IN WASHINGTON AMONG POLITICIANS
Within a few weeks after the surrender of Lee, every army and fragment
of an army opposed to the Union was dissolved. But meantime Lincoln had
been assassinated, and the executive administration of the nation had
devolved upon Andrew Johnson. This wrought an immense change in the
aspect of national affairs. Lincoln was a strong, wise, conservative,
magnanimous soul. Johnson was arrogant, vain, narrow, and contentious.
Grant soon established his headquarters at the War Department, and
devoted himself with characteristic energy to the work of discharging
from the military service the great armies of volunteers no longer
needed. Their work as soldiers was gloriously complete. Within a few
months they were once more simple citizens of the Republic, following
the ways of industry and peace. The suddenness of the transformation by
which at the outbreak of hostilities hundreds of thousands of citizens
left their homes and their occupations of peace to become willing
soldiers of the Union and liberty, was paralleled by the alacrity of
their return, the moment the danger was passed, to the stations and the
manner of life they had abandoned.
General Grant was the central figure in the national rejoicing and
pride. The desire to do him honor was universal. But he bore himself
through all with dignity and modesty, avoiding as much as he could,
without seeming inappreciation and disdain, the lavish popular applause
that greeted him on every possible occasion. In July, 1866, Congress
created the grade of general, to which he was at once promoted, thus
attaining a rank never before granted to a soldier of the United States.
His great lieutenant, Sherman, succeeded him in this office, which was
then permitted to lapse, though it was revived later as a special honor
for General Sheridan. In further token of gratitude, some of the
wealthier citizens purchased and presented to Grant a house in
Washington. Resolutions of gratitude, honorary degrees, presents of
value and significance, came to him in abundance. Through it all, he
maintained his reputation as a man of few words, devoid of ostentation,
and with no ambition to court public favor by any act of demagoguism.
But a great and bitter trial confronted him. He had never been a
politician. Now he was caught in a maelstrom of ungenerous and malignant
politics. All his influence and effort had been addressed to promote the
calming of the passions of the war, and a reunion in fact as well as in
form. The President, professing an intention of carrying out the policy
of his predecessor, began a method of reconstructing civil governments
in the States that had seceded which produced great dissatisfaction.
Upon his own initiative, without authority of Congress, he proceeded to
encourage and abet those who were lately in arms against the Union to
make new constitutions for their States, and institute civil
governments therein, as if they alone were to be considered. The
freedmen, who had been of so great service to our armies, whom by every
requirement of honor and gratitude we were bound to protect, were left
to the hardly restricted guardianship of their former masters, who,
having no faith in their manhood or their development, devised for them
a condition with few rights or hopes, and little removed from the
slavery out of which they had been delivered.
This policy found little favor with those in the North who had borne the
heat and burden of the war. In the elections of 1866 the people
repudiated President Johnson's policy by emphatic majorities. When the
hostile Congress met, the governments Johnson had instituted were
declared to be provisional only, and it set about the work of
reconstruction in its own way, imbedding the changed conditions, the
fruits of the war, in proposed amendments of the Constitution of the
United States, which were ultimately ratified by a sufficient number of
States to make them part of the organic frame of government of the
Republic.
In these days of storm and stress, General Grant took neither side as a
partisan. He stuck to his professional work until he was forced to be a
participator in a political war, strange to his knowledge and his
habits. Congress directed the Southern States to be divided into five
military districts, with a military commander of each, and all
subordinate to the general of the army, who was charged with keeping the
peace, until civil governments in the States should be established by
the legislative department of national authority.
Congress, before adjourning in 1866, passed a tenure-of-office
act,--overriding in this, as in other legislation, the President's veto.
The motive was to prevent the President from using the patronage to
strengthen his policy. This act required the President to make report to
the Senate of all removals during the recess, with his reasons therefor.
All appointments to vacancies so created were to be _ad interim_
appointments. If the Senate disapproved of the removals, the officer
suspended at once became again the incumbent. Severe penalties were
provided for infraction of the law. During the recess the President
removed Stanton, and appointed General Grant to be Secretary of War.
Grant did not desire the office, but under advice accepted it, lest a
worse thing for the country might happen.
Johnson hoped to win Grant to his side, and in any event to use him in
his strife with Congress to defeat the purpose of the law. While the
Senate had Stanton's case under consideration in January, 1867, Grant
was called into a cabinet meeting and questioned regarding what he would
do. He said that he was not familiar with the law, but would examine it
and notify the President. The next day he notified him that he would
obey the law. Therefore, when the Senate disapproved of the reasons
assigned for the removal of Stanton, Grant at once vacated the office,
to the intense mortification and anger of the President, who made a
public accusation that Grant had promised to stay in office and oppose
Stanton's resumption of it.
The charge made a great scandal, but it did not seriously impair
Grant's good repute. Johnson was not believed, and the testimony of the
members of his cabinet, regarding what happened, was so conflicting that
it failed to convince anybody who did not seek to be convinced.
There is reason to believe that Johnson never contemplated retaining
Grant in the office, except to use his name and fame to break down the
tenure-of-office act. General Grant's plain common sense delivered him
from the snare spread for him by wily and desperate politicians. On
February 3, he closed an unsatisfactory correspondence with President
Johnson, with these severe words: "I can but regard this whole business,
from the beginning to the end, as an attempt to involve me in the
resistance of law, for which you hesitated to assume the responsibility
in orders, and thus to destroy my character before the country. I am, in
a measure, confirmed in this conclusion by your recent order, directing
me to disobey orders from the Secretary of War, my superior and your
subordinate, without having countermanded his authority to issue the
orders I am to disobey."
When Johnson was impeached by the House of representatives, General
Grant might, if he had chosen to do so, have contributed much to
embarrass the President; but he held aloof, discharging his duties as
general-in-chief with constant devotion. He was instrumental in
instituting many economies and improvements of army management. He
greatly advanced the work of reconstruction, and civil governments were
firmly established on the congressional plan in a majority of the
Southern States before he became the chosen leader of the Republican
party.
Grant had not yet distinctly committed himself as between the Democratic
and the Republican parties, although from the time of his break with
Johnson, he was more drawn to the Republicans. So far as he had any
politics he might have been classed as a War Democrat. Had he definitely
proclaimed himself a Democrat, no doubt he could have had that party's
nomination for the presidency. He was the first citizen of the nation in
popularity, of which he had marked tokens, and of which both parties
were anxious to avail themselves. It is little wonder that he came to
think that the presidency was an honor to which he might fitly aspire,
and an office in which he could further serve his country, by promoting
good feeling between the sections. In May, 1868, he was placed in
nomination, first by a convention of Union soldiers and sailors, and
afterwards by the Republican party, in both instances by acclamation.
His Democratic opponent was Horatio Seymour, of New York. In the
election he had a popular majority of 305,456. He received 214 electoral
votes, and Seymour received 80. Three of the Southern States, not being
fully restored to the Union, had no voice in the election.