Stewart was a

Scotch-Irishman who had migrated as a young man, and had taken up the

vocation of a school-teacher in his adopted country. Of his start in

life he was very proud. He kept a well-thumbed copy of the New Testament

in Greek on the centre table of his hospitable mansion, which he was

fond of exhibiting to his guests as one of the tools of trade with which

he began his career in America. Pedagogy, however, did not detain him

long. He had brought some capital from the old country and he turned his

attention to silks and muslins, and by diligence, skill, and integrity

had reached the foremost place in the nation as a merchant, before the

outbreak of the Civil War. His wholesale business was chiefly with the

South, and this part of it was suddenly obliterated in 1861. Yet he

recovered his leadership in dry goods before the war ended, and was then

rated as third in the list of rich men in the United States, the names

of Astor and Vanderbilt only being placed higher.

Nobody knew, at the time when he was named for a place in the Cabinet,

what political party he belonged to or favored. His most intimate

friend and counselor was Henry Hilton, a Democratic ex-judge, potent in

Tammany Hall. That fact, however, implied no political bias on the part

of Stewart. Hilton was his watch-dog at the place where the local taxing

and blackmailing power lay. Nor did Grant have any political aims or

thought in selecting Stewart for the portfolio of the Treasury. He chose

him because great wealth appealed strongly to the imagination of one who

had had severe struggles with poverty, and because he reasoned that a

man who had been very successful in his private business would

necessarily know how to manage the public business. Both Sumner and

Gideon Welles said that Stewart had made a gift of considerable amount

to Grant.

The nomination of Stewart was scoffed at by nearly everybody in

Washington, but it was well received by the press and no Senator dared

to vote against it. It was presently discovered, however, that he could

not legally hold the office, as he was disqualified by a law of 1789,

which provided that nobody engaged in trade or commerce, nor any owner

of a seagoing vessel, nor any dealer in public lands or in public

securities, should be eligible. Stewart had not been a candidate for the

position, or for any position, but when it was offered to him, he

thought he would like to have it, and to this end he proposed to retire

temporarily from trade and commerce, and put his business in the hands

of trustees for charitable use, in order to meet the requirements of

law. The President also requested Congress to change the law so that he

might be qualified. Congress, however, did not think it desirable to

trim the law to fit a particular case, and Stewart did not raise his

bid. After a week's delay the President sent in the name of George S.

Boutwell, of Massachusetts, for Secretary of the Treasury, and he

entered upon the duties of the office with general satisfaction.

When the name of Adolph Borie was announced for Secretary of the Navy,

everybody began to ask, Who is Borie? Even Admiral Farragut had never

heard of him. The answer came that he was a rich man in Philadelphia who

had entertained General Grant handsomely on some occasion when he was

temporarily in that city. Sumner said in his speech of May 31, 1872,

that he also had made a gift to Grant. He retained the position of

Secretary only three months. He then resigned and recommended George M.

Robeson, a lawyer of New Jersey, as his successor, and the latter was

appointed. Robeson was as little known as Borie had been before he was

appointed, but he was not the same kind of nonentity.

John A. J. Cresswell, of Maryland, who became Postmaster-General, had

been a member of Congress. If there was not much to be said for him,

there was nothing at all to be said against him.

John A. Rawlins, Grant's chief-of-staff during the war, a man of high

character and ability, chose himself for Secretary of War, and

communicated his preference to his chief through General James H.

Wilson, who was on terms of intimacy with both parties. Grant received

the communication favorably and sent the name of Rawlins to the Senate

and here he made no mistake. But Rawlins lived less than a year after

his appointment.

The two remaining members of the Cabinet, General Jacob D. Cox, of Ohio,

Secretary of the Interior, and E. R. Hoar, of Massachusetts,

Attorney-General, were ideal selections. The former had been governor of

his state and had served with distinguished valor and efficiency in the

Civil War. The latter was a man of sparkling wit and conversational

powers, which, however, did not outshine his solid qualities of mind

and character. Both these men came early into collision with the "spoils

system," which afflicted the whole of Grant's administration with

ever-increasing virulence. Both of them fought a losing battle with it,

as did George William Curtis, who essayed, in a humbler capacity, to

grapple with it. All three were retired, or retired voluntarily, before

the end of Grant's first term.

* * * * *

The plank in the Republican platform forcing negro suffrage upon the

South, but leaving it optional with the Northern States, was too brazen

to be long maintained. Moreover, there was danger lest this right of the

negroes should be taken from them after the Southern States should have

recovered the right to amend their own constitutions. These things

absorbed the attention of the Fortieth Congress during the last month of

its existence.

On January 30, 1869, the House passed an amendment to the Constitution

by more than two-thirds majority in these words:

The right of any citizen of the United States to vote shall not

be denied or abridged by the United States or any state by

reason of race, color, or previous condition of slavery of any

citizen or class of citizens of the United States.

In the Senate, Vickers, of Maryland, moved to amend by providing that

the right to vote should not be denied because of participation in the

rebellion. This was rejected by 21 to 32, but it received the votes of

eleven Republicans, among whom were Grimes, Harlan, Trumbull, and

Wilson. Wilson, of Massachusetts, moved to add the words "nativity,

property, education, or creed" to the words "race or color," and this

was adopted by 31 to 27, Trumbull voting in the negative. The House

rejected the amendment by 37 to 133 and sent it back to the Senate,

which, by a vote of 33 to 24, receded from its amendment. The vote was

then taken on concurring in the House Resolution as originally

presented, and it failed by 31 to 27, not two thirds.

The Senate then took up a resolution that had been previously reported

by the Committee on the Judiciary which was similar in terms to the one

originally passed by the House, except that it added the words "and hold

office" after the word "vote." The resolution was passed by 35 to 11 and

sent to the House. Logan, of Illinois, moved to strike out the words

"and hold office." This was defeated. Bingham, of Ohio, moved to insert

the words "nativity, property, or creed," after the word "color." This

was adopted by 92 to 71, and the resolution passed by 140 to 37. The

Senate disagreed to both of the House amendments. The measure then went

to a Conference Committee consisting of Senators Stewart, Conkling, and

Edmunds, and Representatives Boutwell, Bingham, and Logan, who reported

in favor of Logan's amendment and against Bingham's, and in this shape

the resolution passed both houses by the requisite majorities. If the

word "nativity" had been retained the Southern States could not have

disfranchised the negroes by means of the "Grandfather Clause," as some

of them did. Morton, of Indiana, predicted that the South would find

means of circumventing the clause if the prohibitions were limited to

race, color, and servitude. When Morton came to Washington as Senator he

was bitterly opposed to negro suffrage. He was now so hot for it that he

shared the leadership of the radicals with Sumner.

The Fifteenth Amendment as finally passed by Congress, February 26,

1869, was in these words:

ARTICLE XV

SECTION 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote

shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any

state, on account of race, color, or previous condition of

servitude.

SECTION 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this

article by appropriate legislation.

It was declared ratified by the legislatures of twenty-nine states on

March 30, 1870. Ohio at first rejected, but later ratified it. New York

at first ratified, but later reconsidered and rejected it.

FOOTNOTES:

[113] Mr. Wilson communicated these facts to me at the time of their

occurrence, and the correctness of this narrative has been confirmed by

Major-General Grenville M. Dodge, who was then in close communication

with both parties.

CHAPTER XXII

CAUSES OF DISCONTENT

It looks at this distance as though the Republican party was

"going to the dogs"--which, I think, is as it should be. Like

all parties that have an undisturbed power for a long time, it

has become corrupt, and I believe that it is to-day the [most]

corrupt and debauched political party that has ever existed....

I have made up my mind that when I return home I will no longer

vote the Republican ticket, whatever else I may do.

So wrote James W. Grimes to Trumbull under date of Heidelberg, July 1,

1870. Grimes had had a stroke of paralysis while the impeachment trial

was going on, but had rallied sufficiently to be carried into the Senate

to vote not guilty on every article on which a vote was taken, and to

give his reasons for doing so. He shortly afterwards resigned his seat,

announced his retirement from public life, and went to Europe with his

family. He was a native of the Granite State, a man of granite mould, of

unblemished character, undaunted courage, keen discernment, and untiring

industry. In Newspaper Row he was styled "Grimes the Sturdy"--a title

bestowed upon him by Adams Sherman Hill, then on the Washington staff of

the New York _Tribune_, and later Professor of Rhetoric in Harvard

University.

Grimes's estimate of the Republican party in 1870 was widely shared.

Reconstruction, measured by the results of five years, was a failure,

being a confused medley of ignorant negro voters, disfranchised whites,

disreputable carpet-baggers, and corrupt legislatures. The civil service

was honeycombed with whiskey rings, custom-house frauds, assessments on

office-holders, nepotism, and general uncleanness. President Grant had

transferred his army headquarters to the White House. When he wanted to

have anything done in which he felt a deep interest, he chose an

aide-de-camp for the purpose instead of a civilian, and he never dreamed

that anybody would be surprised or vexed when he sent Major Babcock to

San Domingo to negotiate a treaty for the purchase of that country for

the sum of $1,500,000, without the knowledge of the Secretary of State

or any member of the Cabinet. He called at Sumner's house to secure his

support for the ratification of the treaty, found him dining with John

W. Forney and Ben Perley Poore, and had a hasty talk with him about a

treaty concerning San Domingo, no details being mentioned. He addressed

Sumner as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, to which he supposed it

would be referred, and hoped Sumner would approve of the treaty. Sumner

replied that he was an Administration man and that he would give very

careful and candid consideration to anything which the President

desired.

This was the beginning of an Iliad of woes. Grant understood Sumner's

answer as a promise to support the treaty, whereas Sumner meant no more

than his words signified, that he would consider it on its merits, but

in a friendly spirit. It was not his custom to promise to support

treaties before seeing them. When he came to consider this one, he found

that he could not support it. Not only was Sumner's judgment adverse,

but that of the press and other organs of public opinion was decidedly

so. The treaty was rejected by a tie vote (two thirds being required to

ratify). Grant put all the blame of rejection on Sumner. He thought that

the latter had broken a promise and intentionally deceived him. He

marked Sumner for destruction, and determined to have the treaty

ratified in spite of him, if possible. A commission of investigation had

been authorized by Congress, after the rejection of the treaty, to visit

San Domingo, and report upon the advisability of the purchase. This was

by way of letting the President down easy rather than with any serious

purpose of carrying out his wishes. The commission consisted of Benjamin

F. Wade, Andrew D. White, and Samuel G. Howe. While it was at work steps

were taken to reorganize the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

Who prompted that movement was never divulged, but the attempt and its

failure were narrated somewhat later by Senator Tipton, of Nebraska, in

open Senate, without contradiction. Tipton said that at the beginning of

the Third Session of the Forty-first Congress, a motion was made in the

Republican Senate Caucus to depose Sumner from the chairmanship of the

committee and to remove Schurz, of Missouri, and Patterson, of New

Hampshire, from membership altogether.[114] All three had voted against

San Domingo. The motion had been negatived at that time, but the purpose

had not been abandoned.

