Tilden displayed a stoical indifference to these personal attacks. He made no speeches, he rarely exhibited himself to the public, and he kept his own counsels. His adroit, mysterious movements recalled the methods but not the conceit of Aaron Burr. Although Abram S. Hewitt, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, managed the campaign with skill, Tilden relied largely upon his own shrewdness, displacing old leaders for new ones, and making it clear to the country that he ranked with Martin Van Buren as a great political manager. As he swept onward like a conquering Marlborough, inspiring his party with confidence and his opponents with fear, events favoured his designs. The Belknap exposures, the Whiskey ring suits, the Babcock trial, alarming and disgusting the country, inclined public opinion toward a change which was expressed in the word "reform." A combination of propitious circumstances within the State, in nowise indebted to his sagacity or assistance, also increased his strength. The collapse of the Tweed and Canal rings justly gave him great prestige, but no reason existed why the extinguishment of the State war debt and the limitations of canal expenditures to canal revenues should add to his laurels, for the canal amendment to the Constitution was passed and the payment of the war debt practically accomplished before he took office. Nevertheless, the resulting decrease of the State budget by nearly one-half, being coincident with his term of office, added prodigiously to his fame.[767]Indeed, he seemed to be the darling of Fortune, and on November 7, exactly according to his calculation, he carried New York,[768]New Jersey, Connecticut, and Indiana. But Republicans claimed South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana.
In the historic dispute which led to a division of the solid South, partisan papers revelled in threats, and rumours indicated danger of mob violence. To prevent fraud prominent citizens in the North, appointed to represent each political party, watched the canvassing boards in the three disputed States, and although it subsequently developed that distinguished New Yorkers resorted to bribery,[769]the legal canvassing boards finally certified the electoral votes to Hayes and Wheeler. On December 6 the official count in all the States gave Hayes 185 votes and Tilden 184. The Democrats, deeply disturbed by the action of the Returning Boards, now displayed a temper thatresembled the spirit preceding the civil war. Threats were openly made that Hayes should never be inaugurated. The LouisvilleCourier Journalannounced that "if they (our people) will rise in their might, and will send 100,000 petitioners to Washington to present their memorial in person,there will be no usurpation and no civil war."[770]A prominent ex-Confederate in Congress talked of 145,000 well disciplined Southern troops who were ready to fight.[771]Because the President prudently strengthened the military forces about Washington he was charged with the design of installing Hayes with the aid of the army.
On the other hand, Republicans believed Tilden endeavoured to buy the presidency. Although nothing was then known of Marble's and Weed's efforts to tamper with the canvassing boards of South Carolina and Florida, the disposition to "steal" a vote in Oregon, which clearly belonged to Hayes, deprived Tilden's cause of its moral weight. Indeed, so strongly did sentiment run against him that theNation"lost nearly three thousand subscribers for refusing to believe that Mr. Hayes could honourably accept the presidency."[772]
When Congress opened the Democrats, being in control of the House, desired to continue the joint rule of February, 1865, directing that "no electoral vote objected to shall be counted except by the concurrent votes of the two Houses." This would elect Tilden. On the other hand, the Republicans, holding that the joint rule expired with the Congress adopting it, insisted that, inasmuch as the canvass by Congress at all previous elections had been confined exclusively to opening the certificates of each State, sent to Washington under the official seal of the respective governors, the Vice-President should open and count the electoral votes and declare the result, the members of the two Houses acting simply as witnesses. This would elect Hayes. To many and especially to President Grant this controversy seemed full of danger, to avert which if possible Congress adopted a resolution providing for a committee of fourteen, equally divided between the Senate and House, "to report without delay such a measure as may in their judgmentbe best calculated to accomplish the desired end."[773]On January 18 (1877) this committee reported a bill providing that where two or more returns had been received from a State such returns should be referred to an Electoral Commission composed of five senators, five members of the House, and five justices of the Supreme Court, who should decide any question submitted to it touching the return from any State, and that such decision should stand unless rejected by the concurrent votes of the two Houses. By tacit agreement the Senate was to name three Republicans and two Democrats, and the House three Democrats and two Republicans, while the Bill itself appointed Justices Clifford, Miller, Field, and Strong, a majority of whom were authorised to select a fifth justice.[774]
When doubt as to the three Southern States precipitated itself into the result of the election, Tilden exhibited characteristic diligence and secrecy. He avoided public statements, but he scrutinised the returns with the acumen exhibited in securing the Tweed evidence, and left no flaw unchallenged in the title of his opponent. After the action of the canvassing boards he contended that the joint rule of 1865 must govern, and in the study of the subject he devoted more than a month to the preparation of a complete history of electoral counts, showing it to have been the unbroken usage for Congress and not the President of the Senate to count the vote.[775]Moreover, early in the session of Congress he prepared two resolutions which raised the issue, and urged his friends in the leadership of the House to take no further step until the great constitutional battle had been fought along that line, assuring them of his readiness to accept all the responsibility of the outcome. To appraise the country of the strength of this position he also prepared an extended brief which Governor Robinson incorporated as a part of his inaugural message on January 1, 1877.[776]
Tilden first learned of the proposed Electoral Commission Bill on January 14. Abram S. Hewitt brought the information, saying that Bayard and Thurman of the Senate, being absolutely committed to it, would concur in reporting it whatever Tilden's action.[777]Tilden, resenting the secrecy of its preparation as unwise and essentially undemocratic, declined to give it his approval.[778]In his later telegrams to Hewitt he expressed the belief that "We should stand on the Constitution and the settled practice;" that "the other side, having no way but by usurpation, will have greater troubles than we, unless relieved by some agreement;" that "the only way of getting accessions in the Senate is by the House standing firm;" that "we are over-pressed by exaggerated fears;" and that "no information is here which could justify an abandonment of the Constitution and practice of the government, and of the rights of the two Houses and of the people." To his friends who urged that time pressed, he exclaimed: "There is time enough. It is a month before the count." Representations of the danger of a collision with the Executive met his scorn. "It is a panic of pacificators," he said. "Why surrender before the battle for fear of having to surrender after the battle?"[779]
In view of his resentment of the secrecy which characterised the preparation of the Electoral Commission Bill, one wonders that Tilden made no appeal directly to the people, demanding that his party stand firm to "the settled practice" and allow Republicans peaceably to inaugurate Hayes "by usurpation" rather than "relieve them by some agreement." His telegrams to congressmen could not bepublished, and few if any one knew him as the author of the discussion in Robinson's inaugural. TheTimesthought "the old Governor's hand is to be seen in the new Governor's message,"[780]but theNationexpressed doubt about it.[781]A ringing proclamation over his own signature, however, would have been known before sunset to every Democratic voter in the land. Blaine told Bigelow a year or two later that if the Democrats had been firm, the Republicans would have backed down.[782]Tilden's silence certainly dampened his party's enthusiasm. It recalled, too, his failure to assail the Tweed ring until theTimes'disclosure made its destruction inevitable.
