The Presidential canvass of 1872 was anomalous in its character. Never
before or since has a great party adopted as its candidate a
conspicuous public man, who was not merely outside its own ranks, but
who, in the thick of every political battle for a third of a century,
had been one of its most relentless and implacable foes. In the
shifting scenes of our varied partisan contests, the demands of
supposed expediency had often produced curious results. Sometimes the
natural leaders of parties had been set aside; men without experience
and without attainments had been brought forward; the settled currents
of years had been suddenly changed by the eddy and whirl of the moment;
but never before had any eccentricity of political caprice gone so far
as to suggest the bitterest antagonist of a party for its anointed
chief. It was the irony of logic, and yet it came to pass by the
progress of events which were irresistibly logical.
The course of affairs had been threatening a formidable division in the
Republican party. It was in some degree a difference of policy, but
more largely a clashing of personal interests and ambitions. The
Liberal Republican movement, as the effort of dissatisfied partisans
was termed, had its nominal origin, though not its exciting cause, in
the State of Missouri in 1870. Missouri had presented the
complications and conflicts which embarrassed all the Border States.
The State had not seceded, but tens of thousands of her people had
joined the rebel ranks. To prevent them from sharing in the
government while fighting to overthrow it, these allies of the
Rebellion had by an amendment to the State constitution been
disqualified from exercising the rights of citizenship. The demand was
now made that these disabilities imposed during the war should be
removed. The Republicans, holding control of the Legislature, divided
upon this question. The minority, calling themselves Liberals,
under the leadership of Benjamin Gratz Brown and Carl Schurz,
combined with the Democrats, and passed amendments which removed the
disqualifications. The same combination, as a part of the same
movement, elected Brown governor. An alliance, offensive and
defensive, between Brown and General Frank Blair, as the chiefs of
the Liberal and Democratic wings, cemented the coalition, and gave
Missouri over to Democratic control.
The question which divided Missouri was not presented in the same form
elsewhere. The disabilities against which the Liberals protested were
local, and were ordained in the State constitution. They were wholly
under State regulations. No such issue presented itself in the
National arena. The laws of the nation imposed no disabilities upon
any class of voters, and even the disqualification for office, which
rested upon those who had deserted high public trust to join in the
Rebellion, could be a vote of Congress be removed. Nevertheless, the
creed of the Missouri Liberals, though little applicable outside their
own borders, found an echo far beyond. Indeed, it was itself the echo
of earlier demands. Mr. Greeley characterized the Republican allies of
the Democrats in Missouri as bolters, but he had long before sounded
his trumpet cry of "universal amnesty and impartial suffrage." With a
political philosophy which is full of interest and suggestion in view
of his own impending experiment, he had in 1868 advised the Democrats,
if they did not nominate Mr. Pendleton on an extreme Democratic
platform, to go to the other extreme and take Chief Justice Chase on a
platform of amnesty and suffrage. He did not think they could succeed
by any such manoeuvre; but he believed it would commit Democracy to a
new departure, and be a long stride in the direction of loyalty and
good government. If other leaders did not share his faith, not a few
of them accepted his creed. Mr. Greeley's zealous and powerful
advocacy had impressed it upon many minds as the true corner-stone of
Reconstruction.
But this was obviously not a sufficient cause for division in the
Republican ranks. Whatever special significance it might have
possessed at an earlier period, the course of events had deprived it
of its distinctive force. It was now a matter of sentiment rather
than of practical efficacy. The readiness of Congress in responding
to every application for the removal of disabilities was itself a
generous amnesty. The Fifteenth Amendment had irrevocably established
the principle of equal suffrage. With this practical advance, the
demand of Liberalism did not leave room for any serious difference.
More potent causes were at work. The administration of President
Grant in some of its public measures had furnished pretexts, and in
some of its political dispensations had supplied reasons, for
discontent in various Republican quarters. The pretexts were loudly
emphasized: the reasons, more powerful in their effect, were less
plainly and directly proclaimed. The former related to questions of
public policy and to differences of opinion which would hardly have
been irreconcilable: the latter sprang from personal disappointments
and involved the rivalry of personal interests, which throughout
history have been the pregnant source of the bitterest partisan
contention.
The Liberals vigorously denounced what they characterized as the
military rule of General Grant. They criticised and condemned the
personal phases of the Administration:--they repeated the Democratic
charge that it was grasping undue power; they decried the channels
through which its influence was felt in the South; they complained
that its patronage was appropriated by leaders inimical to themselves;
they saw a strong organization growing up, with its centre in the
Senate and combining the great States, from which they were somewhat
offensively excluded. The deposition of Senator Sumner from the
chairmanship of the Committee on Foreign Relations had estranged him
and alienated his friends.
In the State of New York the personal currents were especially marked.
Governor Fenton had, during his two terms, from 1865 to 1869, acquired
the political leadership, and held it until Mr. Conkling's rising
power had created a strong rivalry. The struggle of these antagonistic
interests appeared in the State Convention of 1870, when Mr. Greeley
was defeated for governor, and Stewart L. Woodford was nominated.
In 1871 it appeared again in still more decisive form. Through the
contention of these opposing wings, two general committees and two
organizations of the party had been created in the city of New York,
each claiming the seal of regularity, and each sending a full
delegation to the State Convention. One represented the friends of
Mr. Greeley and Mr. Fenton: the other represented the friends of Mr.