The second vote on deposing Sumner took place in the Senate March 10,

1871, on a report made by Senator Howe, of Wisconsin, from the

Republican Caucus, for the assignment of committees for the First

Session of the Forty-second Congress. The Committee on Foreign

Relations, as reported, had the name of Cameron as Chairman, and Sumner

was not even a member of it. Then a debate began on the unusual step

taken by the caucus committee in deposing Sumner, without his own

consent, from a place which he had held acceptably during all the time

that the Republicans had controlled the Senate. Wilson, Schurz, Logan,

Tipton, and Trumbull spoke against the action of the Caucus Committee.

Trumbull said:

I am not the special friend of the Senator from Massachusetts.

He and I, during our long course of service here, have had

occasion to differ, and differ, I am sorry to say,

unpleasantly. But, sir, that will not prevent me from trying to

do justice to the Senator from Massachusetts. I stood by him

when he was stricken down in his seat by a hostile party, by

the powers of slavery. I stand by him to-day when the blow

comes, not from those who would perpetuate slavery and make a

slave of every man that was for freedom, but comes from those

who have been brought into power as much through the

instrumentality of the Senator from Massachusetts as of any

other individual in the country.

But, sir, this question has been brought before us, and what

shall we do? I tried to avoid it. I have appealed to my

associates and I have said to them: "We are very much divided;"

I say to them now: "We are very much divided." A few votes one

way or the other constitute the majority in the Republican

party; now is it desirable, is it best, to force such a change

with such an opposition as has manifested itself here? What is

to be gained by it? I will not undertake to warn the Republican

party of the consequences.... I would that this debate had not

occurred, that we could have paused at the outset when we saw

this difference of opinion, and that there could have been some

concession even to those in the minority which would have

avoided this state of things.

Senator Sherman deprecated the action of the majority. He regarded the

change "unjustifiable, impolitic, and unnecessary," yet he offered

Sumner advice, like that of a doctor to a child respecting a dose of

castor oil--to throw his head back and take it off quick, because it

would do him good, thus:

Therefore, while I feel bound to utter my opinion that this is

an unwise proceeding, made without sufficient cause, yet in my

judgment it ought not to be debated here. It is settled; and

if my honorable friend from Massachusetts, the senior senator

in this body, wishes to add another good work in his services

to his country, in his services to the Republican party, he

cannot do better than rise in his place and say that, if for

any reason, whether sufficient or insufficient, a majority of

his political associates think it better for him to retire from

this position, he yields gracefully to their wish; and I tell

him that a new chaplet will crown his brow, and when his

memoirs are written this will be regarded as one of the

proudest opportunities of his life.[115]

Tipton let the cat out of the bag again by reading from some notes he

had made of the proceedings of the caucus of the previous day. He said

that Senator Howe in the caucus had defended the action of the committee

in displacing Sumner, on the ground that the Committee on Foreign

Relations was not in harmony with the Senate on the subject of San

Domingo, and that in order to correct this disagreement a change was

necessary; whereas Mr. Howe, and all the others who were for displacing

Sumner, now contended that San Domingo had nothing to do with it. Tipton

begged leave to say also that Howe was wrong in his contention that the

Committee on Foreign Relations was not in harmony with the Senate, the

vote on the treaty having been 28 to 28 (a tie vote operated as a

negative). In other words, the Senate had sustained the committee, and

there was no disagreement to be rectified.

Thereupon Sherman called Tipton to order for divulging the secrets of

the caucus, and Tipton replied that he had read all the proceedings of

the caucus in the morning papers, including the names of the Senators in

the call of the yeas and nays, 26 to 21, and that there was only one

error in the whole report and that a trifling one. Sherman retorted that

perhaps Tipton had furnished the report to the newspapers, but the

latter denied it. Sherman then insisted that the newspaper report

carried no weight unless confirmed by a Senator. He made the charge also

that Tipton had been guilty of divulging the vote on the treaty, taken

in executive session. To this charge Tipton could make no defense, but

he contended that it had done no harm. The discussion was continued till

a late hour, the report of the Caucus Committee being supported in

debate chiefly by Edmunds and Morton. The latter affirmed that San

Domingo did not enter into the question of displacing Sumner

now--implying that it might have been the bone of contention earlier.

Morton's statement was technically true. The original disagreement

between Sumner and the President had been so overlaid with fresh

material that it was now relatively unimportant. Moreover, the Senate

had no intention of ratifying the annexation treaty even if the Benjamin

Wade Commission should so recommend--as it did. Morton himself had no

such intention.

I happened to be in Washington at this juncture and was dining with the

late Senator Allison (then a member of the House), on the evening before

the report was presented. He informed me of the posture of affairs, said

that Sumner was to be deposed, and that Senator Howe had been designated

to report a resolution to that effect. He regarded the situation as

fraught with peril to the Republican party. I suggested that he and I

should call upon Senator Howe and endeavor to prevent or perhaps delay

the proposed step. Allison assented. So we went to Howe's apartments,

found him at home and alone, and we labored with him till past midnight,

seeking in a friendly way to change his purpose, but without avail. He

could not be moved. While we were returning, Allison said that Grant

must have played his last trump to break the custom of the majority in

the Senate, never to displace a member without his own consent. After

the deed was done, I called upon Sumner and had a conversation with him

on the subject. He said that the most puzzling thing to him was the part

taken by Senator Anthony, of Rhode Island, in the affair. Anthony was

chairman of the caucus. He appointed the Committee on Committees.

Anthony was his friend, a very close friend. He ought to have known

beforehand the purposes of the majority, especially since an attempt to

displace him had been made at the previous session. Was Anthony himself

deceived, or was he a party to the transaction? That was the puzzling

question.

When the vote was taken on Howe's report, it was adopted by a large

majority. The dissentients withheld their votes, as they did not choose

to bolt the decision of the caucus when bolting could accomplish

nothing. The result was a fresh grievance added to the growing stock of

discontent.

The President's first blow at Sumner had been the removal of his friend

Motley from the position of Minister to England. A request for Motley's

resignation was sent on July 1, 1870, but he did not comply with it. In

the mean time the position was offered to Trumbull in the following

letter:[116]

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON,

_Confidential_.

GARRISONS, August 5th, 1870.

MY DEAR JUDGE,

The President desires me to ask if it will be agreeable to you

to accept the Mission to London; if so, he is desirous of

securing to the country the value of your important service and

your experience and ability. I hope most sincerely that it will

meet your views to accept this Mission, now more than before

important. The events now happening and threatening in Europe

require the presence in London of a representative of ability,

of firmness, of learning, and of calm self-possession--and your

exceptional possession of these requisites has led to the very

strong desire of the President and myself that you would

undertake the duties of the position. I do not know that we are

on the eve of the settlement of our questions with Great

Britain, but there are reasons to justify the hope that _very

important_ questions may be adjusted within the term of whoever

may succeed Mr. Motley. The complications of European politics

are favorable and add to the evident desire of the British

Ministry to dispose of all questions between the two countries.

Can you come here and pass a day with me? I can tell more than

I can write. I sincerely hope that you can give a favorable

answer; for reasons which you will understand the President

desires that this communication be considered _confidential_,

at least for the present. Please let me have your answer as

soon as you conveniently can.

Very faithfully yours,

HON. LYMAN TRUMBULL, HAMILTON FISH.

U.S. SENATOR,

KINGSTON, ULSTER CO., N. Y.

No written answer to this letter has been found. A verbal one was given

at the interview which Mr. Fish invited. Trumbull declined the

appointment because he preferred to remain a Senator rather than to be a

diplomat. Probably he became acquainted at this time with Secretary

Fish's intention to move for a settlement of our differences with Great

Britain: for in a speech made at Chicago on the 2d of November

following, on "Coming Issues," he discussed the subject of our claims

against that country at considerable length. In this speech he

maintained that we could justly ask for payment of the losses sustained

by the depredations of the Alabama and other British-built cruisers, and

that we had a still deeper grievance, although one not computable in

dollars and cents, growing out of the demand made upon us for the

surrender of the rebel envoys, Mason and Slidell, who were captured on

board the steamship Trent at the beginning of the Civil War. He showed

by the established rules of international law, affirmed by British

precedents and practice, that persons, papers, and materials in the

enemy's service were alike contraband and subject to capture in neutral

vessels on the high seas.[117]

Another "coming issue" referred to in this speech was the endeavor to

break up and abolish the iniquitous system by which the appointment of

thirty-five thousand officers and clerks of the National Government was

made part of the patronage of politicians; and to carry out the

principles of civil service reform in which these appointments should be

made after competitive examinations so as to secure officers of "the

highest fitness, honesty, and capacity." In his argument in favor of

this reform he instanced the experience of General J. D. Cox, Secretary

of the Interior, who had found it necessary to resign his office because

he could not purge his own department of spoilsmen and incompetents

foisted upon him by Senators and Representatives. Cox's resignation had

caused intense indignation when the reasons for it leaked out. President

Grant had pledged himself to the reform of the civil service and had

appointed a competent commission to carry on the work, and was really

desirous that it should succeed, but he was not willing to fight for

it. So when Congressmen fought against it he yielded and put the blame

upon them. And the last state of it was worse than the first. "No point

in Trumbull's speech," says the newspaper account of it, "was more

significant than his endorsement of Secretary Cox's civil service

reform, and the enthusiastic cheering with which the large audience

unanimously greeted this endorsement."

Attorney-General Hoar had retired from public life some months earlier

and for much the same reason. He had made several selections to fill

vacancies on the bench of the Circuit Court with an eye single to the

character and legal attainments of the judges, and had thereby incurred

the enmity of most of the Republican Senators, who wanted to dictate the

appointments. It happened at this time that the President was trying to

win support for the San Domingo Treaty, and he found, or supposed, that

the votes of certain carpet-bag Senators could be obtained if he would

give them a member of the Cabinet. In order to create a vacancy he

nominated Attorney-General Hoar as a justice of the Supreme Court. The

nomination was referred to the Judiciary Committee of the Senate,

consisting of Trumbull, Edmunds, Conkling, Carpenter, Stewart, Rice (of

Arkansas), and Thurman. Six of these voted against Hoar. The only

affirmative vote was that of Trumbull.[118]

After Hoar was rejected, the President asked for his resignation as

Attorney-General without assigning any reason therefor, and when it was

handed to him he appointed an obscure but respectable lawyer from

Georgia of the name of Akerman as Attorney-General, to please the

carpet-baggers; but this move did not secure a sufficient number of

votes to ratify the treaty, nor was it ever ratified.