Bigelow, reflecting Tilden's thought, charged that in accepting the plan of an Electoral Commission Thurman and Bayard were influenced by presidential ambition, and that prominent congressmen could not regard with satisfaction the triumph of a candidate who had been in nowise indebted to them for his nomination or success at the polls.[783]On the other hand, Blaine says the Democrats favoured the Commission because Davis, who affiliated with the Democratic party and had preferred Tilden to Hayes, was to be chosen for the fifth justice. The Maine statesman adds, without giving his authority, that Hewitt advanced this as one of the arguments to induce Tilden to approve the bill.[784]In his history of the Hewitt-Tilden interview Marble makes no mention of Davis' selection, nor does Bigelow refer to Tilden's knowledge of it. Nevertheless, the strength disclosed for the bill sustains Blaine's suggestion, since every Democrat of national reputation in both Houses supported it. The measure passed the Senate on January 24 and theHouse on the 26th,[785]but an unlooked-for event quickly destroyed Democratic calculations and expectations, for on January 25, too late for the party to recede with dignity or with honour, the Democrats of the Illinois Legislature elected Davis by two majority to the United States Senate in place of John A. Logan. Probably a greater surprise never occurred in American political history. It gave Davis an opportunity, on the ground of obvious impropriety, to avoid what he neither sought nor desired, and narrowed the choice of a fifth justice to out-and-out Republicans, thus settling the election of Hayes. "The drop in the countenance of Abram S. Hewitt," said a writer who informed Tilden's representative of Davis' transfer from the Supreme Court to the Senate, "made it plain that he appreciated its full significance."[786]Bigelow could not understand why Davis did not serve on the Commission unless his "declination was one of the conditions of his election," adding that "it was supposed by many that Morton and others engineered the agreement of Davis' appointment with full knowledge that he would not serve."[787]This cynical comment betrayed Tilden's knowledge of "things hoped for," and accounts for his final acquiescence in the Commission, since Davis and a certainty were far better than a fight and possible failure.
Another dagger-thrust that penetrated the home in Gramercy Park was Conkling's exclusion from the Electoral Commission. Of all the members of the famous committee the Senator had borne the most useful part in framing the measure, and his appointment to the Commission was naturally expected to follow.[788]His biographer states that hedeclined to serve.[789]"If this be correct," says Rhodes, "he shirked a grave duty."[790]Bigelow charges the omission to the Senator's belief "that the vote of Louisiana rightfully belonged to Mr. Tilden," and volunteers the information "that Conkling had agreed to address the Commission in opposition to its counting Louisiana for Hayes."[791]Conkling's absence from the Senate when the Louisiana vote was taken corroborates Bigelow,[792]and supports the general opinion which obtained at the time, that the Republicans, suspecting Conkling of believing Tilden entitled to the presidency, intentionally ignored him in the make-up of the Commission.[793]The reason for Conkling's failure subsequently to address the Commission in opposition to counting Louisiana for Hayes nowhere explicitly appears. "Various explanations are in circulation," writes Bigelow, "but I have not been able to determine which of them all had the demerit of securing his silence."[794]
TwoState governments in Louisiana, one under Packard, a Republican, the other under Nicholls, a Democrat, confronted Hayes upon the day of his inauguration. The canvassing boards which returned the Hayes electors also declared the election of Packard as governor, and it would impeach his own title, it was said, if the President refused recognition to Packard, who had received the larger popular majority.
It was not unknown that the President contemplated adopting a new Southern policy. His letter of acceptance presupposed it, and before the completion of the Electoral Commission's work political and personal friends had given assurance in a published letter that Hayes would not continue military intervention in the South.[795]Moreover, the President's inaugural address plainly indicated such a purpose. To inform himself of the extent to which the troops intervened, therefore, and to harmonise if possible the opposing governments, he sent a commission to New Orleans,[796]who reported (April 21) a returning board quorum in both branches of the Nicholls Legislature and recommended the withdrawal of the army from the immediate vicinity of the State House. This was done on April 24 and thenceforward the Nicholls government controlled in State affairs.[797]
The President's policy quickly created discontent within the ranks of the Republican party. Many violently resented his action, declaring his refusal to sustain a governor whose election rested substantially upon the same foundation as his own as a cowardly surrender to the South in fulfillment of a bargain between his friends and some Southern leaders.[798]Others disclaimed the President's obligation to continue the military, declaring that it fostered hate, drew the colour line more deeply, promoted monstrous local misgovernment, and protected venal adventurers whose system practically amounted to highway robbery. Furthermore, it did not keep the States under Republican control, while it identified the Republican name with vindictive as well as venal power, as illustrated by the Louisiana Durrell affair in 1872,[799]in the elections of 1874, and at the organisation of the Louisiana Legislature early in 1875.[800]Notwithstanding these potent reasons for the President's action the judgment of a majority of his party deemed it an unwise and unwarranted act, although Grant spoke approvingly of it.[801]
Similar judgment was pronounced upon the President'sattempt to reform the civil service by directing competitive examinations for certain positions and by forbidding office-holders actively to participate in political campaigns.[802]"No officer should be required or permitted to take part in the management of political organisations, caucuses, conventions, or election campaigns," he wrote to the Secretary of the Treasury. "Their right to vote and to express their views on public questions, either orally or through the press, is not denied, provided it does not interfere with the discharge of their official duties. No assessments for political purposes should be allowed." In a public order dated June 22 he made this rule applicable to all departments of the civil service. "It should be understood by every officer of the government that he is expected to conform his conduct to its requirements."[803]To show his sincerity the President also appointed a new Civil Service Commission, with Dorman B. Eaton at its head, who adopted the rules formulated under Curtis during the Grant administration, and which were applied with a measure of thoroughness, especially in the Interior Department under Carl Schurz, and in the New York post-office, then in charge of Thomas L. James.
