RECONSTRUCTION UNDER JOHNSON.
The following considerations induced me to make a pilgrimage to Washington, where, by accident of fortune, I had a larger acquaintance with influential politicians than other Southern commanders. When the Whig party dissolved, most of its Northern members joined the Republicans, and now belonged to the reigning faction; and I had consorted with many of them while my father was President and afterward.
Mention has been made of the imprisonment of Governors Clarke and Watts for adopting my advice, and it was but right for me to make an effort to have them released. Moreover, Jefferson Davis was a prisoner in irons, and it was known that his health was feeble. Lee, Johnston, and I, with our officers and men, were at large, protected by the terms of our surrenders—terms which General Grant had honorably prevented the civil authorities from violating. If Mr. Davis had sinned, we all were guilty, and I could not rest without making an attempt for his relief.
At the time, it was understood that prisoners on parole should not change their residence without military permission, and leave to go to New York was asked and obtained of General Canby. By steamer I reached that place in a week, and found that General Dix had just been relieved by General Hooker, to whom I at once reported. He uttered a shout of welcome (we were old acquaintances), declared that he was more pleased to see me than to see a church (which was doubtless true), made hospitable suggestions of luncheon, champagne, etc., and gave me a permit to go to Washington, regretting that he could not keep mewith him. A warm-hearted fellow is "fighting Joe," who carried on war like a soldier.
In Washington, at Willard's—a huge inn, filled from garret to cellar with a motley crowd—an acquaintance, whom I chanced to meet, informed me that a recent disturbance had induced the belief of the existence of a new plot for assassination, and an order had been published forbidding rebels to approach the capital without the permission of the War Secretary. Having been at sea for a week, I knew nothing of this, and Hooker had not mentioned it when he gave me the permit to come to Washington. My informant apprehended my arrest, and kindly undertook to protect me. Through his intervention I received from the President, Andrew Johnson, permission to stay or go where I chose, with an invitation to visit him at a stated time.
Presenting myself at the "White House," I was ushered in to the President—a saturnine man, who made no return to my bow, but, after looking at me, asked me to take a seat. Upon succeeding to power Mr. Johnson breathed fire and hemp against the South, proclaimed that he would make treason odious by hanging traitors, and ordered the arrest of General Lee and others, when he was estopped by the action of General Grant. He had now somewhat abated his wolfish desire for vengeance, and asked many questions about the condition of the South, temper of the people, etc. I explained the conduct of Governors Clarke and Watts, how they were imprisoned for following my advice, submitted to and approved by General Canby, who would hardly have abetted a new rebellion; and he made memoranda of their cases, as well as of those of many other prisoners, confined in different forts from Boston to Savannah, all of whom were released within a short period. Fearing to trespass on his time, I left with a request that he would permit me to call again, as I had a matter of much interest to lay before him, and was told the hours at which I would be received.
Thence to the Secretary of State, Mr. Seward, who in former Whig times, as Senator from New York, had been a warm supporter of my father's administration. He greeted me cordially, and asked me to dine. A loin of veal was thepièce derésistanceof his dinner, and he called attention to it as evidence that he had killed the fatted calf to welcome the returned prodigal. Though not entirely recovered from the injuries received in a fall from his carriage and the wounds inflicted by the knife of Payne, he was cheerful, and appeared to sympathize with the objects of my mission—at least, so far as I could gather his meaning under the cloud of words with which he was accustomed to cover the slightest thought. One or two other members of the Cabinet, to whom Mr. Seward presented me, were also favorably inclined. One, the War Secretary, I did not meet. A spy under Buchanan, a tyrant under Lincoln, and a traitor to Johnson, this man was as cruel and crafty as Domitian. I never saw him. In the end conscience, long dormant, came as Alecto, and he was not; and the temple of Justice, on whose threshold he stood, escaped profanation.
In a second interview, President Johnson heard the wish I had so much at heart, permission to visit Jefferson Davis. He pondered for some time, then replied that I must wait and call again.
Meantime, an opportunity to look upon the amazing spectacle presented by the dwellers at the capital was afforded. The things seen by the Pilgrims in a dream were at this Vanity Fair visible in the flesh: "all such merchandise sold as houses, lands, trades, places, honors, preferments, states, lusts, pleasures; and delights of all sorts, as bawds, wives, husbands, children, masters, servants, lives, blood, bodies, souls, greenbacks, pearls, precious stones, and what not." The eye of the inspired tinker had pierced the darkness of two hundred years, and seen what was to come. The martial tread of hundreds of volunteer generals, just disbanded, resounded in the streets. Gorged with loot, they spent it as lavishly as Morgan's buccaneers after the sack of Panama. Their women sat at meat or walked the highways, resplendent in jewels, spoil of Southern matrons. The camp-followers of the army were here in high carnival, and in character and numbers rivaled the attendants of Xerxes. Courtesans swarmed everywhere, about the inns, around the Capitol, in the antechambers of the "White House," and were brokersfor the transaction of all business. Of a tolerant disposition and with a wide experience of earthly wickedness, I did not feel called upon to cry aloud against these enormities, remembering the fate of Faithful; but I had some doubts concerning divine justice; for why were the "cities of the Plain" overthrown and this place suffered to exist?
The officers of the army on duty at Washington were very civil to me, especially General Grant, whom I had known prior to and during the Mexican war, as a modest, amiable, but by no means promising lieutenant in a marching regiment. He came frequently to see me, was full of kindness, and anxious to promote my wishes. His action in preventing violation of the terms of surrender, and a subsequent report that he made of the condition of the South—a report not at all pleasing to the radicals—endeared him to all Southern men. Indeed, he was in a position to play a rôle second only to that of Washington, who founded the republic; for he had the power to restore it. His bearing and conduct at this time were admirable, modest and generous; and I talked much with him of the noble and beneficent work before him. While his heart seemed to respond, he declared his ignorance of and distaste for politics and politicians, with which and whom he intended to have nothing to do, but confine himself to his duties of commander-in-chief of the army. Yet he expressed a desire for the speedy restoration of good feeling between the sections, and an intention to advance it in all proper ways. We shall see when and under what influences he adopted other views.