FOOTNOTES:

[114] _Cong. Globe_, March 10, 1871, p. 48.

[115] _Cong. Globe_, 1871, p. 51.

[116] E. L. Pierce, in his _Life of Sumner_, says that the position was

first offered to Frelinghuysen, of New Jersey, and that he was confirmed

by the Senate on the last day of the session. Evidently he did not

accept it.

[117] Mr. Charles F. Adams has shown in a recent essay that the British

Ministry were perfectly aware that the capture of Mason and Slidell was

justifiable by British custom and precedent, but that public opinion was

so inflamed on the subject that they were swept off their feet, and

could not have faced Parliament an hour if they had not demanded the

surrender of the prisoners. On the other hand, our practice and

precedents were directly opposite. The American doctrine was "free ships

make free goods" and _a fortiori_ free persons, but so inflamed was

public opinion on this side of the water that the British demand for the

surrender of the prisoners would have been refused even at the risk of

war, if we had not had one war on hand already. Both nations "flopped"

simultaneously. _The Trent Affair--an Historical Retrospect._ By Charles

Francis Adams. Boston, 1912.

[118] Washington letter in the _Nation_, January 6, 1870.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE LIBERAL REPUBLICANS

The Liberal Republican movement of 1872 took its start in Missouri.

During the war between the states, Missouri had been a prey to a real

civil war, in which much blood had been spilled, and where churches,

communities, and particular families had been torn asunder. In the

agricultural districts and small towns, which were nine tenths of the

whole, nobody, whether Secessionist, or Unionist, or neutral, could feel

certain, when he went to bed, whether he should sleep till morning, or

be awakened after midnight by a guerilla raid or a burning roof. The

contending forces were not unequally divided. The Confederates were the

stronger half in wealth and influence, although not in numbers, but the

proximity of the Federal armies and their actual occupation of the soil

gave a preponderance to the Unionists and strangled secession in its

infancy. When the war came to an end, all the heart-burning that it had

engendered was still raging. Not only were the Republicans in power, but

the most radical of them had control within the party. Lincoln was not

sufficiently advanced for them. They had refused to vote for his

renomination in the Convention of 1864.

In the state constitution, adopted in 1865, disfranchisement and test

oaths abounded. In the succeeding four years there had been a gradual

slackening of recrimination and intestine strife; and a line of cleavage

broke in the Republican ranks in 1869 which resulted in the election of

General Carl Schurz as United States Senator, on the issue of

reenfranchisement of the ex-rebels. The leader of the "party of eternal

hate," as it was styled by its opponents, was Charles D. Drake, his

colleague in the Senate. The seat taken by Schurz was that formerly held

by John B. Henderson, who had lost it by his vote against impeachment.

Schurz was a torch-bearer wherever he went, and his entry into the

Senate gave a new impetus to the party of peace and amnesty not only in

his own state, but throughout the country. In the autumn of 1870 a

battle royal was fought in Missouri, beginning in the Republican state

convention, which was split on the issue of reenfranchisement. The

Liberals, under the lead of Schurz, nominated a full state ticket with

B. Gratz Brown for governor. The radicals nominated Joseph McClurg for

governor and a full ticket. The Democrats made no nominations, but

supported the Liberal nominees. The election resulted in a sweeping

victory for the Liberals. The platform on which Brown was chosen

declared that the time had come "for removing all disqualifications from

the disfranchised people of Missouri and conferring equal political

rights and privileges on all classes." The other platform favored

reenfranchisement "as soon as it could be done with safety to the

state."

Both sections adopted a resolution saying: "We are opposed to any system

of taxation which will tend to the creation of monopolies and benefit

one industry at the expense of another." This was interpreted by the

_Missouri Democrat_, the leading Republican newspaper of the state, as

an anti-tariff deliverance. Its editor, Colonel William M. Grosvenor,

was a party organizer of keen intelligence and tireless activity, as

effective in his own field as Schurz was in his. He was a free-trader,

and he gave the first impulse which brought the revenue reformers of

that period as a distinctive element into the Liberal movement. The

only organization then existing which offered any resistance to the

demands of the protected classes was the New York Free-Trade League, of

which Mahlon Sands was secretary. On the 10th of November, Sands sent

out an invitation to persons whom he took to be like-minded with

himself, including Carl Schurz, David A. Wells, Jacob D. Cox, William

Cullen Bryant, E. L. Godkin, Charles F. Adams, Jr., General Brinkerhoff,

Edward Atkinson, and others to a conference to be held in New York on

the 22d of that month. The declared object of this meeting was "to

determine whether an effort may not, with advantage, be made to control

the new House of Representatives by a union of Western Revenue Reform

Republicans with Democrats." The meeting took place at the date

mentioned and received the following notice in the _Nation_ of December

1:

There has been a good deal of activity among the Revenue

reformers during the week. On the 23d ult. they held a private

meeting in this city, which was attended by Mr. D. A. Wells,

Mr. George Walker, Mr. Horace White, of the Chicago _Tribune_,

Mr. Bryant, Mr. Bowles, of the Springfield _Republican_, and

others, and at which, after a good deal of talk, the conclusion

was reached that things were looking very well; that the

legislative debates of the coming winter would, under the

influence of the late elections, probably do a great deal to

educate the public and prepare the monopolists and jobbers for

what is certainly coming; and that the question of civil

service reform was closely connected with that of the reform of

the revenue, and ought to be discussed and pushed with it; and

it was resolved finally to charge a committee with the work of

looking after the interest of both in a general way during the

winter, with power to make arrangements for the calling of a

national convention in the spring, in case the course of

Congress proved unsatisfactory. The usual distribution of

"British gold" did not take place, it must be confessed to the

regret of all present. Indeed, the desire for it, and as much

of it as possible, was avowed with the greatest effrontery. The

open display of such feelings at a reform meeting was a

curious sign of the times. Why the British should have cut off

the supply was not explained, but we presume they were unable

to withstand the repeated exposures in the _Tribune_, which

have doubtless made Minister Thornton wince a little.

The Speaker of the House, James G. Blaine, got wind of the Sands

circular and sought an interview with myself, coming to Chicago for that

purpose. He said that he recognized the drift of public sentiment on the

tariff question, that he desired to avert anything like a split in the

Republican ranks, and that he intended to give the tariff reformers a

majority of the Committee on Ways and Means in the new Congress. He

submitted that they could not gain more than that by a fight, and that

it was the part of wisdom to be satisfied with that. He said that he

would allow us to name two Republican members who, in conjunction with

the Democrats, would constitute a majority. I reported this fact to the

members of the New York Conference and it was agreed that no other steps

should be taken in reference to the organization of the House. G. A.

Finkelnburg, of Missouri, and H. C. Burchard, of Illinois, were selected

as our preference for membership of the committee. The names were

communicated to Blaine and they were appointed by him. He even went

beyond his promise by prompting his friends on the floor to favor tariff

reform. Eugene Hale, of Maine, was especially zealous in this behalf. He

introduced a bill to make salt free of duty, and accepted an amendment

putting coal in the same category and advocated it with earnestness and

ability and carried it through the House, but it was strangled in the

Senate. Dawes, of Massachusetts, a protectionist, was made chairman, but

the majority of the committee was against him. Protection, at that time,

meant the highest rate of duty on imports that anybody desired, and

free trade meant any opposition to protection as thus interpreted. These

definitions are not wholly obsolete at the present day.

In the eyes of President Grant the Liberal movement in Missouri was

something in the nature of a new rebellion, and most of the Republican

politicians shared his views. The necessity of keeping the party in

power by fair means or foul had become a kind of religious tenet. The

spectre of a solid South and a divided North had been terrifying from

the start. What would happen if the example of Missouri should

overspread all of the reconstructed states? Seymour had carried New York

and New Jersey in the last election. The solid South added to these

would have made him President of the United States. No wonder that such

Senators as Morton, Chandler, Conkling, and the Southern carpet-baggers,

at the opening of Congress in December, 1870, gave a chilling reception

to all who had taken part in the Liberal campaign of Missouri, or who

sympathized with it. Anything in the nature of investigation of frauds,

or of reform in the civil service, was frowned upon by them. All who

favored such steps were accused of seeking to split the party and build

a new one upon its ruins. This was a false accusation. The

Administration could have averted the coming revolt by removing its

causes. The _Nation_ of December 8, 1870, said with truth:

What has been taken for a desire or design to found a new party

has been simply a design to make the old party attend to the

proper business of the party in power, by legislating for the

necessities of the time. There is a strong disposition on the

part of the old hacks not to do this, but to go on infusing

"economy and efficiency in the collection of the revenue," and

nothing would please them better than that those who are not

satisfied with this should take themselves off and try to

establish a little concern of their own, and give no further

trouble. We believe the intention of the malcontents, however,

is, and always has been, to stay where they are and give all

the trouble they can. Whenever the time comes to establish a

new party, it will make its appearance, whether anybody charges

himself with the special work of getting it up or not.

Among the sources of discontent disfranchisement was the most pressing,

since it was believed to be the chief cause of the shocking conditions

in the South. Other things could wait. This was the "house-on-fire"; it

must be put out at once. The Liberals said that universal amnesty with

impartial suffrage was the true cure. The ruling powers at Washington

maintained that the Southern whites were still rebellious and that a new

law, backed by adequate military power, was needed to deal with the

Ku-Klux Klans, which were terrorizing the blacks in order to prevent

them from voting. The President sent a special message of twenty lines

to Congress on March 23, calling attention to this condition of affairs

and recommending some action, he did not say what. The brevity and

indecision of it betokened reluctance on his part to send any message at

all. Congress, however, took the subject in earnest and passed the

Ku-Klux Bill of 1871, which authorized suspension of the writ of _habeas

corpus_ and the employment of military force in dealing with the Ku-Klux

outrages. Trumbull and Schurz opposed the bill by speech and by vote,

the former on the ground of unconstitutionality, the latter chiefly on

the ground of impolicy, although he also considered it unconstitutional.

Trumbull contended that the Constitution never contemplated that the

ordinary administration of criminal law in the states should be in the

hands of the Federal Government and that the Fourteenth Amendment did

not change the lodgment of that power from the state to the federal

authorities. He did not make a set speech on the bill, but in an

impromptu debate he said:

Show me that it is necessary to exercise any power belonging to

the Government of the United States in order to maintain its

authority and I am ready to put it forth. But, sir, I am not

willing to undertake to enter the states for the purpose of

punishing individual offences against their authority committed

by one citizen against another. We, in my judgment, have no

constitutional authority to do that. When this Government was

formed, the general rights of person and property were left to

be protected by the states and there they are left to-day.