This firm and aggressive stand against the so-called spoils system very naturally aroused the fears of many veteran Republicans of sincere and unselfish motives, who had used offices to build up and maintain party organisation, while the order restricting freedom of political action provoked bitter antagonism, especially among members of the New York Republican State Committee, several of whom held important Federal positions. To add to the resentment an official investigation of the New York custom-house was ordered, which disclosed "irregularities," said the report, "that indicate the peril to which government and merchants are exposed by a system of appointments in which political influence dispenses with fitness for the work."[804]The President concurred. "Party leaders should have no more influence in appointments than other equally respectable citizens," he said. "It is my wish that the collection of the revenue should be organised on a strictly business basis, with the same guarantees for efficiency and fidelity in the selection of the chief and subordinate officers that would be required by a prudent merchant."[805]
The Republican press, in large part, deplored the President's action, and while managing politicians smothered their real grievance under attacks upon the Southern policy, they generally assumed an attitude of armed neutrality and observation.[806]No doubt the President wasmuch to blame for this discontent. He tolerated the abuses disclosed by the investigation in New York, continued a disreputable régime in Boston, and installed a faction in Baltimore no better than the one turned out. Besides, the appointment to lucrative offices of the Republican politicians who took active part in the Louisiana Returning Board had closely associated him with the spoils system.[807]Moreover, his failure to remove offending officials discredited his own rule and created an unfavourable sentiment, because after provoking the animosity of office-holders and arousing the public he left the order to execute itself. Yet the people plainly believed in the President's policy of conciliation, sympathised with his desire to reform abuses in the civil service, and honoured him for his frankness, his patriotism, and his integrity. During the months of August and September several Republican State conventions, notably those in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, and New Jersey commended him, while Maine, under the leadership of Blaine, although refusing to indorse unqualifiedly the policy and acts of the Administration, refrained from giving any expression of disapproval.[808]
New York's Republican convention assembled at Rochester on September 26. The notable absence of Federal office-holders who had resigned committeeships and declined political preferment attracted attention, otherwise the membership of the assembly, composed largely of the usual array of politicians, provoked no comment. Conkling and Cornellarrived early and took possession. In 1874 and in 1875 the Senator's friends fought vigorously for control, but in 1877 the divided sentiment as to the President's policies and the usual indifference that follows a Presidential struggle inured to their benefit, giving them a sufficient majority to do as they pleased.
Thus far Conkling had not betrayed his attitude toward the Administration. At the time of his departure for Europe in search of health, when surrounded by the chief Federal officials of the city, he significantly omitted words of approbation or criticism, and with equal dexterity avoided the expression of an opinion in the many welcoming and serenade speeches amidst which his vacation ended in August. No doubt existed, however, as to his personal feeling. The selection of Evarts for secretary of state in place of Thomas C. Platt for postmaster general did not make him happy.[809]George William Curtis's ardent support of the President likewise aided in separating him from the White House. Nevertheless, Conkling's attitude remained a profound secret until Thomas C. Platt, as temporary chairman, began the delivery of a carefully prepared speech.
Platt was then forty-four years old. He was born in Owego, educated at Yale, and as a man of affairs had already laid the foundation for the success and deserved prominence that crowned his subsequent business career. Ambition also took him early into the activities of public political life, his party having elected him county clerk at the age of twenty-six and a member of Congress while yet in his thirties. His friends, attracted by his promise-keeping and truth-telling, included most of the people of the vicinage. He was not an orator, but he possessed the resources of tact, simplicity, and bonhomie, which are serviceable in the management of men.[810]Moreover, as an organiser he developed in politics the same capacity for control that he exhibited in business. He had quickness of decision and flexibility of mind. There was no vacillation of will, no suspension of judgment, no procrastination that led to harassing controversy over minor details. He seemed also as systematic in his political purposes as he was orderly in his business methods. These characteristic traits, well marked in 1877, were destined to be magnified in the next two decades when local leaders recognised that his judgment, his capacity, and his skill largely contributed to extricate the party from the chaotic conditions into which continued defeat had plunged it.
Conkling early recognised Platt's executive ability, and their friendship, cemented by likeness of views and an absence of rivalry, kept them sympathetically together in clearly defined fields of activity. In a way each supplemented the other. Platt was neither self-opinionated nor overbearing. He dealt with matters political with the light touch of a man of affairs, and although without sentiment or ideals, he worked incessantly, listened attentively, and was anxious to be useful, without taking the centre of the stage, or repelling support by affectations of manner. But like Conkling he relied upon the use of patronage and the iron rule of organisation, and too little upon the betterment of existing political conditions.