Conkling. The importance and significance of the contest were fully
recognized. It was a decisive trial of strength between two divisions.
Mr. Fenton and Mr. Conkling, colleagues in the Senate, were both
present upon the scene of battle. Mr. Fenton had skill and experience
in political management: Mr. Conkling was bold and aggressive in
leadership. Mr. Fenton guided his partisans from the council chamber
through ready lieutenants: Mr. Conkling was upon the floor of the
Convention and took command in person. After several persuasive
appeals, the Convention was about to compromise the difficulty and
admit both delegations with an equal voice and vote, when Mr. Conkling
took the floor and by a powerful speech succeeded in changing its
purpose. Upon his resolute call the Fenton-Greeley delegation was
excluded, and his own friends were left in full control of the
Convention and of the party organization.
Under ordinary circumstances such a schism would have seemed altogether
unfortunate. At this juncture it looked peculiarly bold and hazardous,
for the "Tweed Ring" had complete control of New York; and apparently
the only hope, and that a feeble one, of rescuing the city and State
from its despotic and unscrupulous thraldom was in a united Republican
party. But the "Tweed Ring," in the very height of its arrogant and
defiant power, was on the eve of utter overthrow and annihilation. The
opportune exposure and conclusive proof of its colossal frauds and
robberies came just then. The effect of the startling revelation was
such that the most absolute political oligarchy ever organized in this
country crumbled to dust in a moment, and the Republicans carried New
York for the first time since 1866.
The unexpected success of 1871 crowning the triumph in the State
Convention fully confirmed the power of Mr. Conkling as the leader of
the party in New York. Mr. Greeley and his followers, already
opposed to the National Administration, now gave way to a still more
unrestrained hostility. All the antipathy which they felt for their
antagonists in the State was transferred to the President. They
ascribed their defeat to the free exercise of the Federal power; and
the indictment, which they had long been framing, was made more severe
from their renewed personal disappointment. In this temper and
position they were not alone. The discontent with the National
Administration was stimulated and increased by powerful journals like
the _New-York Tribune_, the _Chicago Tribune_, and the _Cincinnati
Commercial_.
The drift of events placed the protesting Republicans in an
embarrassing situation. The renomination of General Grant was seen to
be inevitable; and they were left to determine whether they would
remain in the party and acquiesce in what they were unable to prevent,
or whether they would try from the outside the opposition which was
impotent from the inside. They were thus driven by events to extend
into the National field the political experiment which had been
successfully undertaken in the State of Missouri. The movement
assumed apparently large proportions, and for a time wore a threatening
look. On the surface it was more wide-spread than the Buffalo
Free-soil revolt which defeated the Democratic party in 1848; but its
development was different, and the conditions were wholly dissimilar.
Now, as then, there was a curious blending of principle and of personal
resentment, but the issue presented was less enkindling than the
sentiment of resistance to the aggressions of slavery. The element of
opposition in the impending schism was, therefore, not as strong at
the decisive point as in the earlier outbreak.
The National Convention of the Liberal Republicans, which was the first
public step in the fusion with the Democracy, was held at Cincinnati
on the first day of May (1872), under a call emanating from the
Liberal State Convention of Missouri. There were no organizations
to send delegates, and it was necessarily called as a mass convention.
The attendance was large, especially from the States immediately
adjoining the place of meeting and from New York. It was clear that
with an aggregate so large and numbers so disproportionate from the
different States the disorganized and irresponsible mass must be
resolved into some sort of representative convention, and those present
from the several States were left to choose delegates in their own
way. The New-York delegation included Judge Henry R. Selden, General
John Cochrane, Theodore Tilton, William Dorsheimer (who two years later
was elected Lieutenant-Governor on the Democratic ticket with Samuel
J. Tilden), and Waldo Hutchins, who has since been a Democratic member
of Congress.--David Dudley Field, though participating in the
preliminary consultations, was excluded from the delegation through the
influence of Mr. Greeley's friends, because of his free-trade attitude.
--Other leading spirits were Colonel McClure and John Hickman of
Pennsylvania; Stanley Matthews, George Hoadly, and Judge R. P. Spalding,
of Ohio; Carl Schurz, William M. Grosvenor, and Joseph Pulitzer,
of Missouri; John Wentworth, Leonard Swett, Lieutenant-Governor
Koerner, and Horace White, of Illinois; Frank W. Bird and Edward
Atkinson of Massachusetts; David A. Wells of Connecticut; and
John D. Defrees of the District of Columbia. Men less conspicuous
than these were present in large numbers from many States.--The
proportion of free-traders outside of New York was a marked feature of
the assemblage, and had an important bearing on some of the subsequent
proceedings. From New York, also, a number were present, and they were
of course opposed to Mr. Greeley; but Mr. Greeley's friends succeeded
in keeping them off the list of delegates.
Stanley Matthews was made temporary chairman. In his brief speech he
said that those who had assembled in this gathering were still
Republicans, and he urged in justification of their independent action
that the forces in control of the party machinery had perverted it to
personal and unwarrantable ends. "As the war had ended," he continued,
"so ought military rule and military principles." This imputation of a
military character to the National Administration was the key-note of
all the expressions. Mr. Carl Schurz was the leading spirit of the
Convention, and amplified the same thought in his more elaborate
address as permanent President.