Whenever the rights that are conferred by the Constitution of

the United States on the Federal Government are infringed upon

by the states, we should afford a remedy.... If the Federal

Government takes to itself the entire protection of the

individual in his rights of person and property what is the

need of the State Governments? It would be a change in our form

of Government and an unwise one, in my judgment, because I

believe that the rights of the people, the liberties of the

people, the rights of the individual, are safest among the

people themselves, and not in a central government extending

over a vast region of country. I think that the nearer you can

bring the administration of justice between man and man to the

people themselves, the safer the people will be in their rights

of person and property.[119]

He objected also to the clause of the bill authorizing the President to

suspend the writ of _habeas corpus_, as in conflict with the clause of

the Constitution which limits suspension to cases of invasion or

rebellion where the public safety requires it. There was no present

invasion to justify it and no rebellion in the proper definition of that

term. He quoted authorities showing that rebellion meant an armed

uprising against the Government, such as existed in 1861 and continued

till the end of the war. No such condition existed now.

Schurz's speech, delivered on the 14th of April, was a masterpiece of

political philosophy, not inferior to anything in the orations of Edmund

Burke. It was a plea for the abrogation of all political disabilities.

It occupies three pages of the _Congressional Globe_. Among other things

he said:

On the whole, sir, let us not indulge in the delusion that we

can eradicate all the disorders that exist in the South by

means of laws and by the application of penal statutes. Laws

are apt to be especially inefficacious when their

constitutionality is, with a show of reason, doubted, and when

they have the smell of partisanship about them; and however

pure your intentions may be (and I know they are), in that

light a law like this, unless greatly modified, will appear

suspicious. If we want to produce enduring effects there, our

remedies must go to the root of the evil; and in order to do

that, they must operate upon public sentiment in the South. I

admit that in that respect the principal thing cannot be done

by us: it must be done by the Southern people themselves. But

at any rate, we can in a great measure facilitate it.[120]

Edmunds and Carpenter, of the Judiciary Committee, held that the

Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution gave power to the federal

authorities to enforce the ordinary criminal law as between persons in

the states. Some years later a case, arising under this Ku-Klux Law in

Tennessee, reached the Supreme Court, where it was pronounced

unconstitutional and void. The court held that the three latest

amendments of the Constitution prohibited the states from discriminating

against citizens on account of race or color, but did not change the

administration of the criminal law in the states. That jurisdiction

remained with the states exclusively. Here Trumbull's position was

sustained almost in his own words.[121]

While the Ku-Klux Act was doing its work in South Carolina under

suspension of the _habeas corpus_, the Senate on December 20, 1871, took

up a bill which had passed the House by more than two-thirds majority to

remove the legal and political disabilities imposed by the Fourteenth

Amendment, except in a few cases. Sumner moved as an amendment a bill

which he had previously offered as a separate measure, that all

citizens, without distinction of race or color, should have equal rights

in steamboats, railway cars, hotels, theatres, churches, jury service,

common schools, colleges, and cemeteries, whether under federal or State

authority. Trumbull, and the two Senators from South Carolina, besought

him not to encumber the Amnesty Bill, which required a two-thirds vote,

with the Equal Rights Bill which required only a majority, since they

believed that both could be passed separately, but that if his bill were

tacked upon the Amnesty Bill, both would fail. Sumner insisted upon his

amendment, and a vote was taken on it, February 9, resulting in a tie

(Trumbull and Schurz voting in the negative), whereupon the

Vice-President (Colfax) voted in the affirmative. The Sumner amendment

having been adopted, all the Democrats turned against the bill and it

was lost by 33 to 19, not two thirds.

A second attempt, beginning in the House, had the same result. When the

bill was taken up in the Senate Sumner again moved his Equal Rights Bill

as an amendment, and it was again adopted by the casting vote of the

Vice-President, and then the whole was lost by 32 to 22.

In the mean time the Liberal Republican Convention had met at Cincinnati

and adopted a platform very emphatic on the subject of amnesty. A sudden

change came over the spirit of the regulars. The Amnesty Bill was

reintroduced in the House by General Butler, May 13, and passed the

same day without debate. It was taken up in the Senate, May 21. Sumner's

Equal Rights Bill, when offered in a modified form as an amendment, was

rejected by 11 to 81, and the bill was passed the same day by 38 to 2,

the negatives being Sumner and Nye.

FOOTNOTES:

[119] _Cong. Globe_, 1871, pp. 578-79.

[120] _Cong. Globe_, 1871, p. 688.

[121] United States _v._ Harris, 106 U.S. 629.

CHAPTER XXIV

GRANT'S ADMINISTRATION

The demerits of the first Grant Administration were the principal cause

of the Liberal uprising of 1872. They were enumerated in detail by

Charles Sumner in open Senate, on May 31 of that year. They need not be

reiterated here. I have no inclination to rake over the ashes of a dead

controversy or to detract from the fame of one who rendered inestimable

service to the nation in its greatest crisis, without which all other

service might have been unavailing. At the same time, the thread of this

narrative requires some notice of the stings planted in the minds of

sensitive persons, who were not seeking office, by the man who was then

the nation's head.

Grant's shortcomings in civil station were such as might have been

expected from one who was suddenly charged with vast responsibilities

without his own solicitation or desire and without any previous

experience or training for them. His most striking characteristic was

tenacity. Whether on the right track or on the wrong, he was deaf and

blind to obstacles and opposition, because there was resistance to be

overcome. This quality was reflected in his determination "never to

desert a friend under fire"--a maxim more generous than wise, fitter for

the field than for the forum, and which in his last days brought

misfortunes to his own door which were lamented by everybody.

The Republican politicians nominated him for President, not because they

deemed him qualified for the position, but because of his military

renown. He was elected at a time when military habits and modes of

thought were the worst possible equipment for the solution of political

problems. Nevertheless, he rendered great service on two occasions--in

the settlement of the Alabama Claims and by vetoing the Currency

Inflation Bill. In both these cases he was much indebted to Hamilton

Fish, his Secretary of State, but the credit is justly his own and the

fame thereof will outlast all the scandals that arose from his

confidence in, and association with, such characters as Orville Babcock,

John McDonald, Ben Butler, W. W. Belknap, and Tom Murphy.

The rottenness of the New York Custom-House was a crying evil before

Grant became President, and its flavor was not improved by the

appointment of Murphy as its chief officer. It was crammed with men who

"had to be taken care of," whose work was not needed by the Government,

and who were incompetent even if it had been needed--small politicians,

district leaders and "heelers," who were useful in carrying primaries

and getting delegates elected to conventions. A Joint Committee on

Retrenchment, organized as early as 1866 and kept alive by every

subsequent Congress, had been investigating frauds and abuses in various

quarters. Its chairman, Senator Patterson, of New Hampshire, made a

report early in 1871 containing many interesting disclosures.

On December 11, Senator Conkling offered a resolution directing the

Committee on Military Affairs to inquire into the defalcation of an army

paymaster named Hodge. Trumbull moved as an amendment that the Joint

Committee on Retrenchment be reconstituted and instructed to make a

general investigation of the waste and loss of money in the public

service. A debate sprang up on the proposed amendment, which continued

for a week and aroused keen interest throughout the country. Wilson,

the chairman of the Military Committee, sustained the amendment, saying

that the Hodge case did not appertain to military matters, but to

finance, to the handling of public money. Sumner took the same view.

Chandler objected to a joint committee with power to investigate all the

executive departments. He preferred to have each department investigated

by a separate committee, if it needed investigation. In the course of

the debate extracts were read from the Patterson Report, together with

the testimony of witnesses. Weighers in the custom-house testified that

men were sent to them by the collector as assistants for whom there was

no work to do. They were simply put on the pay-roll and did nothing but

draw their salaries. In the weighers' department alone $50,000 per year

was thus squandered. Collector Murphy was quoted as saying, in answer to

a remonstrance about unnecessary help in the custom-house, "There were

certain people who had to be taken care of: it was well known that they

had to be taken care of, and nobody in the party would say anything

about his taking care of them, and he would do it."[122]

Trumbull said that he did not denounce officers of the Government

indiscriminately. He merely wished to have some system introduced by

which appointments should be made with regard to the fitness of the

appointees and the need of their services. As the debate enlarged, a

line of cleavage was disclosed among Senators similar to that which

occurred on the deposition of Sumner; Morton, Conkling, Chandler,

Edmunds, and Sherman opposing, and Schurz, Sumner, Logan, Tipton, and

Wilson supporting, the Trumbull amendment. Finally the Republican

Senatorial Caucus took the matter in hand and adopted a substitute to

the Trumbull Resolution, which was offered in the Senate by Anthony and

adopted by 29 to 18. It provided for a select committee to investigate

only such subjects as the Senate should designate.

One of the things stumbled on by the Patterson Committee was the

"general order" system in the New York Custom-House, which led up to the

Leet and Stocking scandal, one of the most exasperating incidents of the

Grant regime. Leet had been a member of General Grant's staff. The

Patterson Committee found that he was enjoying the rank and pay of a

colonel in the army, and also of a clerk in the War Department, and was

receiving an additional income, estimated at $50,000 per year, for the

warehousing of imported goods in New York, without the expenditure of

any labor or capital of his own and without even his personal presence

in New York, he being a resident of Washington City. All goods arriving

by the Cunard and Bremen lines were sent by the collector's order to the

Leet and Stocking warehouse, and were required to pay one month's

storage whether they remained there a month or only a day, the cost

being not less than $1.50 per package. This "general order" system had

been devised before the Republican party came into power. It was

flourishing in 1862.[123] Collector Grinnell, Grant's first appointee to

that position, found it in force when he came into office. Before it was

devised the arriving goods had been stored temporarily in warehouses

belonging to the steamship companies, adjacent to the docks, without

cost to the owners.

When the Patterson Committee made this discovery they reported the facts

personally to the Secretary of the Treasury (Boutwell), who appointed a

board of three officers of the department to make an independent

investigation. This board made a report sustaining the findings of the

Patterson Committee. Boutwell thereupon wrote to Collector Murphy, who

had succeeded Grinnell as collector, advising him to discontinue the

"general order" system altogether and go back to the old system, no good

reasons for the former change, but many objections to it, having been

found. Months passed after Boutwell's letter was sent, but the "general

order" system was still flourishing and the coffers of Leet and Stocking

were still receiving an income, at least double that of the President of

the United States, as a reward for putting an obstruction in the pathway

of lawful commerce. A. T. Stewart, Grant's first choice for Secretary of

the Treasury, testified that the "general order" system was a damage to

honest traffic and a general nuisance. William E. Dodge testified that

he had been compelled by it to curtail his imports at New York and to

use other ports of entry to avoid the delays and exactions of the

"general order" system.