The President put me off from day to day, receiving me to talk about Southern affairs, but declining to give an answer to my requests. I found that he always postponed action, and was of an obstinate, suspicious temper. Like a badger, one had to dig him out of his hole; and he was ever in one except when on the hustings, addressing the crowd. Of humble birth, a tailor by trade, nature gave him a strong intellect, and he had learned to read after his marriage. He had acquired much knowledge of the principles of government, and made himself a fluent speaker, but could not rise above the level of the class in whichhe was born and to which he always appealed. He well understood the few subjects laboriously studied, and affected to despise other knowledge, while suspicious that those possessing such would take advantage of him. Self-educated men, as they are called, deprived of the side light thrown on a particular subject by instruction in cognate matters, are narrow and dogmatic, and, with an uneasy consciousness of ignorance, soothe their own vanity by underrating the studies of others. To the vanity of this class he added that of the demagogue (I use the term in its better sense), and called the wise policy left him by his predecessor "my policy." Compelled to fight his way up from obscurity, he had contracted a dislike of those more favored of fortune, whom he was in the habit of calling "the slave-aristocracy," and became incapable of giving his confidence to any one, even to those on whose assistance he relied in a contest, just now beginning, with the Congress.
President Johnson never made a dollar by public office, abstained from quartering a horde of connections on the Treasury, refused to uphold rogues in high places, and had too just a conception of the dignity of a chief magistrate to accept presents. It may be said that these are humble qualities for a citizen to boast the possession of by a President of the United States. As well claim respect for a woman of one's family on the ground that she has preserved her virtue. Yet all whose eyes were not blinded by partisanship, whose manhood was not emasculated by servility, would in these last years have welcomed the least of them as manna in the desert.
The President, between whom and the Congressional leaders the seeds of discord were already sown, dallied with me from day to day, and at length said that it would spare him embarrassment if I could induce Stevens, Davis, and others of the House, and Sumner of the Senate, to recommend the permission to visit Jefferson Davis; and I immediately addressed myself to this unpleasant task.
Thaddeus Stevens received me with as much civility as he was capable of. Deformed in body and temper like Caliban, this was the Lord Hategood of the fair; but he was frankness itself.He wanted no restoration of the Union under the Constitution, which he called a worthless bit of old parchment. The white people of the South ought never again to be trusted with power, for they would inevitably unite with the Northern "Copperheads" and control the Government. The only sound policy was to confiscate the lands and divide them among the negroes, to whom, sooner or later, suffrage must be given. Touching the matter in hand, Johnson was a fool to have captured Davis, whom it would have been wiser to assist in escaping. Nothing would be done with him, as the executive had only pluck enough to hang two poor devils such as Wirtz and Mrs. Surratt. Had the leading traitors been promptly strung up, well; but the time for that had passed. (Here, I thought, he looked lovingly at my neck, as Petit André was wont to do at those of his merry-go-rounds.) He concluded by saying that it was silly to refuse me permission to visit Jefferson Davis, but he would not say so publicly, as he had no desire to relieve Johnson of responsibility.
There was no excuse for longer sporting with this radical Amaryllis either in shade or in sunshine; so I sought Henry Winter Davis. Like the fallen angel, Davis preferred to rule in hell rather than serve in heaven or on earth. With the head of Medusa and the eye of the Basilisk, he might have represented Siva in a Hindoo temple, and was even more inaccessible to sentiment than Thaddeus Stevens. Others, too numerous and too insignificant to particularize, were seen. These were the cuttle-fish of the party, whose appointed duty it was to obscure popular vision by clouds of loyal declamation. As Sicilian banditti prepare for robberies and murders by pious offerings on shrines of favorite saints, these brought out the altar of the "nation," and devoted themselves afresh, whenever "Crédits Mobiliers" and kindred enormities were afoot, and sharpened every question of administration, finance, law, taxation, on the grindstone of sectional hate. So sputtering tugs tow from her moorings the stately ship, to send her forth to winds and waves of ocean, caring naught for the cargo with which she is freighted, but, grimy in zeal to earn fees, return to seek another.
Hopeless of obtaining assistance from such statesmen, I visited Mr. Charles Sumner, Senator from Massachusetts, who received me pleasantly. A rebel, a slave-driver, and, without the culture of Boston, ignorant, I was an admirable vessel into which he could pour the inexhaustible stream of his acquired eloquence. I was delighted to listen to beautiful passages from the classic as well as modern poets, dramatists, philosophers, and orators, and recalled the anecdote of the man sitting under a fluent divine, who could not refrain from muttering, "That is Jeremy Taylor; that, South; that, Barrow," etc. It was difficult to suppress the thought, while Mr. Sumner was talking, "That is Burke, or Howard, Wilberforce, Brougham, Macaulay, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Exeter Hall," etc.; but I failed to get down to the particular subject that interested me. The nearest approach to the practical was his disquisition on negro suffrage, which he thought should be accompanied by education. I ventured to suggest that negro education should precede suffrage, observing that some held the opinion that the capacity of the white race for government was limited, although accumulated and transmitted through many centuries. He replied that "the ignorance of the negro was due to the tyranny of the whites," which appeared in his view to dispose of the question of the former's incapacity. He seemed over-educated—had retained, not digested his learning; and beautiful flowers of literature were attached to him by filaments of memory, as lovely orchids to sapless sticks. Hence he failed to understand the force of language, and became the victim of his own metaphors, mistaking them for facts. He had the irritable vanity and weak nerves of a woman, and was bold to rashness in speculation, destitute as he was of the ordinary masculine sense of responsibility. Yet I hold him to have been the purest and most sincere man of his party. A lover, nay, a devotee of liberty, he thoroughly understood that it could only be preserved by upholding the supremacy of civil law, and would not sanction the garrison methods of President Grant. Without vindictiveness, he forgave his enemies as soon as they were overthrown, and one of the last efforts of his life was to removefrom the flag of a common country all records of victories that perpetuated the memory of civil strife.
Foiled in this direction, I worried the President, as old Mustard would a stot, until he wrote the permission so long solicited. By steamer from Baltimore I went down Chesapeake Bay, and arrived at Fortress Monroe in the early morning. General Burton, the commander, whose civility was marked, and who bore himself like a gentleman and soldier, received me on the dock and took me to his quarters to breakfast, and to await the time to see Mr. Davis.