The platform was the object of much labor, as well as the theme of
much pride, on the part of its authors. It was designed to be a
succinct statement and a complete justification of the grounds on
which the movement rested. It started from the Republican position and
aimed to be Republican in tone and principle, only marking out the
path on which Liberal thought diverged from what were characterized as
the ruling Republican tendencies. It recognized the equality of all
men before the law, and the duty of equal and exact justice; it pledged
fidelity to the Union, to emancipation, to enfranchisement, and
opposition to any re-opening of the questions settled by the new
Amendments to the Constitution; it demanded the immediate and absolute
removal of all disabilities imposed on account of the Rebellion; it
declared that local self-government with impartial suffrage would
guard the rights of all citizens more securely than any centralized
power, and insisted upon the supremacy of the civil over the military
authorities; it laid great stress upon the abuse of the civil service
and upon the necessity of reform, and declared that no President ought
to be a candidate for re-election; it denounced repudiation, opposed
further land-grants, and demanded a speedy return to specie payments.
On these questions there was no division in the Liberal ranks. But
there was another issue, which caused a sharper controversy and came
to a lame and impotent conclusion. The large numbers of free-traders
who participated in the Convention has been noted. Indeed, its call
emanated from free-traders, and outside of New York free-traders
constituted its controlling forces. The Missouri group was unanimously
and especially devoted to free trade; and the Illinois, Ohio, and
New-England influences in the Convention were for the most part in
full sympathy with it. The New-York element, which centred in Mr.
Greeley, shared his view of protection. Whatever other reasons he
might have had for joining the movement, his lifelong and conspicuous
championship of Protection would have made it impossible for him to
sustain any demonstration against that great doctrine. Even before his
nomination was anticipated he was the most important factor in the
revolt against the Administration, and any division (of a division)
which sacrificed or endangered the chief pillar of strength seemed
peculiarly fatuous and perilous.
Nevertheless the free-traders made a persistent effort to enforce their
views, and a strenuous struggle ensued. The policy which Mr. Greeley
had recommended finally prevailed. He knew there was a radical
difference among the Liberals on this question. He could not surrender
his position, and the free-traders would not surrender their position.
He therefore proposed that they should acknowledge the differences and
waive the question. This suggestion was accepted; and a compromise
was effected by declaring that the differences were irreconcilable,
remitting the subject to the people in their Congressional districts
and to the decision of Congress free from Executive interference or
dictation. Thus the only agreement reached was an agreement to
disagree.
With this difficulty adjusted, the Convention was ready to proceed to
the choice of a candidate. The struggle had been actively in progress
for several days, and had developed sharp antagonisms. In its earlier
stages it bore the appearance of a contest between Judge David Davis
and Charles Francis Adams. Judge Davis had long been credited with
aspirations and with some elements of political strength. He had been
Lincoln's friend; he was rich, honest, and popular. He had watched
politics from the Supreme Bench with judicial equipoise and partisan
instincts, and by many discerning men was regarded as a highly eligible
candidate. Mr. Adams was austere, cold, even repellent in his manner;
but it was urged that the traditions of his name and his distinguished
diplomatic services would appeal to the judgment of the people and take
from the Republican party some of its best elements. He was earnestly
supported by many of the strongest Liberals, who felt that their only
hope of success lay in the selection of a candidate who was experienced
in public life, and who could inspire public confidence.
The supporters of Mr. Adams displayed violent hostility to Judge Davis.
They charged his friends with bringing a great body of hirelings from
Illinois, and with attempting to "pack" the Convention,--with
resorting, in short, to the alleged practices of the Republicans who
were still opposing the Democratic party. They announced that even if
Judge Davis should be nominated they would not sustain him. This
influential and unyielding opposition was fatal to the Illinois
candidate. As the Davis canvass declined the Greeley sentiment
increased, and it soon became evident that the contest would lie
between Adams and Greeley. On the first ballot the vote stood, Adams
205, Greeley 147, Trumbull 110, Gratz Brown 95, Davis 92½, Curtin
62, Chase 2½. The minor candidates were withdrawn as the voting
proceeded, and on the sixth ballot Greeley had 332, Adams 324, Chief
Justice Chase 32, Trumbull 19. There was at once a rapid change to
Greeley, and the conclusion was not long delayed. He was declared by
formal vote to be the nominee of the Convention. For the Vice-Presidency,
Gratz Brown, Senator Trumbull, George W. Julian, and Gilbert C. Walker
were placed in nomination. Mr. Brown was successful on the second ballot.
The result of the balloting created surprise and disappointment. Mr.
Greeley's name had not been seriously discussed until the members
assembled in Cincinnati, and no scheme of the Liberal managers had
contemplated his nomination. It was evident from the first that with
his striking individuality, his positive views, and his combative
career, he had both strength and weakness as a candidate; but whatever
his merits or demerits, his selection was out of the reckoning of
those who had formed the Liberal organization. It was certainly a
singular and unexpected result, that a Convention which owed its formal
call to a body of active and aggressive free-traders, should commit its
standard to the foremost champion of Protection in the country.