The indifference of the only man higher up than Secretary Boutwell--the

only man who had power to remove Collector Murphy or to choke off

Leet--was incomprehensible. Schurz made comments on the case which the

Administration Senators could not answer and dared not leave unanswered.

On the 18th of December, Conkling introduced a resolution directing the

Committee on Investigation and Retrenchment to make an inquiry into the

Leet and Stocking scandal. This resolution was preceded by a preamble

quoting the words of Schurz as a reason for making the inquiry, in the

following form:

Whereas it has been declared in the Senate that at the port of

New York there exists and is maintained by officers of the

United States under the name of the "General Order business" a

monstrous abuse fraudulent in character, and whereas the

following statement has been made by a Senator: "It was

intimated by some of the witnesses that Mr. Leet, who pockets

the enormous profits arising from that business, had some

connection with the White House; but General Porter was

examined, Mr. Leet himself was examined, and they both

testified that it was not so, and, counting the number of

witnesses, we have no right to form a different conclusion. But

the fact remains that this scandalous system of robbery is

sustained--is sustained against the voice of the merchants of

New York--is sustained against the judgment and the voice of

the Secretary of the Treasury himself. I ask you how is it

sustained? Where and what is the mysterious power that sustains

it? The conclusion is inevitable that it is stronger than

decent respect for public opinion, nay, a power stronger than

the Secretary of the Treasury himself":

Therefore resolved, that the Committee of Investigation and

Retrenchment be instructed to inquire into the matter fully and

at large, and particularly whether any collusion or improper

connection with said business exists on the part of any officer

of the United States, and that said committee further inquire

whether any person holding office in the custom-house at New

York has been detected or is known or believed by his superior

officer to have been guilty of bribery or of taking bribes or

of other crime or misdemeanor, and said committee is hereby

empowered to send for persons and papers.

The Committee of Investigation and Retrenchment had not been appointed

when Conkling offered this resolution. It had been agreed upon in the

Republican Caucus, but had not been reported to the Senate. Senator

Anthony immediately reported the names: Buckingham (Connecticut), Pratt

(Indiana), Howe (Wisconsin), Harlan (Iowa), Stewart (Nevada), Pool

(North Carolina), Bayard (Delaware). Sumner expressed mild surprise that

no Senator who had favored an investigation of the New York

Custom-House, or of frauds in general, was a member of the committee,

unless Bayard (Democrat) might be counted as such. He quoted from

Jefferson's "Manual of Parliamentary Law" to show that the proper course

was to give the leading place in such a committee to the prime mover of

it, who was, in this case, undoubtedly Trumbull, but that nobody who had

shown any interest in the matter to be investigated, not even the

Senator from New Hampshire (Patterson), whose investigation of the

previous session had uncovered the alleged frauds, and whose familiarity

with the case would be most useful now, had any place on it. Anthony

contended that inasmuch as all the Senators had voted to raise the

Committee, the vote having been unanimous, all the requirements of

parliamentary law were satisfied by the appointment of the seven

Senators named, or any other seven. Thurman, of Ohio, thought that

Anthony was "sticking in the bark" and not reaching the sound wood of

the tree. Considerable time was spent in the debate on the composition

of the committee, but in the end the list reported by Anthony was

adopted, as was Conkling's resolution, with its bulky preamble. The

preamble was doubtless intended to convince Grant that Schurz (not

Conkling) made the investigation necessary. The committee went to work

early in 1872 and eventually furnished a solution of the Leet and

Stocking mystery.

Leet learned in 1868, soon after Grant's election, that he intended to

appoint Moses H. Grinnell collector of the port of New York. He procured

from Grant a letter of introduction to Grinnell, but Grant cautioned

him, when he gave it, not to use it for the purpose of getting an

office. When Leet handed the letter to Grinnell he remarked to him that

he (Grinnell) was to be appointed collector of the port. Grinnell had

not received any intimation of the fact before, and he inferred that

Leet had been designated by the President to inform him of it. He asked

Leet what he could do for him, and Leet replied that he wanted the

"general order" business of the custom-house. Grinnell thought that this

also was a message from the President, and he arranged as soon as

possible to give Leet a portion of it. Leet farmed out this portion to a

man named Bixby for $5000 per year, plus one half of all the profits in

excess of $10,000. Then he went back to Washington and resumed his place

as a clerk in the War Department; but he complained bitterly to Grinnell

that his share in the "general order" business was not large enough, and

he told Grinnell that he would be removed from office if he did not give

him the whole of it. After much threatening, Grinnell did give him the

whole of it, but he was removed, nevertheless, after holding the office

about one year, and Murphy was appointed collector in his place. Murphy

kept the "general order" business in the hands of Leet and Stocking

until March, 1872, when the committee made its report. On the 14th of

March, the newspapers announced that Murphy had been removed as

collector and General Arthur appointed in his place, that the "general

order" business had been radically reformed, and that Leet and Stocking

had disappeared from history. In making this announcement the _Nation_

called the attention of the editor of _Harper's Weekly_ (George William

Curtis), who was still a little deaf to the shortcomings of the

Administration, to some things hard to understand.

When the President [it said] became aware that Leet had abused

his confidence, disregarded his wishes, made false

representations as to his influence over him, and concealed his

doings from him,--facts which were revealed by the repeated

complaints of prominent merchants and by Leet's appearance in

public as owner of the "plum," and finally by a congressional

investigation,--he took no notice of them whatever. So far as

we know he gave no sign of displeasure, paid no attention to

the complaints against him, and let him go on for nearly two

years preying on the commerce of the port, till a second

congressional investigation, obtained with great difficulty,

and the savage assaults of the press on the eve of an election,

made the change we have just witnessed imperatively necessary.

It has been the custom of the friends of the Administration

hitherto, whenever charges of this kind are brought up, instead

of answering them, to tell you that they endear the President

more than ever to the American people; that his renomination is

a sure thing, etc.; and that Horace Greeley is a friend of Hank

Smith. Now is this satisfactory? Let us have a candid answer,

without allusions to cigars, or fast horses, or investments, or

summer vacations, Hank Smith, or Horace Greeley.

No dollar of the Leet and Stocking "plum" ever reached President Grant

or any member of his family. We are left to conjecture what were his

reasons for allowing the scandal to continue so long after the facts

became known. Judging his course here by his second term, we are forced

to conclude that his combativeness was aroused by the criticisms of

Schurz, Trumbull, and others, which he interpreted as marks of personal

hostility to himself. In fact, his senatorial supporters so interpreted

them in public discussions. He probably upheld Leet for the same reasons

that he shielded Babcock in the greater scandal of the St. Louis Whiskey

Ring in 1876.[124] It was a mistake, however, to suppose (if he did

suppose) that Trumbull was moved by any personal hostility. An interview

with the latter, dated December 3, 1871, published in the Louisville

_Courier-Journal_,[125] shows that he was still on friendly terms with

the President. His interlocutor began by asking him if he would consent

to the use of his name as a conservative candidate for the Presidency

against General Grant, to which the "Illinois statesman replied with

more than usual emphasis, 'No sir, I would not.'"

Then the following conversation ensued:

Why not?

For many reasons. In the first place, I am satisfied where I

am. I consider a seat in the Senate of the United States a

position in which I can be more useful than in any other, and I

believe it to be as honorable as any under the Government if

its duties be efficiently and properly discharged. In the next

place, I do not agree with the programme which has been marked

out by those who refuse to support the candidacy of the

President for reelection. I am conscious of the need for many

reforms, and I am daily striving to accomplish them. But I do

not believe that a revolution of parties would be salutary. I

do not believe that either the people of the North or of the

South are ready to profit by such a change.

And why not?

Because the people of the South have really accepted nothing,

and are not willing to cooeperate with the Liberals of the North

in settling the practical relations of society on a sure and

generous basis. I know that the South has much to complain of.

But so have the Liberal Republicans. It is not the rebel

element, perhaps, but the nature of things, that the South

should not realize the complete overthrow of the old order and

the necessity for a complete change of the domestic policy. I

believe that the defeat of General Grant would involve a

reaction at the South whose consequences would be even worse

than the present state of affairs.

Don't you think General Grant meditates the permanent

usurpation of the Executive office?

No, I do not. My opinion is that General Grant is, in the main,

a conservative man. He has made mistakes. But I cannot say they

justify his removal.

What are your personal relations?

Very friendly. I have opposed some of his measures, but I have

no personal feeling, and, indeed, this is one of the reasons

why it is disagreeable to have my name mentioned in the

connection you name.

The interview closed with the writer's assurance that the views of

Senator Sumner coincided with those of Trumbull. A Washington letter in

the _Nation_ of December 28 said:

From what I see and hear, the conviction is forced upon me that

there will be no lead given by men like Trumbull voluntarily.

They may be forced by the Administration party into opposition,

but they will go reluctantly and timidly.

Among the letters received by Trumbull at this time was the following

from a man of high repute and influence in Ohio:

COLUMBUS, December 15, 1871.

You may remember me sufficiently to know who I am and my

position in Ohio. My special object in this writing is to

congratulate you for your proper and patriotic position on the

Retrenchment Resolution. Messrs. Morton, Sherman _et al_, are

grievously mistaken as to the state of public sentiment in

regard to the Administration and the President. I am bold to

say that outside of the Grand Army of the Republic and the

office-holders (an _imperium in imperio_), more than one half

of the Republicans are intensely dissatisfied with General

Grant. His indecent interference in Missouri and Louisiana, his

disgusting nepotism, his indefensible course in regard to San

Domingo, and his recent complimentary letter to Collector

Murphy have produced the conviction that he is intellectually

and morally unqualified for his present position. He will hear

deep and alarming thunder before the Kalends of November, 1872.

Go forward with your associates, Schurz, Sumner, Patterson, and

Tipton, in your exposure of the faults and frauds of the

Administration, and the best class of Republicans will honor

your magnanimity and patriotism. I know General Grant

personally. I have not asked him for any favor. As Senatorial

Elector I traversed the state, and advocated the Republican

principles and policy, but I have the pleasant consciousness

and delightful remembrance that I never eulogized General Grant

nor recommended him as suitable for the place. As long as he is

under the special superintendence of Morton, Chandler, and

Cameron, he must necessarily deteriorate, as none of them has

ever been suspected of having any profound sense of right or

wrong.

Confidentially yours,

SAM'L GALLOWAY.

HON. LYMAN TRUMBULL, U.S.S.

FOOTNOTES:

[122] _Cong. Globe_, 1871, p. 51.