It was with some emotion that I reached the casemate in which Mr. Davis was confined. There were two rooms, in the outer of which, near the entrance, stood a sentinel, and in the inner was Jefferson Davis. We met in silence, with grasp of hands. After an interval he said, "This is kind, but no more than I expected of you." Pallid, worn, gray, bent, feeble, suffering from inflammation of the eyes, he was a painful sight to a friend. He uttered no plaint, and made no allusion to the irons (which had been removed); said the light kept all night in his room hurt his eyes a little, and, added to the noise made every two hours by relieving the sentry, prevented much sleep; but matters had changed for the better since the arrival of General Burton, who was all kindness, and strained his orders to the utmost in his behalf. I told him of my reception at Washington by the President, Mr. Seward, and others, of the attentions of Generals Grant and Humphreys, who promoted my wish to see him, and that with such aid I was confident of obtaining permission for his wife to stay with him. I could solicit favors for him, having declined any for myself. Indeed, the very accident of position, that enabled me to get access to the governing authorities, made indecent even the supposition of my acceptance of anything personal while a single man remained under the ban for serving the Southern cause; and therefore I had no fear of misconstruction. Hope of meeting his family cheered him much, and he asked questions about the condition and prospects of the South, which I answered as favorably as possible, passing over things that would have grieved him. Insome way he had learned of attacks on his character and conduct, made by some Southern curs, thinking to ingratiate themselves with the ruling powers. I could not deny this, but remarked that the curse of unexpected defeat and suffering was to develop the basest passions of the human heart. Had he escaped out of the country, it was possible he might have been made a scapegoat by the Southern people, and, great as were the sufferings that he had endured, they were as nothing to coward stabs from beloved hands. The attacks mentioned were few, and too contemptible for notice; for now his calamities had served to endear him to all. I think that he derived consolation from this view.
The day passed with much talk of a less disturbing character, and in the evening I returned to Baltimore and Washington. After some delay Mr. Davis's family was permitted to join him, and he speedily recovered strength. Later I made a journey or two to Richmond, Virginia, on business connected with his trial, then supposed to be impending.
The slight service, if simple discharge of duty can be so called, I was enabled to render Mr. Davis, was repaid ten thousand fold. In the month of March, 1875, my devoted wife was released from suffering, long and patiently endured, originating in grief for the loss of her children and exposure during the war. Smitten by this calamity, to which all that had gone before seemed as blessings, I stood by her coffin, ere it was closed, to look for the last time upon features that death had respected and restored to their girlish beauty. Mr. Davis came to my side, and stooped reverently to touch the fair brow, when the tenderness of his heart overcame him and he burst into tears. His example completely unnerved me for the time, but was of service in the end. For many succeeding days he came to me, and was as gentle as a young mother with her suffering infant. Memory will ever recall Jefferson Davis as he stood with me by the coffin.
Duty to imprisoned friends and associates discharged, I returned to New Orleans, and remained for some weeks, when an untoward event occurred, productive of grave consequences.The saints and martyrs who have attained worldly success have rarely declined to employ the temporal means of sinners. While calling on Hercules, they put their own shoulders to the wheel, and, in the midst of prayer, keep their powder dry. To prepare for the reëlection of President Lincoln in 1864, pretended State governments had been set up by the Federal military in several Southern States, where fragments of territory were occupied. In the event of a close election in the North, the electoral votes in these manufactured States would be under the control of the executive authority, and serve to determine the result. For some years the Southern States were used as thimble-riggers use peas: now they were under the cup of the Union, and now they were out. During his reign in New Orleans the Federal General Banks had prepared a Louisiana pea for the above purpose.
At this time negro suffrage, as yet an unaccomplished purpose, was in the air, and the objective point of radical effort. To aid the movement, surviving accomplices of the Banks fraud were instigated to call a "State Convention" in Louisiana, though with no more authority so to do than they had to call the British Parliament. The people of New Orleans regarded the enterprise as those of London did the proposed meeting of tailors in Tooley street; and just before this debating society was to assemble, the Federal commander, General Sheridan, selected especially to restrain the alleged turbulent population of the city, started on an excursion to Texas, proving that he attached no importance to the matter and anticipated no disturbance.
Living in close retirement, I had forgotten all about the "Convention." Happening to go to the center of the town, from my residence in the upper suburb, the day on which it met, on descending from the carriage of the tramway I heard pistol shots and saw a crowd of roughs, Arabs, and negroes running across Canal Street. I walked in the direction of the noise to inquire the cause of excitement, as there was nothing visible to justify it. The crowd seemed largely composed of boys of from twelve to fifteen, and negroes. I met no acquaintance, and could obtain no information, when a negro came flying past,pursued by a white boy, certainly not above fifteen years of age, with a pistol in hand. I stopped the boy without difficulty, and made him tell what he was up to. He said the niggers were having a meeting at Mechanics' Institute to take away his vote. When asked how long he had enjoyed that inestimable right of a freeman, the boy gave it up, pocketed his "Derringer," and walked off.
By this time the row appeared to be over, so I went on my way without seeing the building called Mechanics' Institute, as it was around the corner near which the boy was stopped. Speedily the town was filled with excitement, and Baird, the Federal commander in the absence of Sheridan, occupied the streets with troops and arrested the movements of citizens. Many poor negroes had been killed most wantonly, indignation ran high among decent people, and the perpetrators of the bloody deeds deserved and would have received swift, stern punishment had civil law been permitted to act. But this did not suit the purposes of the radicals, who rejoiced as Torquemada might have done when the discovery of a score of heretics furnished him an excuse to torment and destroy a province. Applying the theory of the detective police, that among the beneficiaries of crime must be sought the perpetrators, one would conclude that the radical leaders prompted the assassination of Lincoln and the murder of negroes; for they alone derived profit from these acts.
From this time forth the entire white race of the South devoted itself to the killing of negroes. It appeared to be an inherent tendency in a slave-driver to murder a negro. It was a law of his being, as of the monkey's to steal nuts, and could not be resisted. Thousands upon thousands were slain. Favorite generals kept lists in their pockets, proving time, place, and numbers, even to the smallest piccaninny. Nay, such was the ferocity of the slave-drivers, that unborn infants were ripped from their mothers' wombs. Probably these sable Macduffs were invented to avenge the wrongs of their race on tyrants protected by Satanic devices from injury at the hands of Africans of natural birth. Individual effort could not suffice the ragefor slaughter, and the ancient order of "assassins" was revived, with an "Old Man" of the swamps at its head. Thus "Ku-Klux" originated, and covered the land with a network of crime. Earnest, credulous women in New England had their feelings lacerated by these stories, in which they as fondly believed as their foremothers in Salem witches.