But there was another and still more important element of
incongruity--another reason why the nomination was foreign to the whole
theory of the political experiment of 1872. The indispensable condition
attaching to the Liberal plan was its endorsement by the Democracy.
This demanded the selection of a candidate who, while representing the
Liberal Republican policy, would be acceptable to the Democratic
allies. No man seemed so little likely to fulfil this requirement as
Mr. Greeley. From the hour when he first entered political life and
acquired prominence in the wild Whig canvass for Harrison and Tyler
in 1840, he had waged incessant and unsparing war against the Democrats.
He had assailed them with all the weapons in his well-filled armory
of denunciation; and not only had every conspicuous Democratic leader
received his stalwart blows, but the whole party had repeatedly felt
the force of his fearless and masterful onset.
There was naturally great curiosity to see how his nomination would be
received: first, by the projectors of the Liberal revolt, and second,
by the Democracy. Most of the Liberals promptly acquiesced, though a
few protested. Especially among the Ohio representatives there was
great discontent. Stanley Matthews humorously and regretfully admitted
that he was "not a success at politics." Judge Hoadly published a card
calling the Cincinnati result "the alliance of _Tammany_ and Blair,"
but still hoping for some way of escape from Grant. Most of the German
Liberals rejected the ticket, doubtless finding other objections
emphasized by their dissent from Mr. Greeley's well-known attitude on
sumptuary legislation. The free-trade Liberals of New York held a
meeting of protest, presided over by William Cullen Bryant, and
addressed by David A. Wells, Edward Atkinson, and others who had
participated in the Cincinnati Convention. But this opposition
possessed little importance. The positive political force which had
entered into the Liberal movement stood fast, and the really important
question related to the temper and action of the Democrats.
Their first feeling was one of chagrin and resentment. They had
encouraged the Republican revolt, with sanguine hope of a result which
they could cordially accept, and they were deeply mortified by an
issue whose embarrassment for themselves could not be concealed. They
had counted on the nomination of Mr. Adams, Judge Davis, Senator
Trumbull, or some moderate Republican of that type, whom they could
adopt without repugnance. The unexpected selection of their life-long
antagonist confounded their plans and put them to open shame. At the
outset, the majority of the Democratic journals of the North either
deplored and condemned the result or adopted a non-committal tone.
Some of them, like the _New-York World_, emphatically declared that the
Democracy could not ratify a choice which would involve a
stultification so humiliating and so complete. A few shrewder
journals, of which the _Cincinnati Enquirer_ and the _Saint-Louis
Republican_ were the most conspicuous, took the opposite course and
from the beginning advocated the indorsement of Mr. Greeley.
In the South the nomination was received with more favor. Mr.
Greeley's readiness to go on the bail-bond of Jefferson Davis, his
earnest championship of universal amnesty, and his expressed sympathy
with the grievances of the old ruling element of the slave States, had
created a kindly impression in that section. The prompt utterances of
the Southern journals indicated that no obstacle would be encountered
in the Democratic ranks below the Potomac. At the North, as the
discussion proceeded, it became more and more evident that however
reluctant the party might be, it really had to alternative but to
accept Mr. Greeley. It had committed itself so fully to the Liberal
movement that it could not now abandon it without certain disaster.
Its only possible hope of defeating the Republican party lay in the
Republican revolt, and the revolt could be fomented and prolonged only
by imparting to it prestige and power. The Liberal leaders and
journals did not hesitate to say that if it came to a choice between
Grant and a Democrat, they would support Grant. With this avowal they
were masters of the situation so far as the Democracy was concerned,
and the Democratic sentiment, which at first shrank from Greeley,
soon became resigned to his candidacy.
While the work of reconciling the free-traders to the nomination of a
Protectionist, and of inducing the Democracy to accept an anti-slavery
leader, was in full progress, the Republican National Convention met
at Philadelphia on the 5th of June. The venerable Gerritt Smith led
the delegation from New York, with William Orton, Horace B. Claflin,
Stewart L. Woodford, William E. Dodge, and John A. Griswold among his
associates. Governor Hayes came from Ohio; General Burnside from Rhode
Island; Governor Hawley from Connecticut; Governor Claflin and
Alexander H. Rice from Massachusetts; Henry S. Lane and Governor Conrad
Baker from Indiana; Governor Cullom from Illinois; James Speed from
Kentucky; Amos T. Akerman from Georgia; John B. Henderson from
Missouri; William A. Howard from Michigan; Ex-Senator Cattell and
Cortlandt Parker from New Jersey; Governor Fairchild from Wisconsin;
John R. Lynch, the colored orator, from Mississippi; Morton McMichael,
Glenni W. Scofield, and William H. Koontz from Pennsylvania; Thomas
Settle from North Carolina; James L. Orr from South Carolina.