This became apparent when, as temporary chairman, he began to address the convention. He startled the delegates by calling the distinguished Secretary of State a "demagogue," and other Republicans who differed with him"Pecksniffs and tricksters." As he proceeded dissent blended with applause, and at the conclusion of his speech prudent friends regretted its questionable taste. In declining to become permanent president Conkling moved that "the gentleman who has occupied the chair thus far with the acceptance of us all" be continued. This aroused the Administration's backers, of whom a roll-call disclosed 110 present.[811]
The platform neither approved nor criticised the President's Southern policy, but expressed the hope that the exercise of his constitutional discretion to protect a State government against domestic violence would result in peace, tranquillity, and justice. Civil service reform was more artfully presented. It favoured fit men, fixed tenure, fair compensation, faithful performance of duty, frugality in the number of employés, freedom of political action, and no political assessments. Moreover, it commended Hayes's declaration in his letter of acceptance that "the officer should be secure in his tenure so long as his personal character remained untarnished and the performance of his duty satisfactory," and recommended "as worthy of consideration, legislation making officers secure in a limited fixed tenure and subject to removal only as officers under State laws are removed in this State on charges to be openly preferred and adjudged."[812]This paralleled the President's reform except as to freedom of political action, and in support of that provision it arrayed a profoundly impressive statement, showing by statistics that Hayes's order, if applied to all State, county, and town officials in New York, would exclude from political action one voter out of every eight and one-half. If this practical illustration exhibited the weakness of the President's order it also anticipated what the country afterwards recognised, that true reform must rest upon competitive examination for which the Act of March 3, 1871 opened the way, and which President Hayes had directed for certain positions.
But despite the platform's good points, George William Curtis, construing its failure to endorse the Administration into censure of the President, quickly offered a resolution declaring Hayes's title to the presidency as clear and perfect as that of George Washington, and commending his efforts in the permanent pacification of the South and for the correction of abuses in the civil service.[813]Curtis had never sought political advantage for personal purposes. The day he drifted away from a clerkship in a business firm and landed among the philosophers of Brook Farm he became an idealist, whom a German university and years of leisure travel easily strengthened. So fixed was his belief of moral responsibility that he preferred, after his unfortunate connection withPutnam's Magazine, to lose his whole fortune and drudge patiently for sixteen years to pay a debt of $60,000 rather than invoke the law and escape legal liability. He was an Abolitionist when abolitionism meant martyrdom; he became a Republican when others continued Whigs; and he stood for Lincoln and emancipation in the months of dreadful discouragement preceding Sheridan's victories in the Shenandoah. He was likewise a civil service reformer long in advance of a public belief, or any belief at all, that the custom of changing non-political officers on merely political grounds impaired the efficiency of the public service, lowered the standard of political contests, and brought reproach upon the government and the people. It is not surprising, therefore, that he stood for a President who sought to re-establish a reform that had broken down under Grant, and although the effort rested upon an Executive order, without the permanency of law, he believed that any attempt to inaugurate a new system should have the undivided support of the party which had demanded it in convention and had elected a President pledged to establish it. Moreover, the President had offered Curtis his choice of the chief missions, expecting him to choose the English. Remembering Irving in Spain, Bancroft in Germany, Motley in England, and Marsh in Italy, it was a great temptation. But Curtis, appreciating his "civic duty," remained at home, and now took this occasion to voice his support of the Executive who had honoured him.[814]
His speech, pitched in an exalted key, sparkled with patriotic utterances and eloquent periods, with an occasional keen allusion to Conkling. He skilfully contrasted the majority's demand for harmony with Platt's reference to Evarts as a "demagogue" and to civil service reform as a "nauseating shibboleth." He declared it would shake the confidence of the country in the party if, after announcing its principles, it failed to commend the agent who was carrying them out. Approval of details was unnecessary. Republicans did not endorse Lincoln's methods, but they upheld him until the great work of the martyr was done. In the same spirit they ought to support President Hayes, who, in obedience to many State and two or three National conventions, had taken up the war against abuses of the civil service. If the convention did not concur in all his acts, it should show the Democratic party that Republicans know what they want and the man by whom to secure such results.
In speaking of abuses in the civil service he told the story of Lincoln looking under the bed before retiring to see if a distinguished senator was waiting to get an office,[815]referred to the efforts of Federal officials to defeat his own election to the convention, and declared that the President, by his order, intended that a delegate like himself, havingonly one vote, should not meet another with one hundred votes in his pocket obtained by means of political patronage. Instead of the order invading one's rights it was intended to restore them to the great body of the Republicans of New York, who now "refuse to enter a convention to be met—not by brains, not always by mere intelligence, not always by convictions, or by representative men, but by the forms of power which federal patriots assume." He did "not believe any eminent Republican, however high his ambition, however sore his discontent, hoped to carry the Republican party of the United States against Rutherford B. Hayes. Aye, sir, no such Republican, unless intoxicated with the flattery of parasites, or blinded by his own ambition." He spoke of Conkling's interest in public affairs as beginning contemporaneously with his own, of their work side by side in 1867, and of their sustaining a Republican President without agreement in the details of his policy, and he closed with the prayer that they might yet see the Republican party fulfilling the hope of true men everywhere, who look to it for honesty, for reform, and for pacification.[816]
Conkling had been waiting for Curtis as the American fleet waited for the Spanish at Santiago. Curtis had adorned the centre of opposition until he seemed most to desire what would most disappoint Conkling. For months prior to the Cincinnati conventionHarper's Weeklybristled with reasons that in its opinion unfitted the Senator for President, and advertised to the country the desire at least of a large minority of the party in New York to be rid of him. With consummate skill he unfolded Conkling's record, and emphasised his defence of the questionable acts that led to a deep distrust of Republican tendencies. To him the question was not whether a National convention could be persuaded to adopt the Senator as its candidate, but whether, "being one of the leaders that had imperilled the party, it was the true policy for those who patriotically desired Republican success." Furthermore, Curtis had a habit of asking questions. "With what great measure of statesmanship is his name conspicuously identified?"[817]and, as if this admitted of no reply, he followed it with more specific inquiries demanding to know "why the Senator had led a successful opposition to Judge Hoar for the Supreme Bench," and become "the ardent supporter of Caleb Cushing for chief justice, and of Alexander Shepherd for commissioner of the District of Columbia?" These interrogatories seemed to separate him from statesmen of high degree and to place him among associates for whom upright citizens should have little respect.