As crocodiles conceal their prey until it becomes savory and tender and ripe for eating, so the Radicals kept these dark corpses to serve up to the public when important elections approached, or some especial villainy was to be enacted by the Congress. People who had never been south of the Potomac and Ohio Rivers knew all about this "Ku-Klux"; but I failed, after many inquiries, to find a single man in the South who ever heard of it, saving in newspapers. Doubtless there were many acts of violence. When ignorant negroes, instigated by pestilent emissaries, went beyond endurance, the whites killed them; and this was to be expected. The breed to which these whites belong has for eight centuries been the master of the earth wherever it has planted its foot. A handful conquered and holds in subjection the crowded millions of India. Another and smaller bridles the fierce Caffre tribes of South Africa. Place but a score of them on the middle course of the Congo, and they will rule unless exterminated; and all the armies and all the humanitarians can not change this, until the appointed time arrives for Ham to dominate Japhet.
Two facts may here be stated. Just in proportion as the whites recovered control of their local governments, in that proportion negroes ceased to be killed; and when it was necessary to Radical success to multiply negro votes, though no census was taken, formal statistics were published to prove large immigration of negroes into the very districts of slaughter. Certainty of death could not restrain the colored lambs, impelled by an uncontrollable ardor to vote the radical ticket, from traveling to the wolves. Such devotion deserved the tenderest consideration of Christian men and women, and all means of protection and loving care were due to this innocent, credulous race. A great bureau, the Freedmen's, was established, and in connection withit, at the seat of government, a bank. It was of importance to teach the freedmen, unused to responsibility, industry and economy; and the bank was to encourage these virtues by affording a safe place of deposit for their small savings. To make assurance doubly sure, the "Christian soldier of the United States army" was especially selected to keep the money, and he did—so securely, in point of fact, that it is to be apprehended the unfortunate depositors will never see it more. After so brilliant an experience in banking, prudence might have suggested to this officer the wisdom of retiring from public view. Fortune is sometimes jealous of great reputations and fresh laurels. The success of his first speech prevented "Single-speech Hamilton" from rising again in the House of Commons; Frederick failed to repeat Rossbach, and Napoleon, Austerlitz; but the "Christian soldier" rushed on his fate, and met it at the hands of the Nez Percés. The profound strategy, the skillful tactics, the ready valor that had extinguished bank balances, all failed against this wily foe.
While the excitement growing out of the untoward event mentioned was at its height, President Johnson summoned me to Washington, where I explained all the circumstances, as far as I knew them, of the recent murders, and urged him to send General Hancock to command in New Orleans. He was sent, and immediately restored order and confidence. A gentleman, one of the most distinguished and dashing officers of the United States army, General Hancock recognizes both the great duties of a soldier of the Republic—to defend its flag and obey its laws, discharging the last with a fidelity equal to his devotion to the first in front of battle.
The contest between the Congress and the President now waxed fierce, and Thaddeus Stevens, from his place in the House, denounced "the man at the other end of the avenue." The President had gone back to wise, lawful methods, and desired to restore the Union under the Constitution; and in this he was but following the policy declared in his last public utterance by President Lincoln. Mr. Johnson could establish this fact by members of his predecessor's Cabinet whom he hadretained, and thus strengthen his position; but his vanity forbade him, so he called it "my policy," as if it were something new.
At his instance, I had many interviews with him, and consulted influential men from different parts of the country. His Secretary of War was in close alliance with his enemies in the Congress, and constantly betraying him. This was susceptible of proof, and I so informed the President, and pointed out that, so far from assisting the people of the South, he was injuring them by inaction; for the Congress persecuted them to worry him. He was President and powerful; they were weak and helpless. In truth, President Johnson, slave to his own temper and appetites, was unfit to control others.
General Grant yet appeared to agree with me about "reconstruction," as it was called; and I was anxious to preserve good feeling on his part toward the President. In the light of subsequent events, it is curious to recall the fact that he complained of Stanton's retention in the Cabinet, because the latter's greed of power prevented the Commander-in-Chief of the army from controlling the most minute details without interference. I urged this on the President as an additional motive for dismissing his War Secretary and replacing him by some one agreeable to General Grant; but all in vain. This official "old man of the sea" kept his seat on the Presidential neck, never closing crafty eye nor traitorous mouth, and holding on with the tenacity of an octopus.
Many moderate and whilom influential Republicans determined to assemble in convention at Philadelphia, and invited delegates from all parts, North and South, to meet them. The object was to promote good feeling and an early restoration of the Union, and give aid to the President in his struggle with extremists. Averse to appearing before the public, I was reluctant to go to this Convention; but the President, who felt a deep interest in its success, insisted, and I went. It was largely attended, and by men who had founded and long led the Freesoil party. Ex-members of Lincoln's first Cabinet, Senators andmembers of the Congress, editors of Republican newspapers (among whom was Henry J. Raymond, the ablest political editor of the day and an eminent member of Congress as well), Southern men who had fought for the Confederacy, were there. Northern Republicans and Democrats, long estranged, buried the political hatchet and met for a common purpose, to restore the Union. Negro-worshipers from Massachusetts and slave-drivers from South Carolina entered the vast hall arm in arm. The great meeting rose to its feet, and walls and roof shook with applause. General John A. Dix of New York called the Convention to order, and, in an eloquent and felicitous speech, stated the objects of the assembly—to renew fraternal feeling between the sections, heal the wounds of war, obliterate bitter memories, and restore the Union of the fathers. Senator Doolittle of Wisconsin was chosen permanent president, and patriotic resolutions were adopted by acclamation. All this was of as little avail as the waving of a lady's fan against a typhoon. Radical wrath uprose and swept these Northern men out of political existence, and they were again taught the lesson that is ever forgotten, namely, that it is an easy task to inflame the passions of the multitude, an impossible one to arrest them. From selfish ambition, from thoughtless zeal, from reckless partisanship, from the low motives governing demagogues in a country of universal suffrage, men are ever sowing the wind, thinking they can control the whirlwind; and the story of the Gironde and the Mountain has been related in vain.