Mr. McMichael, whose genial face and eloquent voice were always welcome
in a Republican Convention, was selected as temporary chairman. "The
malcontents," said he, "who recently met at Cincinnati were without a
constituency; the Democrats who are soon to meet at Baltimore will be
without a principle. The former, having no motive in common but
personal disappointment, attempted a fusion of repellent elements which
has resulted in explosion; the latter, degraded from the high estate
they once held, propose an abandonment of their identity which means
death." The only business appointed for the first day was speedily
completed, and left ample time for public addresses. Gerritt Smith,
General Logan, Senator Morton, Governor Oglesby, and others made
vigorous party appeals, and delivered enthusiastic eulogies upon
General Grant. Among the speakers were several colored men. It was
the first National Convention in which representatives of their race
had appeared as citizens, and the force and aptitude they displayed
constituted one of the striking features of the occasion. William H.
Gray of Arkansas, B. B. Elliott of South Carolina, and John R. Lynch
of Mississippi made effective speeches which were heartily applauded.
With the completion of the organization, by the choice of Judge Settle
of North Carolina as permanent president, the Convention was ready on
the second day for the nominations; and on the roll-call General Grant
was named for President without a dissenting vote. Then came the
contest in which the chief interest centred. Mr. Colfax had, at the
beginning of the year, written a letter announcing that he would not
be a candidate for re-election as Vice-President. He had undoubtedly
alienated some of the friendship and popularity he had so long enjoyed.
Under these circumstances Senator Henry Wilson of Massachusetts
appeared as a candidate, and made rapid headway in party favor. He
had always been a man of the people, and, though not shining with
brilliant qualitites, had acquired influence and respect through his
robust sense, his sound judgment, and his practical ability. In ready
debate, and in the clear and forcible presentation of political issues,
he held a high place among Republican leaders. Mr. Colfax had recalled
his withdrawal, and as the Convention approached, the contest was so
even and well balanced as to stimulate both interest and effort.
The struggle was practically determined, however, in the preliminary
caucusses of two or three of the large State delegations. When the
roll-call was completed on the first and only ballot, Wilson had 364½
votes and Colfax had 321½. The 22 votes of Virginia had been cast for
Governor Lewis, the 26 of Tennessee for Horace Maynard, and the 16 of
Texas for Governor Davis. The Virginia delegation was the first to get
the floor and change to Wilson, thus securing his nomination; and the
others promptly followed. Among the powerful influences which
controlled the result were the combination and zealous activity of the
Washington newspaper correspondents against Mr. Colfax, who had in some
way estranged a friendship that for many years had been most helpful to
him.
The platform came from a committee, including among its members General
Hawley, Governor Hayes, Glenni W. Schofield, Ex-Attorney-General Speed,
Mr. James N. Matthews, then of the _Buffalo Commercial_, and other
representative men. That the year was largely one of personal
politics, rather than of clear, sharp, overmastering issues, might be
inferred from the scope and character of the resolutions. It was an
hour for maintaining what had been gained, rather than for advancing to
new demands. Equal suffrage had been established, and the danger of
repudiation which had threatened the country in 1868 had apparently
passed away. The necessity and duty of preparing for specie
resumption, which soon after engrossed public attention, were not yet
apprehended or appreciated. Between the two periods the chief work was
that of practically enforcing the settlements which had been ordained
in the Constitutional Amendments.
The platform, after reciting the chapter of Republican achievements,
declared "that complete liberty and exact equality in the enjoyment
of all civil, political, and public rights should be established and
effectually maintained throughout the Union by efficient and
appropriate Federal and State legislation." It asserted that "the
recent amendments to the National Constitution should be cordially
sustained because they are _right;_ not merely tolerated because they
are _law_." It answered the Liberal arraignment of the civil service
by declaring that "any system of the civil service under which the
subordinate positions of the Government are rewards for mere party zeal
is fatally demoralizing, and we therefore favor a reform of the system
by laws which shall abolish the evils of patronage." Besides these
points, the Republican platform opposed further land-grants to
corporations, recommended the abolition of the franking privilege,
approved further pensions, sustained the Protective tariff, and
justified Congress and the President in their measures for the
suppression of violent and treasonable organizations in the South.
The Democratic National Convention met at Baltimore on the 9th of July.
The intervening two months had demonstrated that it could do nothing
but follow the Cincinnati Convention. The delegations were distinctly
representative. New York sent Governor Hoffman, General Slocum, S. S.
Cox, Clarkson N. Potter, and John Kelly. Among the Pennsylvania
delegates were William A. Wallace, Samuel J. Randall, and Lewis
Cassidy. Henry B. Payne came from Ohio; Thomas F. Bayard from
Delaware; Montgomery Blair from Maryland; Henry G. Davis from West
Virginia; Senator Casserly and Ex-Senator Gwin from California; Charles
R. English and William H. Barnum from Connecticut; Senator Stockton and
Ex-Governor Randolph from New Jersey. The Confederate forces were
present in full strength. Generals Gordon, Colquitt, and Hardeman
came from Georgia; Fitz-Hugh Lee, Bradley T. Johnson, and Thomas
S. Bocock from Virginia; General John S. Williams from Kentucky;
Ex-Governor Vance from North Carolina; Ex-Governor Aiken from South
Carolina; John H. Reagan from Texas; and George G. Vest from Missouri.
Mr. August Belmont, after twelve years of service and defeat, appeared
for the last time as chairman of the National Democratic Committee.