Nor was this all. The part Greeley took at Chicago to defeat Seward, Curtis played at Cincinnati to defeat Conkling. He declared him the especial representative of methods which the best sentiment of the party repudiated, and asserted that his nomination would chill enthusiasm, convince men of the hopelessness of reform within the party, and lose the vote indispensable for the election of the Republican candidate. If his words were parliamentary, they were not less offensive. Once only did he strike below the belt. In the event of the Senator's nomination he said "a searching light would be turned upon Mr. Conkling's professional relations to causes in which he was opposed to attorneys virtually named by himself, before judges whose selection was due to his favour."[818]
This thrust penetrated the realm of personal integrity, a characteristic in which Conkling took great pride. Perhaps the hostile insinuation attracted more attention because it prompted the public, already familiar with the occult influences that persuaded Tweed's judges, to ask why men who become United States judges upon the request of a political boss should not be tempted into favourable decisions for the benefactor who practises in their courts? Curtis implied that something of the kind had happened in Conkling's professional career. Disappointment at Cincinnati may have made the presidential candidate sore, but this innuendo rankled, and when he rose to oppose Curtis's resolution his powerful frame seemed in a thrill of delight as he began the speech which had been laboriously wrought out in the stillness of his study.
The contrast in the appearance of the two speakers was most striking. Curtis, short, compact, punctilious in attire, and exquisitely cultured, with a soft, musical voice, was capable of the noblest tenderness. Conkling, tall, erect, muscular, was the very embodiment of physical vigour, while his large, well-poised head, his strong nose, handsome eyes, well-cut mouth, and prominent chin, were expressive of the utmost resolution. The two men also differed as much in mind as in appearance. Curtis stood for all the force and feeling that make for liberal progressive principles; Conkling, the product of a war age, of masterly audacity and inflexible determination, represented the conservative impulse, with a cynical indifference to criticism and opposition.
The preface to his attack was brief. This was a State convention to nominate candidates, he said in substance, and the National Administration was not a candidate or in question. He repelled the idea that it suggested or sanctioned such a proceeding, and although broad hints had been heard that retribution would follow silence, any one volunteering for such a purpose lacked discretion if not sincerity. "Who are these men who, in newspapers or elsewhere, are cracking their whips over me and playing schoolmaster to the party? They are of various sorts and conditions. Some of them are the man-milliners, the dilettante and carpet knights of politics, whose efforts have been expended in denouncing and ridiculing and accusing honest men.... Some of them are men who, when they could work themselves into conventions, have attempted to belittle and befoul Republican administrations and to parade their own thin veneering of superior purity. Some of them are men who, by insisting that it is corrupt and bad for men in office to take part in politics, are striving now to prove that the Republican party has been unclean and vicious all its life.... Some of these worthies masquerade as reformers. Their vocation and ministry is to lament the sins of other people. Their stock in trade is rancid, canting self-righteousness. They are wolves in sheep's clothing. Their real object is office and plunder. When Dr. Johnson defined patriotism as the last refuge of a scoundrel, he was unconscious of the then undeveloped capabilities and uses of the word reform.... Some of these new-found party overseers who are at this moment laying down new and strange tenets for Republicans, have deemed it their duty heretofore, upon no provocation, to make conventions and all else the vehicle of disparaging Republican administrations. Some of them sat but yesterday in Democratic conventions, some have sought nominations at the hands of Democrats in recent years, and some, with the zeal of neophytes and bitterness of apostates, have done more than self-respecting Democrats would do to vilify and slander their government and their countrymen.... They forget that parties are not built up by deportment, or by ladies' magazines, or gush.... The grasshoppers in the corner of a fence, even without a newspaper to be heard in, sometimes make more noise than the flocks and herds that graze upon a thousand hills.... For extreme license in criticism of administrations and of everybody connected with them, broad arguments can no doubt be found in the files of the journal made famous by the pencil of Nast. Buta convention may not deem itself a chartered libertine of oracular and pedantic conceits."
Conkling could not comprehend why Republicans of New York should be thought predisposed to find fault with Hayes. Without their votes he could not have become the candidate. "Even the member from Richmond was, I believe, in the end prevailed upon, after much difficulty, to confer his unique and delicate vote also." New York congressmen, with few exceptions, heartily supported the measure without which Hayes would never have been effectually inaugurated. No opposition had come from New York. What, then, is the meaning and purpose of constantly accusing Republicans of this State of unfriendly bias? Wanton assaults had been made upon Republicans, supposed to be inspired by the champions and advisers of the President. For not doing more in the campaign of 1876, he, an office-holder, had been denounced by the same men who now insist that an office-holder may not sign even a notice for a convention. No utterance hostile to men or measures had proceeded from him. Not a straw had been laid in the way of any man. Still he had been persistently assaulted and misrepresented by those claiming to speak specially for the Administration. A word of greeting to his neighbours had drawn down bitter and scornful denunciations because it did not endorse the Administration.
"These anxious and super-serviceable charioteers seem determined to know nothing but the President and his policy and them crucified.... The meaning of all this is not obscured by the fact that the new President has been surrounded and courted by men who have long purred about every new Administration.... Some of these disinterested patriots and reformers have been since the days of Pierce the friends and suitors of all Administrations and betrayers of all. The assaults they incite are somewhat annoying. It would have been a luxury to unfrock some of them, but it has seemed to me the duty of every sincere Republican to endure a great deal rather than say anything to introduce division or controversy into party ranks.... I am for peace.... I am for everything tending to that end.... I am for one thing more—the success of the Administration in everything that is just and wise and real."
The Senator thought Hayes deserved the same support other Republican administrations had received. Whenever he is right he should be sustained; whenever misled by unwise or sinister advice, dissent should be expressed. This right of judgment is the right of every citizen. He exercised it in Congress under Lincoln and Grant, who never deemed an honest difference of opinion cause for war or quarrel, "nor were they afflicted by having men long around them engaged in setting on newspapers to hound every man who was not officious or abject in fulsomely bepraising them. The matters suggested by the pending amendment," he continued, "are not pertinent to this day's duties, and obviously they are matters of difference. They may promote personal and selfish aims, but they are hostile to concord and good understanding between Republicans at a time when they should all be united everywhere, in purpose and action. Let us agree to put contentions aside and complete our task. Let us declare the purposes and methods which should guide the government of our great State."