The President was charmed with the Convention. Believing the people—his god—to be with him, his crest rose, and he felt every inch a President. Again I urged him to dismiss his War Secretary and replace Mr. Seward, Secretary of State, now in disfavor with his own creation, the Radical party, by General Dix, who was rewarded for his services at Philadelphia by the appointment of Naval Officer at New York. He was an exception to the rule above mentioned. A more cautious pilot than Palinurus, this respectable person is the "Vicar of Bray" of American politics; and like that eminent divine, his creeds sitso lightly as to permit him to take office under all circumstances. Secretary of the Treasury in the closing weeks of President Buchanan, he aroused the North by sending his immortal dispatch to the commander of a revenue cutter: "If any man attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot him on the spot." This bespoke the heart of the patriot, loving his country's banner, and the arm of the hero, ready to defend it; and, clad in this armor of proof, he has since been invulnerable. The President took kindly to the proposition concerning General Dix, and I flattered myself that it would come off, when suddenly the General was appointed Minister Plenipotentiary to France. I imagine that Mr. Seward had got wind of the project and hurried Dix out of the way. Thus, in a few days General Dix had the offer of the Netherlands, Naval Office, and France. "Glamis, and thane of Cawdor"; and his old age is yet so green, mayhap "the greatest is behind."
To air his eloquence and enlighten the minds of his dear people, the President made a tour through the North and West, in which his conduct and declarations were so extraordinary as to defeat any hopes of success for "my policy."
A circumstance connected with the Philadelphia Convention made an impression on me at the time. Mr. Raymond was editor of the "New York Times," the most powerful Republican journal in the North. Among many who had gained large wealth by speculations during the war was Mr. Leonard Jerome, a Republican in politics. This gentleman spent his fortune so lavishly that his acquaintances and the public shared its enjoyment. With other property, Mr. Jerome owned the controlling interest in the "Times," then very valuable. Dining in New York with him and Mr. Raymond, the latter told me it was useless to support the President, who was daily becoming more unpopular, and that the circulation and influence of his paper were rapidly diminishing in consequence of his adherence to "my policy." Whereupon Mr. Jerome replied: "I know but little about politics; but if you think it right to stand by the President, I will pay all losses that the 'Times' may suffer to the other proprietors." This was unselfish and patriotic; and Irecord it with the more pleasure, because Mr. Jerome has lost much of his wealth, and I fear, like many another Timon, some friends with it.
After this period I saw little of President Johnson, who fought his fight in his own way, had his hands completely tied, and barely escaped impeachment; the Congress, meanwhile, making a whipping-post of the South, and inflicting upon it every humiliation that malignity could devise.
RECONSTRUCTION UNDER GRANT.
Before the conventions to nominate candidates for the Presidency met in 1868, I had much intercourse with General Grant, and found him ever modest and determined to steer clear of politics, or at least not permit himself to be used by partisans; and I have no doubt that he was sincere. But the Radical Satan took him up to the high places and promised him dominion over all in view. Perhaps none but a divine being can resist such temptation. He accepted the nomination from the Radicals, and was elected; and though I received friendly messages from him, I did not see him until near the close of his first administration. As ignorant of civil government as of the characters on the Moabitish stone, President Grant begun badly, and went from bad to worse. The appointments to office that he made, the associates whom he gathered around him, were astounding. All his own relatives, all his wife's relatives, all the relatives of these relatives, to the remotest cousinhood, were quartered on the public treasury. Never, since King Jamie crossed the Tweed with the hungry Scotch nation at his heels, has the like been seen; and the soul of old Newcastle, greatest of English nepotists, must have turned green with envy. The influence of this on the public was most disastrous. Already shortened by the war, the standard of morality, honesty, and right was buried out of sight.
For two or three years I was much in the North, and especially in New York, where I had dear friends. The war had afforded opportunity and stimulated appetite for reckless speculation. Vast fortunes had been acquired by new men, destituteof manners, taste, or principles. The vulgar insolence of wealth held complete possession of public places and carried by storm the citadels of society. Indeed, society disappeared. As in the middle ages, to escape pollution, honorable men and refined women (and there are many such in the North) fled to sanctuary and desert, or, like early Christians in the catacombs, met secretly and in fear. The masses sank into a condition that would disgrace Australian natives, and lost all power of discrimination.
The Vice-President of the United States accepted bribes, and perjured himself in vain to escape exposure. President Grant wrote him a letter to assure him of his continued esteem and confidence, and this Vice-President has since lectured before "Young Men's Christian Associations." Plunderings by members of the Congress excited no attention so long as they were confined to individuals or corporations. It was only when they voted themselves money out of taxes paid by the people, that these last growled and frightened some of the statesmen into returning it. A banker, the pet of the Government, holding the same especial relation to it that the Bank of England held to William of Orange, discovered that "a great national debt was a blessing," and was commended and rewarded therefor. With a palace on the shores of the Delaware, this banker owned a summer retreat on a lovely isle amid the waters of Lake Erie. A pious man, he filled this with many divines, who blessed all his enterprises. He contributed largely, too, to the support of an influential Christian journal to aid in disseminating truth to Jew, Gentile, and heathen. The divines and the Christian journal were employed to persuade widows and weak men to purchase his rotten securities, as things too righteous to occasion loss.
The most eloquent preacher in the land, of a race devoted to adoration of negroes, as Hannibal to hatred of Rome, compromised the wife of a member of his congregation. Discovered by the husband, he groveled before him in humiliation as before "his God" (his own expression). Brought before the public, he swore that he was innocent, and denied the meaning of his own written words. The scandal endured for months and gave an opportunity to the metropolitan journals to displaytheir enterprise by furnishing daily and minute reports of all details to their readers. The influence of the preacher was increased by this. His congregation flocked to him as the Anabaptists to John of Leyden, and shopkeepers profitably advertised their wares by doubling their subscriptions to augment his salary. Far from concealing this wound inflicted on his domestic honor, the injured husband proclaimed it from the housetops, clothed himself in it as in a robe of price, and has successfully used it to become a popular lecturer.