Thomas Jefferson Randolph of Virginia (grandson of the author of the
Declaration of Independence), a venerable and imposing figure, was made
temporary chairman, and Ex-Senator James R. Doolittle of Wisconsin,
permanent president. Mr. Doolittle, having been first a Democrat, then
a Republican, then a Democrat again, could well interpret the duplicate
significance of the present movement; and he made a long speech devoted
to that end.
On the second day the Committee on Resolutions reported the Cincinnati
platform without addition or qualification. There was something grim
and grotesque in the now demonstrated purpose of the Democratic
Convention to accept the platform which Mr. Greeley had constructed
with especial regard for the tender sensibilities of the Liberal
Republicans. While the Democrats as a body had persistently opposed
emancipation, and regarded it as a great political wrong, the party now
resolved to maintain it. Hostile throughout all its ranks to any
improvement in the status of the negro, they now determined in favor
of his "enfranchisement." Resisting at every step the passage of the
Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution,
they now resolved to "oppose any re-opening of the questions that have
been settled" by the adoption of these great changes in the organic
law. With the Southern States dominant in the Convention, their
delegates (all former slave-holders and at a later period engaged in
rebellion in order to perpetuate slavery) now resolved with docile
acquiescence to "recognize the equality of all men before the law; and
the duty of the Government, in its dealings with the people, to mete
out equal and exact justice to all, of whatever _nativity, race,
color_, or persuasion, religious or political."
The Confederate leaders, still sore and angry over their failure to
break up the Union, now declared that they remembered "with gratitude
the heroism and sacrifices of the soldiers and sailors of the
Republic," and that no act of the Democratic party "should ever detract
from their justly earned fame, nor withhold the full reward of their
patriotism." Hitherto viewing the public debt as the price of their
subjugation, they now declared that "the public credit must be sacredly
maintained;" and they heartily denounced "repudiation in every form
and guise." In their determination to make a complete coalition with
the other wing of Mr. Greeley's supporters, the Confederate Democrats
determined to accept any test that might be imposed upon them, to
endure any humiliation that was needful, to assert and accept any and
every inconsistency with their former faith and practice. It is
somewhat interesting to compare the platform to which the Democrats
assented in 1872 with any they had ever before adopted, or with the
record of their senators and representatives in Congress upon all the
public questions at issue during the years immediately preceding the
Convention.
The report which committed the Democracy to so radical a revolution in
its platform of principles met with protest from only an inconsiderable
number of the delegates, and was adopted by a vote of 670 to 62. The
Convention was now ready for the nominations. It had been plain for
some weeks that the Cincinnati ticket would be accepted. The only
question was whether the Democratic Convention should formally nominate
Greeley and Brown, or whether it should simply indorse them without
making them the regular Democratic candidates. It was urged on the one
hand that to put the formal seal of Democracy on them might repel some
Republican votes which would otherwise be secured. It was answered on
the other hand that the passive policy would lose Democratic votes,
which were reluctant at the best and could only be held by party
claims. There was more danger from the latter source than from the
former, and the general sentiment recognized the necessity of stamping
the ticket with the highest Democratic authority. There was but one
ballot. Mr. Greeley received 686 votes; while 15 from Delaware and
New Jersey were cast for James A. Bayard, 21 from Pennsylvania for
Jeremiah S. Black, 2 for William S. Groesbeck. For Vice-President
Gratz Brown received 713, John W. Stevenson of Kentucky 6, with 13
blank votes.
Mr. Greeley's letter accepting the Democratic nomination appeared a few
days later. He frankly stated that the Democrats had expected and
would have preferred a different nomination at Cincinnati, and that
they accepted him only because the matter was beyond their control.
He expressed his personal satisfaction at the endorsement of the
Cincinnati platform, and affected to regard this act as the
obliteration of all differences. The only other point of the letter
was an argument for universal amnesty. This was the one doctrine upon
which the parties to the alliance could most readily coalesce, and
Mr. Greeley gave it singular prominence, as if confident that it was
the surest way of winning Democratic support. He emphasized his
position by referring to the case of Mr. Vance, who had just been
denied his seat as Senator from North Carolina. Mr. Greeley made this
case the chief theme of his letter, and insisted that the policy which
excluded the chosen representative from a State, whoever he might be,
was incompatible with peace and good will throughout the Union.(1)
With Grant and Greeley fairly in the field, the country entered upon a
remarkable canvass. At the beginning of the picturesque and emotional
"log cabin canvass of 1840," Mr. Van Buren, with his keen insight into
popular movements, had said, in somewhat mixed metaphor, that it would
be "either a farce or a tornado." The present canvass gave promise on
different grounds of similar alternatives. General Grant had been
tried, and with him the country knew what to expect. Mr. Greeley had
not been tried, and though the best known man in his own field of
journalism, he was the least known and most doubted in the field of
Governmental administration. No other candidate could have presented
such an antithesis of strength and of weakness. He was the ablest
polemic this country has ever produced. His command of strong,
idiomatic, controversial English was unrivaled. His faculty of lucid
statement and compact reasoning has never been surpassed. Without the
graces of fancy or the arts of rhetoric, he was incomparable in direct,
pungent, forceful discussion. A keen observer and an omnivorous
reader, he had acquired an immense fund of varied knowledge, and he
marshaled facts with singular skill and aptness.