After this plea for harmony, the Senator commented briefly upon the remarks of other delegates, complimented Platt, and then turned again upon Curtis. Being assured that the latter did not refer to him as the Senator for whom Lincoln looked under the bed, he concluded: "Then I withhold a statement I intended to make, and I substitute for it a remark which I hope will not transgress the proprieties or liberties of this occasion. It is this: If a doubt arose in my mind whether the member from Richmond intended a covert shot at me, that doubt sprang from the fact that that member has published, in a newspaper, touching me, not matters political—political assaults fairly conducted no man ever heard me complain of—but imputations upon my personalintegrity so injurious and groundless, that as I think of them now, nothing but the proprieties of the occasion restrain me from denouncing them and their author as I feel at liberty to do in the walks of private life. Mr. President, according to that Christian code which I have been taught, there is no atonement in the thin lacquer of public courtesy, or of private ceremonial observance, for the offence one man does another when he violates that provision of the Decalogue, which, speaking to him, says, 'Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour,' and which means thou shalt not do it, whatever thy personal or political pique or animosity may be. The member from Richmond did me honour overmuch in an individual if not personal exhortation wherein he was pleased to run some parallel between himself and me.... Let me supplement the parallel by recalling a remark of a great Crusader when Richard of England and Leopold of Austria had held dispute over the preliminaries of battle: 'Let the future decide between you, and let it declare for him who carries furthest into the ranks of the enemy the sword of the cross.'"[819]
From a mere reading of this speech it is difficult, if not impossible, to realise its effect upon those who heard it.[820]As an oratorical exhibition the testimony of friends and of foes is alike offered in its unqualified praise. He spoke distinctly and with characteristic deliberation, his stateliness of manner and captivating audacity investing each sentence with an importance that only attaches to the utterances of a great orator. The withering sneer and the look of contempt gave character to the sarcasms and bitter invectives which he scattered with the prodigality of a seed-sower. When he declared Curtis a "man-milliner," his long, flexible index finger and eyes ablaze with resentmentpointed out the editor as distinctly as if he had transfixed him with an arrow, while the slowly pronounced syllables, voiced in a sliding, descending key, gave the title a cartoon effect. Referring to the parallel in Curtis's peroration, he laid his hand on his heart, bowed toward his antagonist with mock reverence, and distorted his face with an expression of ludicrous scorn. In repelling the innuendo as to his "personal integrity," the suppressed anger and slowly spoken words seemed to preface a challenge to mortal combat, and men held their breath until his purpose cleared. The striking delivery of several keen thrusts fixed them in the memory. Given in his deep, sonorous tones, one of these ran much as follows: "When Doc-tor-r-r Ja-a-awnson said that patr-r-riotism-m was the l-a-w-s-t r-r-refuge of a scoundr-r-rel he ignor-r-red the enor-r-rmous possibilities of the word r-refa-awr-rm."[821]Other sentences, now historic, pleased opponents not less than friends. That parties are not upheld by "deportment, ladies' magazines, or gush" instantly caught the audience, as did "the journal made famous by the pencil of Nast," and the comparison suggested by Edmund Burke of the noise of "grasshoppers in the corner of a fence even without a newspaper to be heard in."[822]
Nevertheless, these moments of accord between speaker and hearers deepened by contrast the depth of bitterness existing between him and the friends of the President. His denunciation of Curtis had included Evarts if not other members of the Administration, and during the recital ofthe rhythmical sentences of arraignment dissent mingled with applause. "He was hissed," said a reporter of long experience, "as I have never heard any speaker hissed at a convention before."[823]A friend to whom Conkling read the speech on the preceding Sunday pronounced it "too severe," and the nephew excluded the epithet "man-milliner" from the address as published in his uncle's biography.[824]The contemporary press, reflecting the injury which Conkling's exuberance of denunciation did his cause, told how its effect withered as soon as oratory and acting had ceased. Within an hour after its delivery Charles E. Fitch of the RochesterDemocrat-Chronicle, voicing the sentiment of the Senator's best friends, deprecated the attack. Reading the article at the breakfast table on the following morning, Conkling exclaimed, "the man who wrote it is a traitor!" It was "the man" not less than the criticism that staggered him. Fitch was a sincere friend and a writer with a purpose. His clear, incisive English, often forcible and at times eloquent, had won him a distinct place in New York journalism, not more by his editorials than by his work in various fields of literature, and his thought usually reflected the opinion of the better element of the party. To Conkling it conveyed the first intimation that many Republican papers were to pronounce his address unfortunate, since it exhorted to peace and fomented bitter strife.
Curtis refused to make public comment, but to Charles Eliot Norton, his intimate friend, he wrote: "It was the saddest sight I ever knew, that man glaring at me in a fury of hate, and storming out his foolish blackguardism. I was all pity. I had not thought him great, but I had not suspected how small he was. His friends, the best, were confounded. One of them said to me the next day, 'It was not amazement that I felt, but consternation.' I spoke offhand and the report is horrible. Conkling's speech was carefully written out, and therefore you do not get all thevenom, and no one can imagine the Mephistophelean leer and spite."[825]
Conkling closed his speech too late at night for other business,[826]and in the morning one-half of the delegates had disappeared. Those remaining occupied less than an hour in the nomination of candidates.[827]
Theresult at Rochester, so unsatisfactory to a large body of influential men to whom the President represented the most patriotic Republicanism, was followed at Albany by a movement no less disappointing to a large element of the Democratic party.[828]In their zeal to punish crime Secretary of State Bigelow and Attorney-General Fairchild had made themselves excessively obnoxious to the predatory statesmen of the canal ring, who now proposed to destroy the Tilden régime. Back of them stood John Kelly, eager to become the master, and determined to accomplish what he had failed to do at St. Louis.
As if indifferent to the contest Bigelow had remained in Europe with Tilden, and Fairchild, weary of the nervous strain of office-holding, refused to make an open canvass for the extension of his official life. Nevertheless, the friends of reform understood the importance of renominating the old ticket. It had stood for the interest of the people. Whatever doubt might have clouded the public mind as to Tilden's sincerity as an ardent, unselfish reformer, Republicans as well as Democrats knew that Bigelow and Fairchild represented an uncompromising hostility to public plunderers, and that their work, if then discontinued, must be shorn of much of its utility. Their friends understood, also, the importance of controlling the temporary organisation of the convention, otherwise all would be lost.
