Mr. Tilden did not adopt the plan of a direct proposal to Mr. Hayes.
Instead, he chose a body of Democrats to go to the “seat of war.” But
before any of them had arrived General Grant, the actual President,
anticipating what was about to happen, appointed a body of Republicans
for the like purpose, and the advance guard of these appeared on the
scene the following Monday.
Within a week the St. Charles Hotel might have been mistaken for a
caravansary of the National Capital. Among the Republicans were John
Sherman, Stanley Matthews, Garfield, Evarts, Logan, Kelley, Stoughton,
and many others. Among the Democrats, besides Lamar and myself, came
Lyman Trumbull, Samuel J. Randall, William R. Morrison, McDonald, of
Indiana, and many others. A certain degree of personal intimacy existed
between the members of the two groups, and the “entente” was quite as
unrestrained as might have existed between rival athletic teams. A
Kentucky friend sent me a demijohn of what was represented as very old
Bourbon, and I divided it with “our friends the enemy.” New Orleans was
new to most of the “visiting statesmen,” and we attended the places of
amusement, lived in the restaurants, and “saw the sights,” as if we
had been tourists in a foreign land and not partizans charged with the
business of adjusting a presidential election from implacable points of
view.
My own relations were especially friendly with John Sherman and James
A. Garfield, a colleague on the Committee of Ways and Means, and with
Stanley Matthews, a near kinsman by marriage, who had stood as an elder
brother to me from my childhood.
Corruption was in the air. That the Returning Board was for sale and
could be bought was the universal impression. Every day some one turned
up with pretended authority and an offer. Most of these were of course
the merest adventurers. It was my own belief that the Returning Board
was playing for the best price it could get from the Republicans and
that the only effect of any offer to buy on our part would be to assist
this scheme of blackmail.
The Returning Board consisted of two white men, Wells and Anderson,
and two Negroes, Kenner and Casanave. One and all they were without
character. I was tempted through sheer curiosity to listen to a
proposal which seemed to come direct from the Board itself, the
messenger being a well-known State senator. As if he were proposing to
dispose of a horse or a dog he stated his errand.
“You think you can deliver the goods?” said I.
“I am authorized to make the offer,” he answered.
“And for how much?” I asked.
“Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars,” he replied. “One hundred
thousand each for Wells and Anderson and twenty-five thousand apiece
for the niggers.”
To my mind it was a joke. “Senator,” said I, “the terms are as cheap as
dirt. I don’t happen to have the amount about me at the moment, but I
will communicate with my principal and see you later.”
Having no thought of entertaining the proposal, I had forgotten the
incident, when two or three days later my man met me in the lobby of
the hotel and pressed for a definite reply. I then told him I had found
that I possessed no authority to act and advised him to go elsewhere.
It is asserted that Wells and Anderson did agree to sell and were
turned down by Mr. Hewitt, and, being refused their demands for cash by
the Democrats, took their final pay, at least in patronage, from their
own party.[1]
V
I passed the Christmas week of 1876 in New York with Mr. Tilden.
On Christmas day we dined alone. The outlook, on the whole, was
cheering. With John Bigelow and Manton Marble Mr. Tilden had been
busily engaged compiling the data for a constitutional battle to be
fought by the Democrats in Congress, maintaining the right of the
House of Representatives to concurrent jurisdiction with the Senate
in the counting of the electoral vote, pursuant to an unbroken line
of precedents established by the method of proceeding in every
presidential election between 1793 and 1872.
There was very great perplexity in the public mind. Both parties
appeared to be at sea. The dispute between the Democratic House and the
Republican Senate made for thick weather. Contests of the vote of three
States--Louisiana, South Carolina, and Florida, not to mention single
votes in Oregon and Vermont--which presently began to blow a gale, had
already spread menacing clouds across the political sky. Except Mr.
Tilden, the wisest among the leaders knew not precisely what to do.
From New Orleans, on the Saturday night succeeding the presidential
election, I had telegraphed to Mr. Tilden, detailing the exact
conditions there and urging active and immediate agitation. The chance
had been lost. I thought then, and I still think, that the conspiracy
of a few men to use the corrupt Returning Boards of Louisiana, South
Carolina, and Florida to upset the election and make confusion in
Congress, might, by prompt exposure and popular appeal, have been
thwarted. Be this as it may, my spirit was depressed and my confidence
discouraged the intense quietude on our side, for I was sure that
beneath the surface the Republicans, with resolute determination and
multiplied resources, were as busy as bees.
[Illustration: From a photograph owned by F. H. Meserve