To represent the country at the capital of an ancient monarchy, a man was selected whom, it is no abuse of language to declare, Titus Oates after his release from the pillory would have blushed to recognize. On the eve of his departure, as one may learn from the newspapers of the day, all that was richest and best in New York gathered around a banquet in his honor, congratulated the country to which he was accredited, and lamented the misfortune of their own that it would be deprived, even temporarily, of such virtue. Another was sent to an empire which is assured by our oft-succeeding envoys that it is the object of our particular affection. To the aristocracy of the realm this genial person taught the favorite game of the mighty West. A man of broad views, feeling that diplomatic attentions were due to commons as well as to crown and nobles, he occasionally withdrew himself from the social pleasures of the "West End" to inform the stags of Capel Court of the value of American mines. Benefactors are ever misjudged. Aristocracy and the many-antlered have since united to defame him; but Galileo in the dungeon, Pascal by his solitary lamp, More, Sidney, and Russell on the scaffold, will console him; and in the broad bosom of his native Ohio he has found the exception to the rule that prophets are not without honor but in their own country.
The years of Methuselah and the pen of Juvenal would not suffice to exhaust the list, or depict the benighted state into which we had fallen; but it can be asserted of the popular idols of the day that unveiled, they resemble Mokanna, and can each exclaim:
"Here, judge if hell, with all its power to damn,Can add one curse to the foul thing I am!"
The examples of thousands of pure and upright people in the North were as powerless to mitigate the general corruption as song of seraphim to purify the orgies of harlots and burglars; for they were not in harmony with the brutal passions of the masses.
In Boston, July, 1872, as co-trustees of the fund left by the late Mr. Peabody for the education of the poor in the Southern States, President Grant and I met for the first time since he had accepted the nomination from the Radical party. He was a candidate for reëlection, and much worshiped; and, though cordial with me, his general manner had something of "I am the State." Stopping at the same inn, he passed an evening in my room, to which he came alone; and there, avoiding public affairs, we smoked and chatted about the Nueces, Rio Grande, Palo Alto, etc.—things twenty-five years agone, when we were youngsters beginning life. He was reëlected in November by a large majority of electoral votes; but the people of Louisiana elected a Democratic Governor and Assembly. When, in January following, the time of meeting of the Assembly arrived, the country, habituated as it was to violent methods, was startled by the succeeding occurrences.
The night before the Assembly was to meet, the Federal Judge in the city of New Orleans, a drunken reprobate, obtained from the commander of the United States troops a portion of his force, and stationed it in the State House. In the morning the members elect were refused admittance, and others not elected, many not even candidates during the election, were allowed to enter. One Packard, Marshal of the Federal Court, a bitter partisan and worthy adjunct of such a judge, had provided for an Assembly to suit himself by giving tickets to his friends, whom the soldiers passed in, excluding the elected members. The ring-streaked, spotted, and speckled among the cattle and goats, and the brown among the sheep, were turned into the supplanters' folds, which were filled with lowing herdsand bleating flocks, while Laban had neither horn nor hoof. There was not a solitary return produced in favor of this Packard body, nor of the Governor subsequently installed; but the Radicals asserted that their friends would have been elected had the people voted as they wished, for every negro and some whites in the State upheld their party. By this time the charming credulity of the negroes had abated, and they answered the statement that slave-drivers were murdering their race in adjacent regions by saying that slave-drivers, at least, did not tell them lies nor steal their money.
All the whites and many of the blacks in Louisiana felt themselves cruelly wronged by the action of the Federal authorities. Two Assemblies were in session and two Governors claiming power in New Orleans. Excitement was intense, business arrested, and collision between the parties imminent. As the Packard faction was supported by Federal troops, the situation looked grave, and a number of worthy people urged me to go to Washington, where my personal relations with the President might secure me access to him. It was by no means a desirable mission, but duty seemed to require me to undertake it.
Accompanied by Thomas F. Bayard, Senator from Delaware, my first step in Washington was to call on the leader of the Radicals in the Senate, Morton of Indiana, when a long conversation ensued, from which I derived no encouragement. Senator Morton was the Couthon of his party, and this single interview prepared me for one of his dying utterances to warn the country against the insidious efforts of slave-driving rebels to regain influence in the Government. The author of the natural history of Ireland would doubtless have welcomed one specimen, by describing which he could have filled out a chapter on snakes; and there is temptation to dwell on the character of Senator Morton as one of the few Radical leaders who kept his hands clean of plunder. But it may be observed that one absorbing passion excludes all others from the human heart; and the small portion of his being in which disease had left vitality was set on vengeance. Death has recently clutched him, and would not be denied; and he is bewailed throughout the land as though he had possessed the knightly tenderness of Sir Philip Sidney and the lofty patriotism of Chatham.
The President received me pleasantly, gave much time to the Louisiana difficulty, and, in order to afford himself opportunity for full information, asked me frequently to dine with his immediate family, composed of kindly, worthy people. I also received attention and hospitality from some members of his Cabinet, who with him seemed desirous to find a remedy for the wrong. More especially was this true of the Secretary of State, Hamilton Fish, with whom and whose refined family I had an acquaintance. Of a distinguished Revolutionary race, possessor of a good estate, and with charming, cultivated surroundings, this gentleman seemed the Noah of the political world. Perhaps his retention in the Cabinet was due to a belief that, under the new and milder dispensation, the presence of one righteous man might avert the doom of Gomorrah. An exception existed in the person of the Attorney-General, a man, as eminent barristers declare, ignorant of law and self-willed and vulgar. For some reason he had much influence with the President, who later appointed him Chief Justice of the United States; but the Senatorial gorge, indelicate as it had proved, rose at this, as the easy-shaving barber's did at the coal-heaver, and rejected him.
Weeks elapsed, during which I felt hopeful from the earnestness manifested in my mission by the President and several of his Cabinet. Parties were in hostile array in New Orleans, but my friends were restrained by daily reports of the situation at Washington. Only my opinion that there was some ground for hope could be forwarded. Conversations at dinner tables or in private interviews with the Executive and his advisers could not, then or since, be repeated; and this of necessity gave room for misconstruction, as will appear. At length, on the day before the Congress was by law to adjourn, the President sent a message to the Senate, informing that body that, in the event the Congress failed to take action on the Louisiana matter, he should esteem it his duty to uphold the Government created by the Federal Judge. I left Washington at once, and did not revisit it for nearly four years.
I believe that President Grant was sincere with me, and went as far as he felt it safe. No doubt the Senatorial hyenas brought him to understand these unspoken words: "We have supported your acts, confirmed your appointments, protected and whitewashed your friends; but there are bones which we can not give up without showing our teeth, and Louisiana is one of them."