The result of the Presidential struggle had seriously weakened Tilden. In the larger field of action he had displayed a timid, vacillating character, and the boldest leaders of his party felt that in the final test as a candidate he lost because he hesitated. Besides, the immediate prospect of power had disappeared. Although Democrats talked of "the great Presidential crime," and seemed to have their eyes and minds fastened on offices and other evidences of victory, they realised deep in their hearts that Hayes was President for four years, and that new conditions and new men might be existent in 1880. Moreover, many Democratic leaders who could not be classed as selfish, felt that Tilden, in securing the advantageous position of a reformer, had misrepresented the real Democratic spirit and purpose in the State. They deeply resented his course in calling about him, to the exclusion of recognised and experienced party advisers, men whom he could influence, who owed their distinction to his favour, and who were consequently devoted to his fortunes. Upon some of these he relied to secure Republican sympathy, while he depended upon Democratic discipline to gain the full support of his party. If events favoured his designs and the exigencies of an exciting Presidential election concealed hostility, these conditions did not placate his opponents, who began plotting his downfall the moment the great historic contest ended. This opposition could be approximately measured by the fact that the entire party press of the State, with three exceptions, disclosed a distinct dislike of his methods.[829]
Nevertheless, Tilden's friends held control. Governor Robinson, an executive of remarkable force, sensitively obedient to principles of honest government and bold in his utterances, remained at the head of a devoted band which had hitherto found its career marked by triumph after triumph, and whose influence was still powerful enough to rally to its standard new men of strength as well as old leaders flushed with recent victories. Robinson's courageous words especially engaged the attention of thoughtful Democrats. He did not need to give reasons for the opposition to John Bigelow, or the grievance against Charles S. Fairchild, whose court docket sufficiently exposed the antagonism between canal contractors and the faithful prosecutor. But in his fascinating manner he told the story of the Attorney-General's heroic firmness in refusing to release Tweed.[830]In Robinson's opinion the vicious classes, whose purposes discovered themselves in the depredations of rings and weakness for plunder, were arrayed against the better element of the party which had temporarily deprived the wrong-doers of power, and he appealed to his friends to rescue administrative reform from threatened defeat.
The Governor was not unmindful of his weakness. Besides Tilden's loss of prestige, the renomination of the old ticket encountered the objection of a third term, aroused the personal antagonism of hundreds of men who had suffered because of its zeal, and arrayed against it all other influences that had become hostile to Tilden through envy or otherwise during his active management of the party. Moreover, he understood the cunning of John Kelly and the intrigue of his lieutenants. Knowing that contesting delegations excluded precincts from taking part in the temporary organisation, these men had sought to weaken Tilden by creating fictitious contests in counties loyal to him, thus offsetting John Morrissey's contest against Tammany. It was a desperate struggle, and the only gleam of light that opened a way to Tilden's continued success came from the action of the State Committee, which gave David B. Hill of Chemung 19 votes for temporary chairman to 14 for Clarkson N. Potter of New York. The victory, ordinarily meaning the control of the Committee on Credentials, restored hope if not confidence.
Hill was the friend of Robinson. Although his name had not then become a household word, he was by no means unknown throughout the State. He had come into public life as city attorney in 1864 at the age of twenty-one, and had shown political instincts for the most part admirable. Of those to go to the Assembly in 1871 to aid in the work of judicial purification, Hill was suggested by O'Conor and Tilden as one of the trustworthy lawyers, and in February, 1872, when the legislative committee began its investigation into the charges presented by the Bar Association against Judges Barnard, Cardozo, Ingraham, and McCunn with a view to their impeachment, Hill sat by the side of Tilden. It was recognised that he belonged to the coterie of able men who stood at the front of the reform movement.
His personal habits, too, commended him. He seems to have been absolved from the love of wine, and if the love of a good woman did not win him, he created a substantial home among his books, and worked while others feasted. He talked easily, he learned readily, and with the earnestness of one who inherited an ambition for public life he carefully equipped himself for a political as well as a professional career. He had a robust, straightforward nature. Men liked his courage, his earnestness, his effectiveness as a debater, and his declared purposes which were thoroughly in unison with the spirit of his party. But it was his boldness, tempered with firmness, which justified Robinson in singling him out for chairman. Still, the courage exhibited as a presiding officer in one of the stormiest conventions that ever assembled in the Empire State did not win him distinction.
The Kelly opposition raised no question of principle. The platform denounced the defeat of Tilden as due to fraud, applauded Hayes for his Southern policy, declared for reapportionment of the State, and bitterly assailed railroad subsidies. But it had no words of unkindness for Tilden and Robinson. Indeed, with a most sublime display of hypocrisy, Kelly pointed with pride to the fruits of their administrations, made illustrious by canal reforms, economy, and the relentless prosecution of profligate boards and swindling contractors, and vied with the apostles of administrative reform in calling them "fearless" and "honest," and in repudiating the suggestion of desiring other directing spirits. His only issue involved candidates. Should it be the old ticket or a new one? Should it be Bigelow for a third term, or Beach, the choice of the ring? In opposing the old ticket several delegates extended their hostility only to Bigelow; others included the attorney-general. Only a few demanded an entire change. But Tammany and the Canal ring tactfully combined these various elements with a skill never before excelled in a State convention. Their programme, sugar-coated with an alleged affection for Tilden, was arranged to satisfy the whim of each delegate, while Robinson's policy, heavily freighted with well doing, encountered the odium of a third-term ticket.