[123] See House report No. 50, 37th Congress, 3d session, page 38.

[124] Rhodes, _History of the United States_, VII, 182-89.

[125] This interview was reprinted in the New York _Times_ of December

6. It is corroborated in sentiment by the Trumbull manuscripts of that

date, but it was probably not intended for publication. It purports to

be a conversation between Trumbull and an ex-Senator.

CHAPTER XXV

THE CINCINNATI CONVENTION

The Liberal Republicans of Missouri held a state convention at Jefferson

City, January 24, 1872. They adopted a platform which affirmed the

sovereignty of the Union, emancipation, equality of rights,

enfranchisement, complete amnesty, tariff reform, civil service reform,

local self-government, and impartial suffrage. They also called a

national mass convention to meet at Cincinnati on the first Monday in

May.

This call was at once endorsed by General J. D. Cox, George Hoadley,

Stanley Matthews, and J. B. Stallo, four of the most eminent citizens of

Ohio, the first of whom had been a member of President Grant's Cabinet.

Mr. Matthews, in an interview, expressed the hope that the Democrats

would join in nominating a candidate for the presidency of the type of

Charles Francis Adams, William S. Groesbeck, Lyman Trumbull, or Salmon

P. Chase.

The movement spread like wildfire. Groups of Republicans, eminent in

character and in public service in all the states, proclaimed their

adhesion to it and declared their intention to participate in the

convention. It had also the active support of the Springfield

_Republican_, the Cincinnati _Commercial_, and the Chicago _Tribune_,

and the sympathy of the New York _Evening Post_, the _Nation_, and the

New York _Tribune_. Democratic sympathy was manifested early and found

expression in the columns of the Louisville _Courier-Journal_, whose

editor, Henry Watterson, took a keen interest in the preliminaries of

the Cincinnati meeting and whose cooeperation was gladly welcomed. The

New York _World_, edited by Manton Marble, gave passive support to the

movement by advising Democrats to conform to present facts and not seek

to revive or sustain the dead issues of the war and Reconstruction.

Under date, New Orleans, April 23, Marble wrote to Schurz:

It is due to you that I should say, before you go to

Cincinnati, that in my clear judgment the nomination of Charles

Francis Adams would defeat the reelection of Grant. It has

always been obvious that Mr. Adams would be among the best of

Presidents. He has been growing, during the last few months, to

be the best of candidates. I could not name another so safe to

win. Adams and Palmer would be a quite perfect ticket.--This is

founded on careful consideration.

August Belmont, of New York, the most influential Democrat in that state

not holding any public office, took an active part, both by

correspondence and by personal solicitation, in the endeavor to secure

the nomination by the Cincinnati Convention of a candidate whom the

Democrats could support, and to induce the latter to abstain from making

a separate nomination. From Vincennes, Indiana, April 23, he wrote to

Schurz that, after having seen many prominent men of both parties, he

had found the Cincinnati movement even stronger with them, and the

people, than he had anticipated. He added:

Everybody looks for the action of your convention, and if you

make a good _national_ platform denouncing the abuses and

corruption of the Executive, the military despotism of the

South, the centralization of power and the subordination of the

civil power to the military rule, and declare boldly for

general amnesty and a revenue tariff, you will find every

Democrat throughout the land ready to vote for your candidate,

provided you name one whom our convention can endorse.... I

found in the West and in New York an overwhelming desire for

Charles F. Adams. Adams is the strongest and least vulnerable

man; he will draw more votes from Grant than will any other

candidate. The whole Democratic party will follow him.

There was a full delegation from Pennsylvania, composed of honorable

men, who were not office-seekers. The meeting which appointed them was

presided over by Colonel A. K. McClure, who announced, when taking the

chair, that inasmuch as the Cincinnati Convention was a mass meeting,

the persons attending it would not be entangled in the usual political

machinery. The movement was on the lines of the Republican party; it was

a movement of Republicans by necessity, who did not mean to be bound by

the Government party as it then stood. General William B. Thomas said

that he and other gentlemen had issued the call for this meeting to send

a delegation to Cincinnati. He was engaged in work looking to the

annihilation of the Republican party. He had helped to build up that

party, but now he was free to say that it was the most corrupt party on

the face of the earth. He was opposed to any candidate to be nominated

by the coming Philadelphia Convention; Grant, or any other man. Colonel

McClure said that the plain English of the whole thing was rebellion

against the party and the bringing of it to the dignity of a revolution.

Five years ago there might have been a necessity for the exercise of

military power in the South, but not now. The South, to his mind, had

been more desolated since the close of the war than before.

The Pennsylvanians had fifty-six votes in the convention. On the first

roll-call they cast all of them for Governor A. G. Curtin. On all

subsequent ones they gave a plurality for Adams.[126]

Numerous letters reached Trumbull before the call for the Cincinnati

Convention was issued suggesting that he be a candidate for the

presidency in opposition to Grant. One of these, dated Roslyn, Long

Island, November 30, 1871, was from John H. Bryant, brother of William

Cullen Bryant, who said that both himself and his brother desired to see

him elected President and that if he should be a candidate he could

count on the support of the _Evening Post_.

Silas L. Bryan, of Salem, Illinois, the father of William Jennings

Bryan, wrote under date, December 19, 1871, that he considered Trumbull

the Providential man for the present crisis and that if he would consent

to be a candidate for the highest office he (Bryan) would take steps to

promote that desirable end. To this letter Trumbull replied that to be

talked about for the presidency impaired the influence he might

otherwise have to promote the reforms which he labored to bring about.

He did not, however, refuse Judge Bryan's offer of assistance.

Joseph Brown, Mayor of St. Louis, wrote that he would rather see

Trumbull nominated for the presidency than any other man of either

party. To this letter Trumbull made a reply similar to that given to

Judge Bryan.

Walter B. Scates, ex-judge of the supreme court of Illinois, wrote: "You

saved the Republican party in the impeachment trial and I now hope you

may save the country from corruption, pillage, high tax, class

legislation, and central despotism."

Jesse K. Dubois, auditor of Illinois, perhaps the most sagacious and

experienced politician in the state, wrote, after signing the call for

the Cincinnati Convention: "With you as our candidate I would wager we

carry this state anywhere from 30,000 to 50,000 majority as against

Grant."

On February 23, Trumbull made a speech in the Senate defending the

Missouri Convention's platform against the objections of Senator Morton,

who had stigmatized it as a Democratic movement, because that party in

Connecticut had endorsed it in their state convention. In this speech

Trumbull took up each resolution in the platform and showed that it was

either in accord with Republican doctrine as affirmed in the national

platforms of the party, or had been commended by President Grant in

official messages to Congress. On the subject of civil service reform,

to promote which Grant had appointed the George William Curtis

Commission, he said:

The great evil of our civil service system grows out of the

manner of making appointments and renewals and the use which is

made of the patronage, treating it as mere party spoils. Often

the patronage is used for purposes not rising to the dignity of

even party purposes, but by certain individuals for individual

and personal ends. It would be bad enough if the patronage were

used as mere spoils for party, but it is infinitely worse than

that under our present system.

The Senator from Indiana, in his speech the other day,

undertook to create the impression that I was opposed to civil

service reform. Why, sir, I offered the very bill in this body

which became a law under which the Civil Service Commission was

organized. I introduced bills here years ago in favor of a

reform in the civil service and especially to break up the

running of members of Congress to the departments begging for

offices. In my judgment there is nothing more disreputable, or

which interferes more with the proper discharge of public duty,

than this hanging around the skirts of power begging for

offices for friends.

The growth of the Cincinnati movement was signalized by a meeting at the

Cooper Union in New York City on the evening of April 12, of which the

_Nation_ said: "We believe that it was the most densely packed meeting

which ever met there. All approach within fifty yards of the entrance

was next to impossible in the early part of the evening, so great was

the crowd in the street." Both Trumbull and Schurz spoke here to

enthusiastic hearers.

Among the letters received by Trumbull prior to the convention the most

thoughtful and weighty was the following written by Governor John M.

Palmer, of Illinois:

SPRINGFIELD, April 13, 1872.

I have felt considerable apprehension in regard to the

Cincinnati movement for the reason that I have doubted the

ability of men of the right stamp to control the action of the

proposed convention, and I have believed that it would be

better to endure the abuses and weaknesses and follies of

Grant's Administration for another four years than to

crystallize them by the mistake of making a bad nomination of

his successor. Grant is an evil that we can endure if we retain

the right to point out his faults in principle and practice,

but if some ancient Federalist should be elected to succeed him

what is now usurpation would be accepted by the people as the

proper theory of the government. But if the Cincinnati

Convention nominates a statesman I will support him, and you if

you are selected as the candidate.

JOHN M. PALMER.

Among the names mentioned as desirable candidates that of Charles

Francis Adams was the most prominent. After him came Lyman Trumbull,

Horace Greeley, David Davis, B. Gratz Brown, and Andrew G. Curtin. Adams

had been Minister to Great Britain during the war, and was now one of

the arbitrators of the Geneva Tribunal under the Alabama Claims Treaty.

He had written a letter to David A. Wells which showed that he did not

desire the nomination, was perfectly indifferent to it, but that if it

were given to him without pledges of any kind he would not refuse. He

said among other things:

If the call upon me were an unequivocal one based upon

confidence in my character earned in public life, and a belief

that I would carry out in practice the principles I professed,

then indeed would come a test of my courage in an emergency;

but if I am to be negotiated for, and have assurances given

that I am honest, you will be so kind as to draw me out of that

crowd.

This phrase was interpreted erroneously by some as an expression of

contempt for "that crowd," but, of course, it was not so intended. The

letter was not written for publication. Not only did Mr. Adams not seek

the nomination, but his son, Charles Francis, Jr., refused to go to the

convention, or to invite any of his Boston friends to go.

Greeley was an anti-slavery leader, founder of the New York _Tribune_,

book-writer, lecturer, foremost journalist in the country, distinguished

both for intellectual power and personal eccentricity. Davis was a

member of the Supreme Court of the United States, by Lincoln's

appointment. Brown was governor of Missouri, and next to Schurz the most

prominent leader of the Liberal movement. Curtin had been the war

governor of Pennsylvania and was a man of high ability and unblemished

character. The name of Sumner had been frequently mentioned as one

suitable for the presidency, but he had not yet given his adhesion to

the Liberal movement.

The New York _Herald_ of May 1 tells what I thought of the outlook when

I first arrived in Cincinnati, thus:

CINCINNATI, April 27, 1872.--Mr. Horace White, who arrived this

morning, says that the Liberal movement has as yet only

penetrated the crust of public sentiment and that the masses of

the people are waiting in a half-curious way to see what will

be done here before they will make up their minds.