The failure to obtain relief for the State of my birth, and whose soil covered the remains of all most dear, was sad enough, and the attempt had involved much unpleasant work; but I had my reward. Downfall of hope, long sustained, was bitter to the people, especially to the leaders expectant of office; and I became an object of distrust. "Nothing succeeds like success," and nothing fails like failure, and the world is quite right to denounce it. The British Ministry shot an admiral for failing to relieve Minorca—to encourage others, as Voltaire remarked. Byng died silent, without plaint, which was best. The drunken Federal Judge, author of the outrages, was universally condemned, with one exception, of which more anon. Both branches of the Congress, controlled by Radicals, pronounced his conduct to have been illegal and unjust, and he was driven from the bench with articles of impeachment hanging over him. Nevertheless, the Government evolved from his unjudicial consciousness was upheld by President Grant with Federal bayonets.
Two years later the people of Louisiana elected an Assembly, a majority of whose members were opposed to the fraudulent Governor, Kellogg. The President sent United States soldiers into the halls of the Assembly to expel members at the point of the bayonet. Lieutenant-General Sheridan, the military maid of all (such) work, came especially to superintend this business, and it was now that he expressed the desire to exterminate "banditti." The destruction of buildings and food in the Valley of Virginia, to the confusion of the crows, was his Salamanca; but this was his Waterloo, and great was the fame of the Lieutenant-General of the Radicals.
ThisGovernorKellogg is the Senator recently seated, of whom mention has been made, and, if a lesser quantity than zero be conceivable, with a worse title to the office than he had to that of Governor of Louisiana. So far as known, he is a commonplace rogue; but his party has always rallied to his support, as the "Tenth Legion" to its eagles. Indeed, it is difficult to understand the qualities or objects that enlist the devotion and compel the worship of humanity. Travelers in the Orient tell of majestic fanes, whose mighty walls and countless columns are rich with elaborate carvings. Hall succeeds hall, each more beautifully wrought than the other, until the innermost, the holy of holies, is reached, and there is found enshrined—a shriveled ape.
The sole exception referred to in the case of the drunken Federal Judge was a lawyer of small repute, who had been Democratic in his political tendencies. Languishing in obscurity, he saw and seized his opportunity, and rushed into print in defense of the Judge and in commendation of the President for upholding such judicial action. It is of record that this lawyer, in the society of some men of letters, declared Dante to be the author of the Decameron; but one may be ignorant of the Italian poets and thoroughly read in French memoirs. During the war of the Spanish succession, the Duke of Vendôme, filthiest of generals, not excepting Suvaroff, commanded the French army in Italy. To negotiate protection for their States, the Italian princes sent agents to Vendôme; but the agents sent by the Duke of Parma were so insulted by the bestialities of the French commander as to go back to their master without negotiating, and no decent man would consent to return. A starving little abbé volunteered for the service, and, possessing a special aptitude for baseness, succeeded in his mission. Thus Alberoni, afterward Cardinal and Prime Minister of Spain, got his foot on the first rung of the ladder of fame. The details of the story are too gross to repeat, and the Memoirs of the Duke of St. Simon must be consulted for them; but ourlawyer assuredly had read them. Many may imitate Homer, however feebly; one genius originated his epics.
Having entered on this lofty career, our Alberoni stuck to it with the tenacity of a ferret in pursuit of rabbits, and was rewarded, though not at the time nor to the extent he had reason to expect. The mission to England was promised him by the reigning powers, when, on the very eve of securing his prize, a stick was put in the wheels of his progress, and by a brother's hand. Another legal personage, practicing at the same bar, that of New York, and a friend, did the deed. "Chloe was false, Chloe was common, but constant while possessed"; but here Chloe was without the last quality. In 1868, General Grant's election pending, Chloe was affiliated with the Democratic party, and had been chosen one of the captains of its citadel, a sachem of Tammany. Scenting success for Grant, with the keenness of the vulture for his prey, he attended a Radical meeting and announced his intention to give twenty thousand dollars to the Radical election fund. This sum appears to have been the market value of a seat in the Cabinet, to which ultimately he was called. When the English mission became vacant by the resignation of the incumbent, disgusted by British ingratitude, Chloe quitted the Cabinet to take it, and Alberoni was left wearing weeds. Yet much allowance is due to family affection, the foundation of social organization. Descended from a noble stock, though under a somewhat different name, Chloe from mystic sources learned that his English relatives pined for his society, and devotion to family ties tempted him to betray his friend. Subsequently Alberoni was appointed to a more northern country, where he may find congenial society; for, in a despotism tempered only by assassination, the knees of all become pliant before power.
It is pleasant to mark the early steps of nascent ambition. In the time of the great Napoleon every conscript carried the baton of a marshal in his knapsack; and in our happy land every rogue may be said to have an appointment to office in his pocket. This is also pleasant.
Since the spring of 1873, when he gave himself up to theworst elements of his party, I have not seen President Grant; but his career suggests some curious reflections to one who has known him for thirty-odd years. What the waiting-woman promised in jest, Dame Fortune has seriously bestowed on this Malvolio, and his political cross-garterings not only find favor with the Radical Olivia, but are admired by the Sir Tobys of the European world. Indeed, Fortune has conceits as quaint as those of Haroun al-Raschid. The beggar, from profound sleep, awoke in the Caliph's bed. Amazed and frightened by his surroundings, he slowly gained composure as courtier after courtier entered, bowing low, to proclaim him King of kings, Light of the World, Commander of the Faithful; and he speedily came to believe that the present had always existed, while the real past was an idle dream. Of a nature kindly and modest, President Grant was assured by all about him that he was the delight of the Radicals, greatest captain of the age, and saviour of the nation's life. It was inevitable that he should begin by believing some of this, and end by believing it all. Though he had wasted but little time on books since leaving West Point, where in his day the curriculum was limited, he had found out to the last shilling the various sums voted by Parliament to the Duke of Wellington, and spoke of them in a manner indicating his opinion that he was another example of the ingratitude of republics. The gentle temper and sense of justice of Othello resisted the insidious wiles of Iago; but ignorance and inexperience yielded in the end to malignity and craft. President Grant was brought not only to smother the Desdemona of his early preferences and intentions, but to feel no remorse for the deed, and take to his bosom the harridan of radicalism. As Phalaris did those of Agrigentum opposed to his rule, he finished by hating Southerners and Democrats.