In an era remarkable for strong editors in the New-York Press,--embracing
Raymond of the _Times_, the elder Bennett of the _Herald_, Watson
Webb of the _Courier-Enquirer_, William Cullen Bryant of the
_Evening Post_, with Thurlow Weed and Edwin Crosswell in the rival
journals at Albany,--Mr. Greeley easily surpassed them all. His mind
was original, creative, incessantly active. His industry was as
unwearying as his fertility was inexhaustible. Great as was his
intellectual power, his chief strength came from the depth and
earnestness of his moral convictions. In the long and arduous battle
against the aggressions of Slavery, he had been sleepless and untiring
in rousing and quickening the public conscience. He was keenly alive
to the distinctions of right and wrong, and his philanthropy responded
to every call of humanity. His sympathies were equally touched by the
sufferings of the famine-stricken Irish and by the wrongs of the
plundered Indians. Next to Henry Clay, whose ardent disciple he was,
he had done more than any other man to educate his countrymen in the
American system of protection to home industry. He had on all
occasions zealously defended the rights of labor; he had waged
unsparing war on the evils of intemperance; he had made himself an
oracle with the American farmers; and his influence was even more
potent in the remote prairie homes than within the shadow of
Printing-House Square. With his dogmatic earnestness, his extraordinary
mental qualities, his moral power, and his quick sympathy with the
instincts and impulses of the masses, he was in a peculiar sense the
Tribune of the people. In any reckoning of the personal forces of the
century, Horace Greeley must be counted among the foremost--intellectually
and morally.
When he left the fields of labor in which he had become illustrious,
to pass the ordeal of a Presidential candidate, the opposite and weaker
sides of his character and career were brought into view. He was
headstrong, impulsive, and opinionated. If he had the strength of a
giant in battle, he lacked the wisdom of the sage in council. If he
was irresistible in his own appropriate sphere of moral and economic
discussion, he was uncertain and unstable when he ventured beyond its
limits. He was a powerful agitator and a matchless leader of debate,
rather than a master of government. Those who most admired his
honesty, courage, and power in the realm of his true greatness, most
distrusted his fitness to hold the reins of administration. He had in
critical periods evinced a want both of firmness and of sagacity. When
the Southern States were on the eve of secession and the temper of the
country was on trial, he had, though with honest intentions, shown
signs of irresolution and vacillation. When he was betrayed into the
ill-advised and abortive peace negotiations with Southern commissioners
at Niagara, he had displayed the lack of tact and penetration which
made the people doubt the solidity and coolness of his judgment. His
methods of dealing with the most intricate problems of finance seemed
experimental and rash. The sensitive interests of business shrank from
his visionary theories and his dangerous empiricism. His earlier
affiliation with novel and doubtful social schemes had laid him open
to the reproach of being called a man of _isms_.
Mr. Greeley had moreover weakened himself by showing a singular thirst
for public office. It is strange that one who held a commanding
station, and who wielded an unequaled influence, should have been
ambitious for the smaller honors of public life. But Mr. Greeley had
craved even minor offices, from which he could have derive no
distinction, and, in his own phrase, had dissolved the firm of Seward,
Weed, and Greeley because, as he conceived, his claims to official
promotion were not fairly recognized. This known aspiration added to
the reasons which discredited his unnatural alliance with the
Democracy. His personal characteristics, always marked, were
exaggerated and distorted in the portraitures drawn by his adversaries.
All adverse considerations were brought to bear with irresistible
effect as the canvass proceeded, and his splendid services and
undeniable greatness could not weigh in the scale against the political
elements and personal disqualifications with which his Presidential
candidacy was identified.
The political agitation became general in the country as early as July.
Senator Conkling inaugurated the Grant campaign in New York with an
elaborate and comprehensive review of the personal and public issues on
trial. Senator Sherman and other leading speakers took the field with
equal promptness. On the opposite side, Senator Sumner, who had sought
in May to challenge and prevent the renomination of General Grant by
concentrating in one massive broadside all that could be suggested
against him, now appeared in a public letter advising the colored
people to vote for Greeley. Mr. Blaine replied in a letter pointing
out that Mr. Greeley, in denying the power of the General Government
to interpose, had committed himself to a policy which left the colored
people without protection.(2)
The September elections had ordinarily given the earliest indication in
Presidential campaigns; but circumstances conspired this year to make
the North-Carolina election, which was held on the 1st of August, the
preliminary test of popular feeling. The earliest returns from North
Carolina, coming from the eastern part of the State, were favorable to
the partisans of Mr. Greeley. They claimed a decided victory, and were
highly elated. The returns from the Western and mountain counties,
which were not all received for several days, reversed the first
reports, and established a Republican success. This change produced
a re-action, and set the tide in the opposite direction. From this
hour the popular current was clearly with the Republicans. The
September elections in Vermont and Maine resulted in more than the
average Republican majorities, and demonstrated that Mr. Greeley's
candidacy had not broken the lines of the party. Early in that month
a body of Democrats, who declined to accept Mr. Greeley, and who called
themselves "Straightouts," held a convention at Louisville, and
nominated Charles O'Connor for President and John Quincy Adams for
Vice-President. The ticket received a small number of votes in many
States, but did not become an important factor in the National struggle.