Nevertheless, the Governor's control of the chairmanship assured him victory unless Hill yielded too much. But Kelly was cunning and quick. After accepting Hill without dissent, he introduced a resolution providing that the convention select the committee on contested seats. To appoint this committee was the prerogative of the chairman, and Hill, following Cornell's bold ruling in 1871, could have refused to put the motion. When he hesitated delegates sprang to their feet and enthroned pandemonium.[831]During the cyclone of epithets and invective John Morrissey for the last time opposed John Kelly in a State convention. His shattered health, which had already changed every lineament of a face that successfully resisted the blows of Yankee Sullivan and John C. Heenan, poorly equipped him for the prolonged strain of such an encounter, but he threwhis envenomed adjectives with the skill of a quoit-pitcher.
Distributed about the hall were William Purcell, DeWitt C. West, George M. Beebe, John D. Townsend, and other Tammany talkers, who had a special aptitude for knockdown personalities which the metropolitan side of a Democratic convention never failed to understand. Their loud voices, elementary arguments, and simple quotations neither strained the ears nor puzzled the heads of the audience, while their jibes and jokes, unmistakable in meaning, sounded familiar and friendly. Townsend, a lawyer of some prominence and counsel for Kelly, was an effective and somewhat overbearing speaker, who had the advantage of being sure of everything, and as he poured out his eloquence in language of unmeasured condemnation of Morrissey, he held attention if he did not enlighten with distracting novelty.
Morrissey admitted he was wild in his youth, adding in a tone of sincere penitence that if he could live his life over he would change many things for which he was very sorry. "But no one, not even Tweed who hates me," he exclaimed, pointing his finger across the aisle in the direction of Kelly, "ever accused me of being a thief." Morrissey's grammar was a failure. He clipped his words, repeated his phrases, and lacked the poise of a public speaker, but his opponents did not fail to understand what he meant. His eloquence was like that of an Indian, its power being in its sententiousness, which probably came from a limited vocabulary.
At the opening of the convention Robinson's forces had a clear majority,[832]but in the presence of superior generalship, which forced a roll-call before the settlement of contests, Tammany and the Canal ring, by a vote of 169 to 114, passed into control. To Tilden's friends it came as the death knell of hope, while their opponents, wild with delight, turned the convention into a jubilee. "This is the first Democratic triumph in the Democratic party since1873," said Jarvis Lord of Monroe. "It lets in the old set."[833]
The adoption of the Credentials Committee's report seated Tammany, made Clarkson N. Potter permanent chairman, and turned over the party machine. Pursuing their victory the conquerors likewise nominated a new ticket.[834]Quarter was neither asked nor offered. Robinson had squarely raised the issue that refusal to continue the old officials would be repudiation of reform, and his friends, as firmly united in defeat as in victory, voted with a calm indifference to the threats of the allied power of canal ring and municipal corruptionists. Indeed, their boast of going down with colours flying supplemented the vigorous remark of the Governor that there could be no compromise with Tweed and canal thieves.[835]
This apparently disastrous result encouraged the hope that Republicans, in spite of Conkling's indiscretion at Rochester, might profit by it as they did in 1871. Upon the surface Republican differences did not indicate bitterness. Except in the newspapers no organised opposition to the Senator had appeared, and the only mass meeting called to protest against the action of the Rochester convention appealed for harmony and endorsed the Republican candidates.[836]Even Curtis, the principal speaker, although indulging in some trenchant criticism, limited his remarks to a defence of the Administration. Nevertheless, the presence of William J. Bacon, congressman from the Oneida district, who voiced an intense admiration for the President and his policies, emphasised the fact that the Senator's home people had elected a Hayes Republican. Indeed, the Senator deemed it essential to establish an organ, and in October (1877) the publication of the UticaRepublicanbegan under the guidance of Lewis Lawrence, an intimate friend. It lived less than two years, but while it survived it reflected the thoughts and feelings of its sponsor.[837]
The campaign presented several confusing peculiarities. Governor Robinson in his letter to a Tammany meeting refused to mention the Democratic candidates, and Tilden, after returning from Europe, expressed the belief in his serenade speech that "any nominations that did not promise coöperation in the reform policy which I had the honour to inaugurate and which Governor Robinson is consummating will be disowned by the Democratic masses."[838]This was a body-blow to the Ring. Its well-directed aim also struck the ticket with telling effect, for its election involved the discontinuance of Fairchild's spirited canal prosecutions. On the other hand, the adoption of the recent amendment, substituting for the canal commission a superintendent of public works to be appointed by the Governor, made the election of Olcott and Seymour especially desirable, since it would give Robinson and his reforms stronger support than Tilden had in the State board. Yet it could not be denied that the success of the Albany ticket would be construed as a defeat of Tilden's ascendency.
Similar confusion possessed the Republican mind. Alarge body of men, resenting the Rochester convention's covert condemnation of the President's policies, hesitated to vote for candidates whose victory would be attributed to Republican opposition to the Administration. This singular political situation made a very languid State campaign. An extra session of Congress called Conkling to Washington, Tilden retired to Gramercy Park, the German-Independent organisation limited its canvass to the metropolis, and the candidates of neither ticket got a patient hearing. Other causes contributed to the Republican dulness. Old leaders became inactive and government officials refused to give money because of their interpretation of the President's civil service order, while rawness and indifference made newer leaders inefficient. After the October collapse in Ohio conditions became hopelessly discouraging.[839]The tide set more heavily in favour of the Democracy, and each discordant Republican element, increasing its distrust, practically ceased work lest the other profit by it.
Nevertheless, the hunt for State senators, involving the election of a United States Senator in 1879, provoked animated contests which centred about the candidacy of John Morrissey, whom Republicans and the combined anti-Tammany factions backed with spirit. Morrissey had carried the Tweed district for senator in 1874, and the taunt that no other neighbourhood would elect a notorious gambler and graduate of the prize-ring goaded him into opposing Augustus Schell in one of the fashionable districts of the metropolis. Schell had the advantage of wealth, influence, long residence in the precinct, and the enthusiastic support of Kelly, who turned the contest into a battle for the prestige of victory. For the moment the fierceness of the fight excited the hopes of Republicans that the State might be carried, and to spread the influence of the warring Democratic factions into all sections of the commonwealth,Republican journals made a combined attack upon Allen C. Beach.