During the struggle for the Presidency in the autumn of 1876, he permitted a member of his Cabinet, the Secretary of the Interior, to become the manager of the Radicals and use all the power of his office, established for the public service, to promote the success of his party's candidate.
Monsieur Fourtou, Minister of the Interior, removed prefects and mayors to strengthen the power of De Broglie; whereupon all the newspapers in our land published long essays to show and lament the ignorance of the French and their want of experience in republican methods. One might suppose these articles to have been written by the "seven sleepers," so forgetful were they of yesterday's occurrences at home; but beams near at hand are ever blinked in our search of distant motes. The election over, but the result in dispute, President Grant, in Philadelphia, alarmed thoughtful people by declaring that "no man could take the great office of President upon whose title thereto the faintest shadow of doubt rested," and then, with all the power of the Government, successfully led the search for this non-existing person. To insure fairness in the count, so that none could carp, he requested eminent statesmen to visit South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana, the electoral votes of which were claimed by both parties; but the statesmen were, without exception, the bitterest and most unscrupulous partisans, personally interested in securing victory for their candidate, and have since received their hire. Soldiers were quartered in the capitals of the three States to aid the equitable statesmen in reaching a correct result by applying the bayonet if the figures proved refractory. With equity and force at work, the country might confidently expect justice; and justice was done—that justice ever accorded by unscrupulous power to weakness.
But one House of the Congress was controlled by the Democrats, and these, Herod-like, were seeking to slay the child, the Nation. To guard against this, President Grant ordered other troops to Washington and a ship of war to be anchored in the Potomac, and the child was preserved. Again, the 4th of March, appointed by law for the installation of Presidents, fell on Sunday. President Grant is of Scotch descent, and doubtless learned in the traditions of the land o' cakes. The example of Kirkpatrick at Dumfries taught him that it was wise to "mak sicker"; so the incoming man and the Chief Justice were smuggled into the White House on the sabbath day, and the oath of office was administered. If the chair of George Washington was to be filched, it were best done under cover. The value of the loot inspired caution.
In Paris, at a banquet, Maître Gambetta recently toasted our ex-President "as the great commander who had sacredly obeyed and preserved his country's laws." Whether this was said in irony or ignorance, had General Grant taken with him to Paris his late Secretary of the Interior, the accomplished Z. Chandler, the pair might have furnished suggestions to Marshal MacMahon and Fourtou that would have changed the dulcet strains of Maître Gambetta into dismal howls.
CONCLUSION.
Dismissing hope of making my small voice heard in mitigation of the woes of my State, in May, 1873, I went to Europe and remained many months. Returned to New York, I found that the characters on the wall, so long invisible, had blazed forth, and the vast factitious wealth, like the gold of the dervish, withered and faded in a night. The scenes depicted of Paris and London, after the collapse of Mississippi schemes and South Sea bubbles, were here repeated on a greater scale and in more aggravated form. To most, the loss of wealth was loss of ancestry, repute, respectability, decency, recognition of their fellows—all. Small wonder that their withers were fearfully wrung, and their wails piteous. Enterprise and prosperity were frozen as in a sea of everlasting ice, and guardians of trusts, like Ugolino, plunged their robber fangs into the scalps and entrails of the property confided to them.
A public journal has recently published a detailed list, showing that there has been plundered by fiduciaries since 1873 the amazing amount of thirty millions of money; and the work goes on. Scarce a newspaper is printed in whose columns may not be found some fresh instance of breach of trust. As poisoning in the time of Brinvilliers, stealing is epidemic, and the watch-dogs of the flocks are transformed into wolves.
Since the tocsin sounded we have gone from bad to worse. During the past summer (1877) laborers, striking for increased wages or to resist diminution thereof, seized and held for many days the railway lines between East and West, stopping all traffic. Aided by mobs, they took possession of great towns anddestroyed vast property. At Pittsburgh, in Pennsylvania, State troops attempting to restore order were attacked and driven off. Police and State authorities in most cases proved impotent, and the arm of Federal power was invoked to stay the evil.
Thousands of the people are without employment, which they seek in vain; and from our cities issue heartrending appeals in behalf of the suffering poor. From the Atlantic as far to the west as the young State of Nebraska, there has fallen upon the land a calamity like that afflicting Germany after the Thirty Years' War. Hordes of idle, vicious tramps penetrate rural districts in all directions, rendering property and even life unsafe; and no remedy for this new disease has been discovered. Let us remember that these things are occurring in a country of millions upon millions of acres of vacant lands, to be had almost for the asking, and where, even in the parts first colonized, density of population bears but a small relation to that of western Europe. Yet we daily assure ourselves and the world that we have the best government under the canopy of heaven, and the happiest land, hope and refuge of humanity.
Purified by fire and sword, the South has escaped many of these evils; but her enemies have sown the seeds of a pestilence more deadly than that rising from Pontine marshes. Now that Federal bayonets have been turned from her bosom, this poison, the influence of three fourths of a million of negro voters, will speedily ascend and sap her vigor and intelligence. Greed of office, curse of democracies, will impel demagogues to grovel deeper and deeper in the mire in pursuit of ignorant votes. Her old breed of statesmen has largely passed away during and since the civil war, and the few survivors are naturally distrusted, as responsible for past errors. Numbers of her gentry fell in battle, and the men now on the stage were youths at the outbreak of strife, which arrested their education. This last is also measurably true of the North. Throughout the land the experience of the active portion of the present generation only comprises conditions of discord and violence. The story of the six centuries of sturdy effort by which our English forefathers wrought out their liberties is unknown, certainly unappreciated.Even the struggles of our grandfathers are forgotten, and the names of Washington, Adams, Hamilton, Jay, Marshall, Madison, and Story awaken no fresher memories in our minds, no deeper emotions in our hearts, than do those of Solon, Leonidas, and Pericles. But respect for the memories and deeds of our ancestors is security for the present, seed-corn for the future; and, in the language of Burke, "Those will not look forward to their posterity who never look backward to their ancestors."
Traditions are mighty influences in restraining peoples. The light that reaches us from above takes countless ages to traverse the awful chasm separating us from its parent star; yet it comes straight and true to our eyes, because each tender wavelet is linked to the other, receiving and transmitting the luminous ray. Once break the continuity of the stream, and men will deny its heavenly origin, and seek its source in the feeble glimmer of earthly corruption.