In anticipation of the October elections Mr. Greeley made an extended
tour through Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana, addressing great masses of
people every day and many times a day during a period of two weeks.
His speeches, while chiefly devoted to his view of the duty and policy
of pacification, discussed many questions and many phases of the chief
question. They were varied, forcible, and well considered. They
presented his case with an ability which could not be exceeded, and
they added to the general estimate of his intellectual faculties and
resources. He called out a larger proportion of those who intended to
vote against him than any candidate had ever before succeeded in doing.
His name had been honored for so many years in every Republican
household, that the desire to see and hear him was universal, and
secured to him the majesty of numbers at every meeting. So great
indeed was the general demonstration of interest, that a degree of
uneasiness was created at Republican headquarters as to the ultimate
effect of his tour.
The State contests had been strongly organized on both sides at the
decisive points. In New York the Democrats nominated Francis Kernan
for Governor,--a man of spotless character and great popularity. The
Republicans selected General John A. Dix as the rival candidate, on the
earnest suggestion of Thurlow Weed, whose sagacity in regard to the
strength of political leaders was rarely at fault. General Dix was in
his seventy-fifth year, but was fresh and vigorous both in body and
mind. In Indiana the leading Democrat, Thomas A. Hendricks, accepted
the gubernatorial nomination and the leadership of his party, against
General Thomas M. Browne, a popular Republican and a strong man on the
stump. Pennsylvania was the scene of a peculiarly bitter and angry
conflict. General Hartranft, the Republican candidate for Governor,
had been Auditor-General of the State, and his administration of the
office was bitterly assailed. The old factional differences in the
State now entered into the antagonism, and he was strenuously fought
by an element of his own party under the inspiration of Colonel Forney,
who, while professedly supporting Grant, threw all the force of the
Philadelphia _Press_ into the warfare against Hartranft. This violent
opposition encouraged the partisans of Mr. Greeley with the hope that
they might secure the _prestige_ of victory over the Republicans in
Pennsylvania, whose October verdicts had always proved an unerring
index to Presidential elections. But they were doomed to
disappointment. The people saw that the charges against General
Hartranft were not only unfounded but malicious, and he was chosen
Governor by more than 35,000 majority. Ohio gave a Republican majority
on the same day of more than 14,000; and though Mr. Hendricks carried
Indiana by 1,148, this narrow margin for the strongest Democrat in the
State was accepted as confirming the sure indications in the other
States.
The defeat of Mr. Greeley and the re-election of General Grant were
now, in the popular belief, assured. The result was the most decisive,
in the popular vote, of any Presidential election since the unopposed
choice of Monroe in 1820; and on the electoral vote the only contests
so one-sided were in the election of Pierce in 1852, and the second
election of Lincoln in 1864, when the States in rebellion did not
participate. The majorities were unprecedented. General Grant carried
Pennsylvania by 137,548, New York by 53,455, Illinois by 57,006, Iowa
by 60,370, Massachusetts by 74,212, Michigan by 60,100, Ohio by 37,501,
and Indiana by 22,515. Several of the Southern States presented
figures of similar proportion. In South Carolina the Republican
majority was 49,587, in Mississippi 34,887, and in North Carolina
24,675. Mr. Greeley carried no Northern state, and only six Southern
States,--Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, Tennessee, and Texas.
But these great majorities were not normal, and did not indicate the
real strength of parties. The truth is, that after the October
elections Mr. Greeley's canvass was utterly hopeless; and thousands
of Democrats sought to humiliate their leaders for the folly of the
nomination by absenting themselves from the polls. The Democratic
experiment of taking a Republican candidate had left the Republican
party unbroken; while the Democratic party, if not broken, was at least
discontented and disheartened,--given over within its own ranks to
recrimination and revenge.
The political disaster to Mr. Greeley was followed by a startling and
melancholy conclusion. He was called during the last days of the
canvass to the bedside of his dying wife, whom he buried before the
day of election. Despite this sorrow and despite the defeat, which,
in separating him from his old associates, was more than an ordinary
political reverse, he promptly returned with unshaken resolve and
intrepid spirit to the editorship of the _Tribune_,--the true sphere
of his influence, the field of his real conquests. But the strain
through which he had passed, following years of incessant care and
labor, had broken his vigorous constitution. His physical strength
was completely undermined, his superb intellectual powers gave way.
Before the expiration of the month which witnessed his crushing defeat
he had gone to his rest. The controversies which had so recently
divided the country were hushed in the presence of death; and all the
people, remembering only his noble impulses, his great work for
humanity, his broad impress upon the age, united in honoring and
mourning one of the most remarkable men in American history.
[(1) Zebulon B. Vance had served in Congress prior to the war. He had
participated in the Rebellion and had thus become subject to the
disabilities imposed by the Fourteenth Amendment. His disabilities
were removed at a later date, but at this time their remission had not
been asked and they were still resting upon him. With the full
knowledge that he was thus disqualified he was elected to the Senate,
and the Senate declined to recognize an election defiantly made in the
face of the Constitutional objection.]
[(2) Senator Sumner retired from the canvass and sailed for Europe in
September. Hostile as he was to President Grant, he saw in the end
that his defeat would subject the nation to Democratic rule and to
a ruinous re-action, which Mr. Greeley as President could not prevent.]