Trumbull did not authorize the presentation of his name to the

convention until one week before its meeting. Then a qualified

acquiescence came in a letter to myself, dated Washington, April 24,

saying:

I do not think I ought to be nominated unless there is a

_decided_ feeling among those who assemble, and are outside of

rings and bargains, that I would be stronger than any one else.

Unless this is the feeling, I think it would not be wise to

present my name at all.... D. A. Wells has enclosed me a letter

written on the 20th by John Van Buren, Governor Hoffman's

secretary, which he thinks undoubtedly represents the feelings

of the Hoffman wing of the New York Democracy. In this letter

Van Buren says the convention must not touch the question of

free trade, that the persons pushing this question are not

unanimous on the question, and that a non-committal resolution

would do harm in both directions. Grosvenor is very strenuous

about having such a resolution as will commit the convention

distinctly to revenue reform, and I fear will be a little

unreasonable about it. I had thought that a resolution might be

adopted which would assert the principle without being

offensive to anybody; perhaps something like the resolution

adopted by the last Illinois State Convention. Free-traders and

protectionists differ more about the application of principles

than the principles themselves in their efforts. Wells and

other reformers of the East will be reasonable on this

question. Van Buren further says in his letter: "One thing rely

upon--you need do nothing at Cincinnati except with reference

to drawing Republicans into the movement. Disregard the

Democrats. The movement of that side will take care of itself.

There will be no cheating nor holding back on their side. They

will go over in bulk and with a will."

My reply to this letter, written immediately after the adjournment of

the convention, was the following:

My judgment was from the beginning of our arrival here that you

could not be nominated, but I did not tell anybody so. Dr.

Jayne and Governor Koerner thought you could be; and their

judgment, I thought, should be set before mine. So I held my

tongue and did what I could. If I had taken the responsibility

of withdrawing your name as suggested by your letter, I should

never have had any standing in Illinois again--certainly not

among your friends.

As this convention did not consist of delegates chosen by primary

meetings, any person of Republican antecedents or attachments was

permitted to attend and take part in it. To bring order out of chaos it

was necessary for the men of each state to come together and choose a

number corresponding to its population to cast its votes on all

questions arising, including the nomination of candidates. In states

which presented more than one candidate, as in Illinois, there was some

difficulty in making the proper division as between Davis and Trumbull;

but all such troubles were adjusted before the hour for assembling

arrived. The streets of Cincinnati had never beheld a more orderly,

single-minded, public-spirited crowd. At least four fifths had come

together at their own expense for no other purpose than the general

good. There was, however, a small minority of office-seekers among them.

The movement in its inception was altogether free from that class, but

when it began to assume formidable proportions and seemed not unlikely

to sweep the country, it attracted a certain number of professional

politicians, including a few estrays from the South.

The office-seeking fraternity were mostly supporters of Davis, whose

appearance as a candidate for the presidency was extremely offensive to

the original promoters of the movement. As a judge of the Supreme Court

his incursion into the field of politics, unheralded, but not

unprecedented, was an indecorum. Moreover, his supporters had not been

early movers in the ranks of reform, and their sincerity was doubted.

They were extremely active, however, after the movement had gained

headway, and they were able to divide the vote of Illinois into two

equal parts (21 to 21), so that Trumbull's strength in the convention

was seriously impaired. Davis's chances were early demolished by the

editorial fraternity, who, at a dinner at Murat Halstead's house,

resolved that they would not support him if nominated, and caused that

fact to be made known.

Greeley's candidacy had not been taken seriously by the editors at

Halstead's dinner-party. As an individual he was generally liked by them

and his ability and honesty were held in the highest esteem; but he was

looked upon as too eccentric and picturesque to find much support in

such a sober-minded convention as ours. Adams and Trumbull were the only

men supposed by us to be within the sphere of nomination, and the

chances of Adams were deemed the better of the two. We had yet to learn

that there are occasions and crowds where personal oddity and a flash of

genius under an old white hat are more potent than high ancestry or

approved statesmanship, or both those qualifications joined together.

Before nominations were made, a platform was to be framed and adopted.

There were three main issues to be considered: Universal amnesty, civil

service reform, and tariff reform. On the first and second there was no

difference of opinion. Without them the Cincinnati movement would never

have taken place; the convention would never have been called. As to the

third, there was a difference of opinion which divided the convention

and the Committee on Resolutions in the middle, and it soon became known

that "there was no common ground on which the protectionists and revenue

reformers could stand." So wrote E. L. Godkin from the convention hall

to the _Nation_. He continued:

The Committee on Resolutions, after sitting up a whole night,

were compelled to accept the compromise which he [Greeley]

proposed--the reference of the whole matter to the people in

the congressional districts. It is right to add that the

sentiment of the convention was overwhelmingly in favor of this

course. There is a touch of absurdity about it, it is true, but

it is at least frank and honest, and at all events nothing

else was possible. Even such outspoken free-traders as Judge

Hoadley, of this city, were compelled to concur in this

disposition of the question.

As chairman of the Committee on Resolutions, and a free-trader, I can

confirm all that Godkin wrote, and add that the committee considered the

expediency of reporting to the convention their inability to agree and

asking to be discharged. This plan was rejected lest it should cause a

bolting movement, on an issue which was rated only third in importance

among those which had brought us together. It was decided that tariff

reform could wait, while the pacification of the South and the reform of

the civil service could not.

Thursday night, May 2, I had gone to bed at the Burnet House when I was

aroused by a loud knock on my door and a voice outside which I

recognized as that of Grosvenor exclaiming: "Get up! Blair and Brown are

here from St. Louis." Without waiting for an answer he went on knocking

at other doors in the corridor and giving the same warning, but no other

explanation. I arose, dressed myself, and went down to the rotunda of

the hotel, where I found some of the supporters of Trumbull and of Adams

who were trying to discover why the arrival of Frank Blair and Gratz

Brown should produce a commotion in a convention of more than seven

hundred, of which Blair and Brown were not members. Blair was then the

Democratic Senator from Missouri. The two newcomers were not visible.

They had obtained a room and had called into it some of the Missouri

delegation and would not admit any uninvited persons. Presently

Grosvenor returned and told us that Brown intended to withdraw as a

candidate for the presidency and turn his forces over to Greeley, and

himself take the Vice-Presidency. Grosvenor considered this a dangerous

combination and said that steps should be taken to checkmate it at once.

The Adams and Trumbull men here collected remained till about two

o'clock trying to learn more about the expected _coup_, but as nothing

further could be obtained they retired one by one to uneasy slumber.

Grosvenor maintained to the last that great mischief was impending, but

could not suggest any way to meet it.

On the following day voting began, and the first roll-call showed Adams

in the lead with 205 votes; Greeley had 147, Trumbull 110, Brown 95,

Davis 92-1/2, Curtin 62, Chase 2-1/2. Carl Schurz, who was permanent

chairman of the convention and a supporter of Adams, then rose and with

some signs of embarrassment said that a gentleman who had received a

large number of votes desired to make a statement, whereupon he invited

the Hon. B. Gratz Brown to come to the platform. Brown advanced to the

front, and after thanking his friends for their support said that he had

decided to withdraw his name and that he desired the nomination of

Horace Greeley as the man most likely to win in the coming election.

There was great applause among the supporters of Greeley, but the

immediate result did not answer their expectations. Brown could not

control even the Missouri delegation. The first vote of the Missouri men

had been 30 for Brown. The second was, Trumbull 16, Greeley 10, Adams 4.

All the votes are shown in the following table:

----------------------------------------------------------

Roll-Call|Adams|Greeley|Trumbull| Davis|Chase|Brown|Curtin

---------+-----+-------+--------+------+-----+-----+------

First | 205 | 147 | 110 |92-1/2|2-1/2| 95 | 62

Second | 243 | 245 | 148 |81 | | 2 |

Third | 264 | 258 | 156 |44 | | |

Fourth | 279 | 251 | 141 |51 | | |

Fifth | 309 | 258 | 91 |30 |25 | |

Sixth | 324 | 332 | 19 | 6 |32 | |

----------------------------------------------------------

Although Greeley's plurality on the sixth roll-call was small, his gain

over the fifth was large, being 74 votes, that of Adams being only 15.

This was a signal to all who wished to be on the winning side to take

shelter under the old white hat. Changes were made before the result was

announced which gave Greeley 482 to 187 for Adams. Then Greeley was

declared nominated. The nomination of Gratz Brown for Vice-President

followed without much opposition.

The supporters of Adams and of Trumbull were stunned. The first impulse

of their leaders, and especially of Schurz, was to put on sackcloth, and

go into retirement. Prompt decision, however, was necessary to the

editors of daily newspapers. Other persons could go home and take days

or weeks to think the matter over, but those who, at Halstead's table,

had decided against David Davis, must needs make another prompt decision

before the next paper went to press. They decided to support Greeley,

because they had honestly led their readers to an honest belief that the

Cincinnati movement was for the best interests of the Republic; and they

deemed it unfair to turn against it on account of personal vexation

against a man whose candidacy had been tolerated through the whole

proceedings. That Greeley was an unbalanced man we all knew. That he was

liable to go off at a tangent and that his self-esteem and

self-confidence might put him beyond the reach of good counsel in

affairs of great pith and moment, was the unexpressed thought of most of

us. But we knew that his aims were patriotic, and we reflected that some

risks are taken at every presidential election. Greeley had not yet been

proved an unsafe President, and that was more than could be said for

Grant. In fact, Grant's second term proved to be worse than his first.

Schurz was more distressed by the "Gratz Brown trick," as it was

commonly called, than by anything else. This had the appearance of a

brazen political swap executed in the light of day, by which the

presidency and the vice-presidency were disposed of as so much

merchandise. He did not, however, in his thoughts connect Greeley with

the trade. It was physically impossible that the latter could have been

a party to it, if there was a trade. Nevertheless he considered the

German vote lost beyond recall by the bad look of it.[127] My own belief

is that Blair and Brown were jealous of Schurz's power in Missouri; that

they feared he would become omnipotent there, dominating both parties,

if Adams should be elected President; and that the only way to head him

off was to beat Adams. They chose Greeley for this purpose, not because

they had any bargain with, or fondness for, him, but because he was the

next strongest man in the convention.

The engineers of the Liberal Republican movement went their several

ways. Those who held tariff reform of more importance than all other

issues abjured Greeley at once. E. L. Godkin and William Cullen Bryant

declared war against him because they considered him dangerous and

unfit. The following correspondence which took place between Bryant and

Trumbull was illustrative of the feelings of many others:

THE EVENING POST,

41 NASSAU STREET, COR. LIBERTY,

NEW YORK, May 8th, 1872.

MY DEAR SIR,

It has been said that you will support the nomination of Mr.

Greeley for President. I have no right to speak of any course

which you may take in politics in any but respectful terms, but

I may perhaps take the liberty of saying that if you give that

man your countenance, some of your best friends here will

deeply regret it. We who know Mr. Greeley know that his

administration, should he be elected, cannot be otherwise than

shamefully corrupt. His associates are of the worst sort and

the worst abuses of the present Administration are likely to be

even caricatured under his. His election would be a severe blow

to the cause of revenue reform. The cause of civil service

reform would be hopeless with him for President, for Reuben E.

Fenton, his guide and counselor, and the other wretches by whom

Greeley is surrounded, will never give up the patronage by

which they expect to hold their power. As to other public

measures there is no abuse or extravagance into which that man,

through the infirmity of his judgment, may not be betrayed. It

is wonderful how little, in some of his vagaries, the scruples

which would influence other men of no exemplary integrity,

restrain him. But I need not dwell upon these matters--they are

all set forth in the _Evening Post_ which you sometimes see.

What I have written, is written in the most profound respect

for your public character, and because of that respect. If you

conclude to support Mr. Greeley, I shall, of course, infer that

you do so because you do not know him.

Yours truly,

HON. L. TRUMBULL.

W. C. BRYANT.

UNITED STATES SENATE CHAMBER,

WASHINGTON, May 10, 1872.

WM. C. BRYANT, Esq.,

MY DEAR SIR,--Your kind and frank letter is before me. I wish I

could see something better than to support Mr. Greeley, but I

do not. Personally, I know but little of him, but in common

with most people supposed he was an honest but confiding man,

who was often imposed upon by those about him. This would be a

great fault in a President, I admit, but with proper

surroundings could be guarded against, and almost anything

would be an improvement on what we have. One of the greatest

evils of our time is party despotism and intolerance. Greeley's

nomination is a bomb-shell which seems likely to blow up both

parties. This will be an immense gain. Most of the corruptions

in government are made possible through party tyranny. Members

of the Senate are daily coerced into voting contrary to their

convictions through party pressure. A notable instance of this

was the vote on the impeachment of Johnson, and matters in this

respect have not improved since. If by Greeley's election we

could break up the present corrupt organizations, it would

enable the people at the end of four years to elect a President

with a view to his fitness instead of having one put upon them

by a vote of political bummers acting in the name of party.

Having favored the Cincinnati movement and Greeley having

received the nomination, I see no course left but to try to

elect him, and endeavor to surround him, as far as possible,

with honest men. Greeley had a good deal of strength among the

people and was strong in the convention outside of bargain or

arrangement. Many voted for him as their first choice, and in

Illinois I feel confident he is a stronger candidate than Adams

would have been.

LYMAN TRUMBULL.

Sumner, although urged by many of his warmest friends both before and

after the convention, including Frank Bird, Samuel Bowles, and Greeley

himself (through Whitelaw Reid), to declare his position, did not break

silence until May 31, when he made his great speech against Grant. The

speech remains a true catalogue of the shortcomings of Grant as a civil

administrator up to that time. All his sins of omission and of

commission were there set forth in orderly array, together with the

proofs. Sumner thus spared future historians a deal of trouble in

searching the records, but the speech was not very effective in the way

of changing votes. Sumner sometimes mistook himself for a modern Cicero

impeaching Verres. He piled up the agony in the fashion customary in the

pleadings of the ancient forum. He overlooked the signal services

rendered by Grant before he held any civil office. He did not make

allowance for the transition of a tanner's clerk, earning fifty dollars

a month and having a family to support, first to the command of half a

million soldiers in war time, and then to the presidency of the United

States in time of peace, all within the period of eight years. The

mistakes naturally arising from such crude beginnings, when meeting

gigantic responsibilities in quick succession, ought to have excited

pathos as well as censure. By giving due consideration to Grant's whole

career, he would have secured a better hearing for the part of it which

he wished to impress upon the public mind.

Even now Sumner did not advise anybody to vote for Greeley. His omission

to do so was at once construed as an argument favorable to Grant. It was

said that the dangers involved in Greeley's eccentricities were so much

greater than anything that Grant had done, or could do, that Grant's

worst enemy (Sumner) would not advise people to vote for him. Not until

the 29th of July did the Massachusetts Senator publicly speak for

Greeley, and then only in a letter to some colored voters who had asked

his advice. It was then too late to exert much influence. It is doubtful

if even the colored men who had sought his advice gave any heed to it.

Probably the reason why Sumner did not speak earlier was that he

hesitated to break from his abolitionist friends, Garrison, Phillips,

and others, who had besought him not to join the Democrats. When he did

finally join the forces supporting Greeley, his old friend Garrison

turned upon him and chastised him severely in a series of open letters,

which Sumner declined to read.

FOOTNOTES:

[126] Chicago _Times_, April 22.

[127] Frank W. Bird, of Boston, who went to Cincinnati as an anti-Adams

delegate, wrote to Charles Sumner on May 7: "Don't believe a word about

the trade, in any discreditable sense, between Blair and Brown on the

one part and the Greeley men on the other. Undoubtedly Blair wanted to

head off Schurz, and equally truly an arrangement was made, or an

understanding reached, on Thursday night, in a certain contingency to

unite a portion of the Brown and Greeley forces: but, except perhaps in

the motives of the leading negotiators on one side, there was nothing

unusual in the affair, nothing that is not usually--indeed, almost

necessarily--done in such conventions; nothing that was not contemplated

and even proposed by the Adams men." (Sumner papers in Harvard

University Library.)

CHAPTER XXVI

THE GREELEY CAMPAIGN

My own feelings immediately after the nomination were set forth in a

telegram to the Chicago _Tribune_ published in its issue of May 4. The

chief part was in these words:

CINCINNATI, May 3.--The nomination of Mr. Greeley was

accomplished by the people against the judgment and strenuous

efforts of politicians, using the latter word in its larger and

higher sense. The Gratz Brown performance has given the whole

affair the appearance of a put-up job, but it was merely a

lucky guess. The Blairs and Browns do not like Schurz. To

defeat a candidate who was likely to be on confidential terms

with Schurz, as either Adams or Trumbull would have been, was

the thing nearest to their hearts, and for this purpose Brown

made his appearance here. His speech in the Convention fell

like dish-water on the whole assemblage, and, being followed by

the transfer of the Missouri votes to Trumbull, instead of

Greeley, showed that he had no influence in his own delegation.

The changes from Brown to Greeley were few and far between, and

in a short time the convention only remembered that Brown had

been a candidate once and was so no longer. But the personal

popularity of Greeley was more than a match for the

intellectual strength of Trumbull and the moral gravity of

Adams. He was stealing votes from both of them all the time.

When the Illinois delegation at last perceived that the heart

of the convention was carrying away the head, and retired for

consultation, the surprising fact was developed that fifteen of

their own number preferred Greeley to any candidate not from

their own state. The supporters of Adams, while entertaining

the most cordial feeling for the friends of Trumbull, think

that if the latter had come over to Adams's corner the result

would have been different. I do not think so. If the Illinois

vote could have been cast solid for Adams at an earlier stage,

the result might have been different: but there was no time

when Adams could have got more than the twenty-seven votes

which were finally cast for him. The contingency of having to

divide between Adams and Greeley had never been considered,

and, therefore, no time had been allowed to compare views. The

vote of the state being thus divided, its weight was lost for

any purpose of influencing other votes. Then gush and hurrah

swept everything down, and, almost before a vote of Illinois

had been recorded by the secretary, the dispatches came rushing

to the telegraph instruments that Greeley was nominated. For a

moment, the wiser heads in the convention were stunned, though

everybody tried to look perfectly contented. Of all the things

that could possibly happen, this was the one thing which

everybody supposed could not happen. Not even the Greeley men

themselves thought it could happen. The only able politician

who seemed to be really for Greeley was Waldo Hutchins, of New

York, and even his sincerity was questioned by Greeley's

backbone friends as long as the Davis movement was regarded as

still alive.

How the news was received by Trumbull was told by the New York

_Herald's_ Washington dispatch of May 3:

... The scene in the Senate, when the news was received, was

one of complacent dignity, such as only the members of that

body could arrange, even if they had studied to prepare

themselves for an art tableau. Mr. Fenton was the recipient of

the dispatches, and his chair was consequently surrounded by a

crowd of the less dignified Senators, who could not wait to

have the telegrams passed around. Trumbull was the most

undisturbed of all those on the floor. His equanimity

astonished his friends as well as the numerous strangers in the

galleries, who watched closely for indications of excitement in

his parchment-like face. In truth, he seemed to get the news

rather by some occult process of induction, if he got it at

all, than by the course usual to ordinary men. Other members

smiled, made comments, exchanged opinions and preserved their

dignity with customary success; but he alone asserted an

immobility of demeanor that will last for all time, in the

memory of its witnesses, as a remarkable instance of

self-possession. At last, when every one else had delivered

himself of some criticism he remarked to those in his

immediate vicinity: "If the country can stand the first

outburst of mirth the nomination will call forth, it may prove

a strong ticket."

Carl Schurz was slow in reaching a decision to support the ticket. His

first endeavor was to induce Greeley, in a friendly way, to decline the

nomination, by showing him the sombre aspects of the campaign ahead. In

a letter dated May 18, he told Greeley that the dissatisfaction of an

influential part of the Liberal Republican forces was such that a

meeting had been called to consider the question of putting another

ticket in the field before the Democrats should hold their convention.

Other discouraging features were presented and the letter concluded with

these words:

I have, from the beginning, made it a point to tell you with

entire candor how I feel and what I think about this business,

and now if the developments of the campaign should be such as

to disappoint your hopes, it shall not be my fault if you are

deceived about the real state of things.

To this Greeley replied on the 20th, saying that his advices warranted

him in predicting that New York would give 50,000 majority for the

Cincinnati ticket, and that New England and the South would be nearly

solid for it, while in Pennsylvania and the Northwest the chances were

at least even. He ended by saying: "I shall accept unconditionally."

The meeting foreshadowed in Schurz's letter to Greeley took place at the

Fifth Avenue Hotel on the 20th of June. It was composed mainly of

persons who had participated in the Cincinnati Convention and had been

greatly disappointed by Mr. Greeley's nomination. William Cullen Bryant

presided, but fell asleep in the chair soon after the proceedings began.

The first speech was made by Trumbull, who said that his mind was made

up to support the Cincinnati ticket. He thought that Greeley had gained

strength during the first month of the campaign and that the chances of

his election were good. He could see no reason for nominating another

ticket. That would simply be playing into the hands of the supporters of

Grant.

Schurz's position, as reported by the _Nation_, was this: