The President then nominated Caleb Cushing, who was more objectionable to the Court than Mr. Williams had been. TheChronicleboiled with rage, and other journals admitted that even if Mr. Cushing had caught the spirit of the age and taken a long stride out of his old errors of opinion, he was not a man to be placed on the bench of the Supreme Court, when full civil rights had not been accorded to the negro and many important questions connected with the war had not been settled. On the other hand, Senators Sumner and Boutwell, of Massachusetts, vouched for Mr. Cushing's Republican record, and his loyalty and soundness on the measures of the war and reconstruction. He would have been confirmed beyond doubt had it not been for a letter written by him at the breaking out of the Rebellion, to Jefferson Davis, commending a clerk in the Attorney- General's office, who considered it his duty to join his relatives at the South, for a position in the Confederate civil service. The publication of this letter, which really contained nothing objectionable beyond the fact that Mr. Cushing had recommended a faithful clerk to an old personal friend as an honest and industrious man, was made the most of. It was published by Colonel Corkhill in large type with flaming headlines, as evidence of a secret understanding between Mr. Cushing and the leader of the Rebellion. Senator Sargent, who was hostile to Mr. Cushing, his townsman, read this letter in a Republican caucus, and it fell upon the Senators assembled like a heavy clap of thunder, while Senator Brownlow (more extensively known as Parson Brownlow) keenly said that he thought the caucus had better adjourn, convene the Senate in open session, and remove Mr. Cushing's political disabilities. Mr. Cushing, learning what had transpired, immediately wrote a letter to the President requesting him to withdraw his nomination. In this letter he reviewed his acts since the commencement of the war and declared, in conclusion, that whatever might have been said, either honestly or maliciously, to his prejudice, it was his right to reaffirm that he had "never done an act, uttered a word, or conceived a thought of disloyalty to the Constitution or the Union." The President next nominated Morrison R. Waite, of Ohio, who had been connected with the Alabama Claims Conference at Geneva, and who was a men of eminent legal abilities, conscientious, and of great purity of character. No objection could be offered to the confirmation of his nomination, and it was unanimously made.
Mr. Edwin M. Stanton had previously been appointed a Justice of the Supreme Court through the exertions of Senator Wade, of Ohio. "The War Secretary" had left the department over which he had energetically presided, and was suffering from heart disease. He deemed himself a neglected man and rapidly sunk into a listless condition, with no action in it, but with occasional spells of energetic sickness. Mr. Wade came on from Ohio about this time, and went to see his friend. Just then there was considerable talk that Associate Justice Grier was about to retire from the Supreme Court. Mr. Wade deemed his friend neglected, and also thought it unintentional on the part of the President. It conversation he drew from Mr. Stanton the admission that he would like to be appointed to the Supreme Bench. Just before leaving Wade said he meant to ask Grant for the position, in the event of Grier's retirement. Mr. Stanton forbade the action, but Wade declined to be as modest as was the organizer of victorious armies and their administration. He went direct to the White House, and at the door found the President going for a drive in his phaeton. He was invited to go along, and at once availed himself of the opportunity. During the ride he spoke about Mr. Stanton. The President listened carefully and said he had promised to consider Mr. Strong's name, and had supposed Mr. Stanton would not take the position even if offered to him. Mr. Wade gave the conversation he had had with Mr. Stanton. There the matter ended. Mr. Wade went home. Mr. Stanton remained quietly at his home.
Finally Judge Grier resigned, and, to the surprise of most persons, Edwin M. Stanton was tendered and accepted the position. He qualified by taking the oath of office, but never sat in that high tribunal to try a case. One cannot help wondering what might have resulted from his presence there. But he never had the opportunity of proving that the man who was so fierce and implacable as a War Minister could have been as calm and judicially impartial on the bench as Story himself. There are many at Washington who believe that Mr. Stanton committed suicide by cutting his throat with a razor. Caleb Cushing was positive that he did, and investigated the matter so far as he could, but Hon. E. D. McPherson, of Pennsylvania, for years the efficient clerk of the House of Representatives, procured from the attendant physician a statement that it was not so, but that Mr. Stanton died a natural death.
The marriage of General Grant's only and much-loved daughter, Ellen Wrenshall Grant, to Algernon Charles Frederic Sartoris, at the White House, on the 21st of May, 1874, was a social event in Washington. It was no secret that General Grant had not approved of the engagement between his daughter, not then nineteen years of age, and the young Englishman who had enlisted her affection on the steamer while she was returning from abroad. But when the fond father found that her heart was set on the match he yielded, although it was a hard struggle to have her leave home and go abroad among strangers. The ceremony was performed in the East Room by the Rev. Dr. O. H. Tiffany. There were eight bridesmaids, and Colonel Fred Grant was the bridegroom's best man.
The bride wore a white satin dress, trimmed with point lace, a bridal veil which completely enveloped her, with a wreath of white flowers and green leaves interspersed with orange blossoms. The eight bridesmaids wore dresses of white corded silk, alike in every particular, with overdresses of white illusion, sashes of white silk arranged in a succession of loops from the waist downward, forming graceful drapery. Mrs. Grant, who was in mourning, wore a mauve-colored silk dress, trimmed with a deeper shade of the same, with ruffles and puffs of black illusion, lavender-colored ribbon, and bunches of pansies. The banquet was served in the state dining-room, with the bride's cake in the centre of the elaborately decorated table.
[Facsimile] M. R. Waite Chief Justice MORRISON REMICH WAITE was born at Lynn, Connecticut, December 29th, 1816; was graduated at Yale College when twenty-two years of age; studied law; went to Ohio in 1838, and was there admitted to the bar in 1839; settled at Toledo; was a member of the State Legislature in 1843; was defeated as a Republican candidate for Congress in 1862; was counsel for the United States before the Geneva Award Commission in 1871, and was presiding over the State Constitutional Convention of Ohio when he was appointed Chief Justice of the United States, in January, 1874.
The Democrats, having secured possession of the House of Representatives, organized upward of fifty committees of investigation, which cast their drag-nets over every branch of the administration, hoping to find some evidence of corruption in which the President had shared; but he most searching investigation failed to connect the name or fame of General Grant with any of this traditional "picking and stealing." Witnesses were summoned by the score, reams of paper were covered with short-hand notes of testimony, and some of the committees traveled far and wide in search of the evidence they desired. They found nothing, but they reminded Massachusetts men of old Captain Starbuck, of Nantucket, a philosophical old sea-dog, who never permitted bad luck to dampen his faith or his good spirits. Returning home from a three years' whaling voyage, with an empty hold, he was boarded by the pilot, an old acquaintance, who asked:
"Waal, Cap'n Starbuck, how many bar'ls? Had a good v'yage?"
"Not 'zackly," responded the Captain, "I haint got a bar'l of ile aboard, but I'll tell ye, I've had a mighty good sail."
Just as they were about to give up in despair, a jealous woman revealed the fact that Caleb P. Marsh, of New York, had received the appointment of post-trader at Fort Sill through the endeavors of his wife with the wife of the Secretary of War, General Belknap. Marsh made a contract with the trader already there, permitting him to continue, in consideration of twelve thousand dollars of the annual profits, divided in quarterly installments. The money thus received was divided with the Secretary of War for two years by remittances to Mrs. Belknap, but subsequently a reduced amount of six thousand dollars a year, agreed on with the post-trader, was similarly divided by remittances direct to the Secretary.
When General Belknap was transplanted from a revenue collector's office in Iowa to the Department of War, he brought his wife with him to Washington, and they occupied the house just before vacated by Secretary Seward. Other Cabinet officers gave parties, and so did the Belknaps, but they had been too liberal with their invitations, especially to the young officers just fresh from army life, and there was a great deal of disorder, with accompanying damage to curtains, carpets, and furnishings. The result was that the Belknaps were either obliged to retire from society and inhabit a cheap boarding-house, or replenish the family coffers. Alas! the tempting Marsh appeared on the stage, and the temptation could not be resisted. Mrs. Belknap died not long afterward, but her sister, the widow of Colonel Bowers, of the Confederate service, inherited her "spoils of war," was a mother to her child, and in due time became the wife of her husband.
In the interval of time required by decorum Mrs. Bowers traveled in Europe, accompanied by Mrs. Marsh and escorted by George H. Pendleton, of Ohio. Returning home, Mrs. Bowers was married to General Belknap on the 11th of December, 1875, Mr. Pendleton giving the bride away. A handsomer or an apparently happier couple never came to Washington in their honeymoon, and they were at once recognized among the leaders of society. Her dresses and jewels were among the favorite themes of the industrious lady journalists who get up marvelous accounts of Washington entertainment, and they were worthy of comment. I well remember having seen her one night wearing one of Worth's dresses, of alternate stripes of white satin embroidered with ivy leaves, and green satin embroidered with golden ears of wheat, with a sweeping train of green satin bordered with a heavy embroidered garland of ivy and wheat. A cluster of these in gold and emerald was in her black hair, and she wore a full set of large emeralds, set in Etruscan gold. The costume was faultless, and fitted to adorn the queenlike woman.
No one who had seen Mrs. Belknap wondered at the fascination she exercised over her husband, or thought it strange that he who seemed so sternly scrupulous about the expenditure of public money, should have sacrificed his reputation that she might be known as the best- dressed woman in Washington society. Perhaps, too, it was remembered that he had brought from the camp one of its legacies. Few post commanders refused the original delicacies for the mess-table at head-quarters from the post sutler who desired to keep on the right side of those in authority. Why, then, could not the Secretary of War permit his wife to receive adouceurfrom one of those cormorants, who always grow rich, and who may without harm be made to lay down a fraction of their extortionate gains?
Mrs. Lincoln, it was well known, had accepted a shawl worth one thousand dollars from A. T. Stewart when he was supplying large amounts of clothing and blankets to the arms, and she had also been liberally remembered by those who had sold a steamer at an exorbitant price to the Government. General Grant had been the recipient of many presents, and the epoch had been styled by Charles Sumner one of "gift enterprises."
General Belknap had promptly resigned, but it became politically necessary that he should be impeached. He had as his counsel three able lawyers whose personal appearance was very dissimilar. Ex- Senator Carpenter, who was leading counsel, was a man of very elegant presence, though his short neck and high shoulders made it impossible for him to be classed as a handsome man. His fine head, with abundant iron-gray hair, tossed carelessly back from his forehead, his keen eyes and expressive mouth, shaded by a black moustache, made up a very noticeable portrait, and his voice was so musical and penetrating that it lent a charm to the merest trifle that he uttered. Judge Jeremiah S. Black was a tall, broad-shouldered man, with a clean-shaven, rugged face, a bright-brown wig, and a sharp pair of eyes that flashed from under snow-white brows, which made the brown wig seem still more brown. He chewed tobacco constantly, and the restless motion of his jaws, combined with the equally restless motion of his eyes made his a remarkable countenance. Montgomery Blair was a plain-looking man, as "lean as a racer," and evidently as eager for the work before him, though his manner was very quiet, and his bearing had none of the keen intentness that characterized his associates. The trio carried General Belknap safely through his troubles. The evidence was very remarkable and gave a curious picture of "Vanity Fair." The bargain made by Marsh with the first wife; the huckstering and business matters growing out of it, talked about and discussed over her coffin; the marriage of the Secretary soon after with the sister of the then dead wife; the frequent and enormous sums paid by Marsh to him; the ominous hints whispered about the mysterious interviews at the Arlington; the hurried exposure; the frantic efforts to avoid it; the malignant gratification shown by the Marshses, "we built the foundation on which they grew; we'll hurl them from it into a quicksand from which they will never emerge;" the admissions of guilt made by the unhappy Secretary at a moment when, as it had been suggested, he was contemplating suicide; the imprisonment in his own house; their style of living; the fact of their appearance at a large dinner- party at the Freeman Mansion, adjoining the Arlington, where, the very day after the testimony of the Marshes had been taken, their haggard looks and nervous manner excited general comment, which was not entirely silenced by their early departure on the plea of indisposition; the first effort of manliness on the part of the fallen Secretary, begging that the women might be spared, and he alone be allowed to assume the responsibility; his appearance one day at a Cabinet meeting and the next day held as a prisoner in the dock of the police court, waiting for five long hours the appearance of friends to bail him out;—all these presented elements of such a character as to give the case a singular and sad peculiarity which we look for in vain in that of any other known to our records of criminal jurisprudence. Nor was all this palliated in any way by the conduct and manner of the alleged criminal. He saw the point and smiled sympathetically at every effort of his counsel to be witty and amusing, while another party at home claimed sympathy from her friends by the strange announcement that "it was such a shame that the politicians should be allowed to prosecute such a man as General B. in such a manner; the President ought to interfere and prevent it."
The "Whisky Ring" was the creation of Cornelius Wendell and other noted Washington lobbyists. It became necessary to raise money at the time of the impeachment of Andrew Johnson, and the revenue officers, having been called on to contribute, conceived the idea of making the distillers pay a percentage on their ill-gotten gains. Secretary Bristow's efforts to break up these fraudulent and unlawful transactions showed the immensity of the combination of capital and ingenuity employed in cheating the Government. The weekly payments to the Ring amounted to millions, and for some years some of the participants pocketed four or five hundred dollars a week as their share.
Senator Henderson, of Missouri, who had become provoked against President Grant, having been retained as counsel for the prosecution of some of the Missouri distillers, reported that General O. E. Babcock, who had served on General Grant's staff during the closing years of the war, and had since been one of the private secretaries at the White House, was deeply implicated. The result was that General Babcock was tried before the United States Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. The trial showed that General Babcock had had more intimate relations with the Whisky Ring in St. Louis than any political necessity could justify, and the correspondence revealed an almost culpable indiscretion in one occupying a high position near the President. The trial occupied fourteen days. No portion of the evidence was kept back from the jury, and the verdict of "not guilty" under such circumstances was as complete an exoneration from the charge of conspiring to defraud the Government as the most ardent friends of General Babcock could have desired.
[Facsimile]Matt H.CarpenterMATTHEW H. CARPENTER was born at Moretown, Vermont, in 1824; wasat the Military Academy, at West Point, 1843-1845; studied law withRufus Choate; was admitted to the bar, and commenced practice atMilwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1848; was a United States Senator fromWisconsin, March 4th, 1869 - March 3d, 1875, and again March 18th,1879, until his death at Washington City, February 24th, 1881.
The Centennial year of the Republic was ushered in at Washington with unusual rejoicings, although the weather was damp and foggy. There were nocturnal services in several of the Episcopal churches and watch meetings at the Methodist churches. Several of the temperance organizations continued in session until after midnight, and there was much social visiting. Just before twelve o'clock, the chime of bells of the Metropolitan Methodist church played "Pleyel's Hymn." The fire-alarm bells then stuck 1-7-7-6 a few moments later, and as the Observatory clock sounded the hour of twelve, the fire-alarm bells struck 1-8-7-6; at the same moment the brilliant light in the tholus which surmounts the dome of the Capitol was lighted by electricity, casting its beams over the entire metropolis. A battery of light artillery, stationed on the Armory lot, thundered forth a national salute of thirty-seven guns. The Metropolitan bells chimed a national centennial march, introducing the favorite tunes of this and other nations, and there was general ringing of bells, large and small, with firing of pistols and blowing of horns. There were similar demonstrations at Alexandria and at Georgetown, and the ceremonies at the White House were in accordance with time-honored usage.
The first entertainment ever given in Washington to an Emperor and Empress was at the British Legation, early in June, 1876, when Sir Edward and Lady Thornton entertained Dom Pedro and Donna Teresa, of Brazil. The spacious hall, the grand staircase, and the drawing- rooms of the Legation were profusely ornamented with flowers, a life-sized portrait of Victoria I, Empress of India and Queen of England, which faced the staircase, apparently welcoming the guests. Many of those invited had been on an excursion to Mount Vernon and did not arrive until eleven o'clock.
The ladies' dresses were very elaborate. The Empress wore a vert d'eau silk trained skirt and basque high at the back and cut V- shape in front, the sleeves long; the rarest point lace nearly covered both skirt and basque, set on in successive rows, headed with plaits of the material; a broad black velvet ribbon, from which depended a pendant thickly studded with large diamonds, encircled her throat. She wore large diamond ear-rings, and her light-brown hair was combed down on her face, parted through the middle, and covering her ears, a Grecian knot confining her hair at the back of her head.
Lady Thornton wore a white satin trained skirt and basque, trimmed with puffings of tulle, held in place by bands and bows of the darkest shade of ruby velvet, interspersed with fine white flowers. The Misses Thornton wore charming gowns of Paris muslin and Valenciennes lace, relieved with bows of pink gros grain ribbons. Mme. Borges, the wife of the Brazilian Minister, wore a mauve silk gown, trimmed with lace, and very large diamonds. Countess Hayas, the wife of the Austrian Minister, wore Paris muslin and Valenciennes lace over pale blue silk, which was very becoming to her blonde complexion and youthful face and form, and a profusion of diamonds. The lately arrived Minister from Sweden, Count Lewenhaupt, was present with his wife, whose dress of the thickest, most lustrous satin of a peach-blossom tint, covered with deep falls of point lace, was very elegant. Mrs. Franklin Kinney wore a rich mauve satin beneath point applique lace. Mme. Berghmann wore black silk, embroidered in wreaths of invisible purple, and trimmed with Brussels lace. Mrs. Field wore a very becoming vert d'eau silk, handsomely made and trimmed. Mrs. Willis, the wife of the New York Representative, wore white muslin and Valenciennes lace. Her sister, Mrs. Godfrey, wore a similar toilet, and the two ladies attracted universal attention by their beauty and grace. Mrs. Sharpe was very becomingly dressed in white muslin, trimmed with Valenciennes lace and worn over a colored silk. Miss Dodge (Gail Hamilton), over ivory-tinted silk wore the same tint of damasquine.
Supper was served at midnight, and afterward many of the guests were presented to Dom Pedro and Donna Teresa in an informal manner, for the Emperor was, according to his usual custom, wandering about talking to whom he pleased, and the Empress, not being very strong, sat upon a sofa and talked pleasantly with all who were introduced to her.
The Imperial party had rooms at the Arlington Hotel, and the Emperor proved himself to be an indefatigable sight-seer, keeping on the move from morning until night. He would not permit his dinner to be served in courses, but had everything put on the table at the same time, as he could devote only thirty minutes to his repast.
The proceedings of the National Republican Convention, at Cincinnati, had naturally been regarded with deep interest at Washington, and the excitement was intense when, on the Sunday prior to the meeting, it was announced that Mr. Blaine had been stricken by illness on his way to church. He became unconscious, and on being carried home was for some hours in an apparently critical condition, at times hardly able to breathe and unable to take the restoratives administered by his physicians. His condition was pronounced one of simple cerebral depression, produced primarily by great mental strain, and, secondarily, by the action of excessive heat. There was no apoplectic congestion or effusion, nor any symptoms of paralysis.
The news of Mr. Blaine's illness was telegraphed to Cincinnati, and undoubtedly had an unfavorable effect upon the Convention. Mr. Blaine, nevertheless, had gradually gained votes, until on the second day of the Convention he was within a few votes of the coveted prize. The shadows were settling down on the excited crowd, the tellers found it getting too dark to do their work, and gas was demanded. The Blaine men, in an ungovernable frenzy, were determined to resist every effort at adjournment, while the combined opposition were equally bent on postponement in order to kill off Blaine. Then it was that a well-known citizen of Cincinnati sprang to the platform, waved his hat at the Chairman, and during a moment's lull in the fearful suspense made the crushing statement that the building was not supplied with gas. Candles were asked for, but the anti-Blainites had received their cue, and before the Blaine lines could be reformed they carried an adjournment by stampede. Political lies in this country are presumably white lies, but they are seldom followed with such tremendous results. Delay enabled the opposition to mass its forces against the favorite, and Hayes, instead of Blaine, passed the next four years in the White House. Nothing could have been more certain in this world than the nomination of Blaine on that eventful evening, if the same gas which burned brightly enough twenty-four hours later for a Hayes' jubilee meeting had not been choked off at a more critical time.
Washington was wild with excitement immediately after the Presidential election. The returns received late on Tuesday night indicated the election of Mr. Tilden, and even the Republican newspapers announced on the following morning the result as doubtful. Senator Chandler, who was at New York, was the only confident Republican, and he telegraphed to the Capitol, "Hayes has one hundred and eighty- five votes and is elected." He also telegraphed to General Grant recommending the concentration of United States troops at the Southern capitals to insure a fair count. General Grant at once ordered General Sherman to instruct the commanding generals in Louisiana and Florida to be vigilant with the forces at their command to preserve peace and good order, and to see that the proper and legal boards of canvassers were unmolested in the performance of their duties. "Should there be," said he, "any grounds of suspicion of fraudulent count on either side, it should be reported and denounced at once. No man worthy of the office of President should be willing to hold it if counted in or placed there by fraud. Either party can afford to be disappointed by the result. The country cannot afford to have the result tainted by the suspicion of illegal or false returns."
Some were disposed to wait, with as much patience and good-humor as they could command, the news from the pivotal States, while others shouted frantically about fraud. A number of leading politicians were sent by each party to the State capitals, where the National interest was concentrated, and the telegraph wires vibrated with political despatches, many of them in cipher. Senator Morrill was requested by the Rothschilds to telegraph them who was elected President at as early a time as was convenient. He replied on Wednesday that the canvass was close, with the chances in favor of Tilden; but on Friday he telegraphed again that Hayes was probably elected.
The political telegrams sent over the Western Union wires during the Tilden-Hayes campaign were subsequently surrendered by President Orton, of that company, to the Senate Committee on Privileges and Elections. It was asserted that those likely to prove prejudicial to Republicans were destroyed, and those damaging to Democrats were clandestinely conveyed to a New York paper for publication. These political telegrams showed that the intimate friends of Mr. Tilden were guilty of an attempt to secure the Presidential elections in several States by the use of money. The translation of these cryptogramic messages by a working journalist, and their publication in the New YorkTribune, was a great success, as it made clear what had previously been unintelligible. When a Committee of the House of Representatives undertook to investigate these cipher telegrams, the principal witness was Colonel Pelton, the nephew and private secretary of Mr. Tilden. His testimony was given in an apparently frank and straightforward manner, though he occasionally seemed perplexed, pondered, and hesitated. He had a loud, hard, and rather grating voice, and delivered his answers with a quick, jerky, nervous utterance, which often jumbled his words so as to render them partially inaudible. Colonel Pelton's tone in reply to the questions propounded to him during the examination-in-chief was loud and emphatic, as though he wanted all the world to understand that he was perfectly ready to answer every question put by the Committee. He sat easily, either throwing one leg over the other, facing the Chairman, or picking his teeth, or blinking his eyes hard, which was one of his peculiar habits, as he kept examining the photo-lithographed copies of the cipher telegrams and theTribunecompilation before him. Sometimes Colonel Pelton's blunt confessions were of such astounding frankness as to elicit an audible whisper and commotion, what the French call a "sensation," among the listeners.
Colonel Pelton's loud voice sank very low, and his easy, nonchalant attitude changed very perceptibly, when Messrs. Reed and Hiscock, the Republican members, took him in hand and subjected him to one of the most merciless cross-examinations ever heard in a committee room. The two keen cross-questioners evidently started out with the determined purpose to tear Colonel Pelton's testimony to pieces, and to literally not leave a shred behind worthy of credibility. The respective "points" scored by the Republicans and the Democratic members of the Committee elicited such loud applause on the part of the auditors as to turn for the time the cross-examination into a regular theatrical exhibition. The cipher despatches confirmed the opinion at Washington that Mr. Tilden spent a great deal of money to secure his nomination, and much more during and after the campaign.
Disappointed politicians and place-hunters among the Democrats talked wildly about inaugurating Mr. Tilden by force, while some Republicans declared that General Grant would assume to hold over until a new election could be ordered. General Grant made no secret of his conviction that Mr. Hayes had been lawfully elected, and he would undoubtedly have put down any revolutionary movement against his assuming the Chief Magistracy on the 4th of March, but there is no evidence that he intended to hold over. Neither did the Republican leaders in the Senate and House intend that he should hold over, in any contingency. There were Republican Congressmen, however, who intended to elect Senator Morton Presidentpro temporeof the Senate, and, in the event of a failure to have a formal declaration of Mr. Hayes' election in the joint Convention, to have had Senator Morton declared President of the United States.
Meanwhile, it was positively asserted, and never authoritatively denied, that a compact had been entered into between representatives of Southern Congressmen and the authorized friends of Mr. Hayes at Wormley's Hotel, in Washington, by which it was agreed that the Union troops were to be withdrawn from the South in consideration of the neutrality of the Southern vote in Congress on all questions involving the inauguration of Mr. Hayes as President of the United States.
[Facsimile] JamesGBlaine JAMES GILLESPIE BLAINE was born in Washington County, Pennsylvania, January 31st, 1830; adopted the editorial profession; was a member of the Maine Legislature, 1859-1862; was a Representative from Maine, 1863-1876; was United States Senator from Maine, 1876-1880; was Secretary of State under Presidents Garfield and Arthur, March 5th, 1881 - December 12th, 1881; was nominated for President by the Republican Convention, at Chicago, June 3d-6th, 1884, and was defeated.
The Electoral Commission was a cunningly devised plan for declaring Mr. Hayes legally elected President. In the then feverish condition of parties at the Capitol, with no previously arranged plan for adjusting controverted questions, it was evident that some plan should be devised for a peaceful solution of the difficulty. Republicans conceived the idea of an Electoral Commission, to be composed of five Senators, five Representatives, and five Associate Justices of the Supreme Court. No sooner had Mr. Tilden and his conservative friends agreed to the Commission, in which he would have had one majority, than Judge David Davis, of the Supreme Court, was elected a United States Senator. This made it necessary to select Judge Bradley as the man who was to hold the balance of power.
The debate in the Senate on the bill establishing the Electoral Commission was deeply interesting, as several of those who participated were prominent candidates for the Presidency. There was an especial desire to hear Senator Conkling, who had "sulked in his tent" since the Cincinnati Convention, and the galleries were crowded with noted men and women, diplomats, politicians, soldiers and journalists from all sections of the Republic.
Mr. Conkling took the floor late in the afternoon. Tall, well proportioned, with his vest opening down to the waist and displaying his full chest and broad shoulders to the best advantage, his hair tossed back from his massive brow with studied carelessness, his white and slender hands set off by spotless linen, he looked every inch a Senator. Before him, on the desk, were his notes, daintily inscribed on gilt-edged, cream-tinted paper; but he did not refer to them, having committed his remarks so thoroughly that many believed them to have been extemporaneous. His speech was pronounced by good judges as the greatest specimen of "the art which conceals art" that has ever been delivered in this country. With apparent candor, good nature, and disinterested statesmanship, he adroitly stated his side of the case, reviewing what had been done at previous Presidential elections, and showing that he had given the subject careful study. As dinner-time approached, Senator Edmunds stated that Mr. Conkling was not physically able to finish his speech, and moved that the Senate go into the consideration of executive business.
The next day the Senator from New York was not present, and after a recess had been taken for ten minutes, in the hope that he would arrive, Senator Sargent, of California, took the floor. Mr. Conkling finally came in, and when he began to speak, appeared to be in better health than on the day previous, and he again uttered his well-rounded sentences as if without premeditation. Once he forgot himself, when, to give additional emphasis to a remark, he advanced across the aisle toward Senator Morton. The Senator from Indiana retreating, Mr. Conkling exclaimed, in the most dramatic tone, "I see that the Senator retreats before what I say!" "Yes," replied Senator Morton, in his blunt way, "I retreated as far as I could from the false doctrine taught by the gentleman from New York." "Mr. President," said Senator Conkling, evidently disconcerted, "the honorable Senator observes that he has retreated as far as he could. That is the command laid on him by the common law. He is bound to retreat to the wall before turning and rending an adversary."
When Mr. Dawes reminded the Senator that the Commission should be made as exact as it would in the State of Massachusetts, he replied that it would not be possible. "The Queen of Sheba," said Mr. Conkling, "said that she never realized the glory of Solomon until she entered the inner Temple. The idea that the Representatives of other States could breathe the upper air, or tread the milky way, never entered into the wildest and most presumptuous flight of the imagination. Oh! no, Mr. President. Whenever the thirty- seven other States attain to the stature of the grand old Commonwealth, the time will come when no problem remains to be solved, and when even contested Presidential votes will count themselves. Then, in every sphere and orbit, everything will move harmoniously, by undeviating and automatic processes."
The debate was prolonged into the night, and it was after midnight before Senator Morton spoke, pale, trembling in every limb, and with his forehead beaded with great drops of perspiration. He spoke sitting in his chair, and for upward of an hour hurled argument after argument at the bill, evidently speaking from deep conviction.
Mr. Blaine, who had been sworn in the day previous, followed Mr. Morton, and created quite a sensation by opposing the bill. The night dragged on, and it was seven o'clock ere the final vote on the passage of the bill was reached. It was passed by a vote of forty-seven ayes against seventeen nays, ten Senators being absent at the time.
The House of Representatives, after a somewhat stormy session, which lasted seven hours, passed the Electoral Commission Bill by one hundred and ninety-one ayes against eighty-six nays. Five- sixths of those voting in favor of the bill were Democrats, and four-fifths of those voting against it were Republicans.
The Electoral Commission, which commenced its sessions on Wednesday, January 31st, was a grand legal exhibition. It occupied the Supreme Court room, which had been made historic when the Senate Chamber by the great debates in which Webster, Clay, Calhoun, and other famous statesmen had participated. The fifteen Commissioners, sitting on the lengthened bench of the Supreme Court, listened in turn to the intricate propositions of constitutional law presented by Mr. Evarts, with his acuteness and dispassionate eloquence; to the partisan harangues of Charles O'Conor, who had risen like one from the grave; to the tirades of David Dudley Field; to the ponderous yet effective reasoning of Joseph McDonald; to the ingenious reasoning of Senator Howe; to the forcible style and flippant wit of Matt. Carpenter; to the polished sentences of Mr. Stoughton; to the graceful and powerful argument of the venerable Judge Campbell, of Louisiana, who had in '61 gone South from the Bench of the Supreme Court, with a number of others.
The counting of the electoral vote on the 2d of February, 1877, attracted crowds to the House of Representatives. Even the diplomats came out in force, and for once their gallery was full. On the floor of the House were many distinguished men, including George Bancroft, Mr. Stoughton, of New York, crowned with a mass of white hair; General Sherman, William M. Evarts, Jere. Black, and Lyman Trumbull. At one o'clock the Senate came over in solemn procession, preceded by the veteran Captain Basset, who had in charge two mahogany boxes, in which were locked the votes upon which the fate of the nation depended. Next came Presidentpro tem.Ferry and Secretary Gorham, followed by the paired Senators. Roscoe Conkling, tall and distinguished in appearance, was arm in arm with Aaron Sargent, the California printer; Bruce, the colored Mississippian, was with Conover, the Florida carpet-bagger; the fair Anglo-Saxon cheeks of Jones, of Nevada, contrasted strongly with the Indian features of General Logan, and finally along came Oliver P. Morton, of Indiana.
Presidentpro tem.Ferry, in a theatrical bass voice, called the Convention to order, and, after stating what it was convened for, opened one of the boxes and handed an envelope to Senator Allison, with a duplicate to Mr. Stone. It was from the State of Alabama, and on being opened, ten votes were recorded for Samuel J. Tilden, of New York. State after State was thus counted until Florida was reached, when the majestic Dudley Field arose and objected to the counting thereof. A brief discussion ensued, and the vote of Florida was turned over to the Electoral Commission. The Senate then returned to its chamber, preceded by the locked boxes, then nearly empty.
It was asserted by those who should have known that Judge Bradley, who had been substituted for Judge Davis, came near, in the discussion on the Florida votes, turning the result in favor of Tilden. After the argument upon the Florida case before the Commission, Judge Bradley wrote out his opinion and read it to Judge Clifford and Judge Field, who were likewise members of the Commission. It contained, first, an argument, and, secondly, a conclusion. The argument was precisely the same as that which appears in the public document; but Judge Bradley's conclusion was that the votes of the Tilden electors in Florida were the only votes which ought to be counted as coming from the State. This was the character of the paper when Judge Bradley finished it and when he communicated it to his colleagues. During the whole of that night Judge Bradley's house in Washington was surrounded by the carriages of Republican visitors, who came to see him apparently about the decision of the Electoral Commission, which was to be announced next day. These visitors included leading Republicans, as well as persons deeply interested in the Texas Pacific Railroad scheme.
When the Commission assembled the next morning, and when the judgment was declared, Judge Bradley gave his voice in favor of counting the votes of the Hayes electors in Florida! The argument he did not deliver at the time; but when it came to be printed subsequently, it was found to be precisely the same as the argument which he had originally drawn up, and on which he had based his first conclusion in favor of the Tilden electors.
Disputed State after disputed State was disposed of, and Washington was stirred with feverish excitement. Every day or two some rumor was started, and those who heard it were elated or depressed, as they happened to hope. But the great mass listened with many grains of allowance, knowing how easy it is at all times for all sorts of stories, utterly without foundation, to get into the public mouth. The obstructionists found that they could not accomplish their purpose to defeat the final announcement, but their persistence was wonderful. They were desperate, reckless, and relentless. Fernando Wood headed, in opposition to them, the party of settlement and peace, his followers being composed in about equal parts of Republicans and of ex-Confederates who turned their backs on the Democratic filibusters. Finally the count was ended, and Presidentpro tem.Ferry announced one hundred and eighty-four votes for Samuel J. Tilden and one hundred and eighty-five votes for Rutherford B. Hayes.
Few personages in Washington during this period were more sought after by visitors than Francis E. Spinner, who, under Lincoln, Johnson, and Grant, held the office of Treasurer of the United States for fourteen successive years. Whether the verdant visitors supposed that his high office enabled him to distribute greenbacks at pleasure to all who came, or whether his remarkable signature, which all the land knew, made him seem a remarkable man, matters little; the fact remains that he was flooded with callers, whom he received with genial cordiality, making all feel that they too had an interest in the money makers of the land.
General Grant, having passed eight years in the army and eight more in the White House, retired to private life without regret. His form had become more rotund while he was President, his weight had increased from one hundred and fifty to one hundred and eighty-five pounds, his reddish-brown hair and beard had become speckled with gray, and he had to use eye-glasses in reading. His features had softened, perhaps, in their determined expression, but his square, massive jaws always gave him a resolute look. He loved to listen better than to talk, but when with friends he would always take part in the conversation, often spicing his sententious remarks with humorous comments. His sentences, at times epigrammatic, were those of "a plain, blunt soldier," but his vigorous economy of words lent additional force to what he said, and he would not only hold his own in a discussion with Senators learned in the law, but would convince his opponents by merely saying his say, and meaning what he said. He was never known while in Washington to tell an indelicate story or to use a profane word, although when slightly excited he would sometimes say, "Dog on it!" to give emphasis to his assertion.
General Grant's Administration was not an unalloyed success. The strength of the Republican party, which might, with a careful, economical, and strictly honest administration, have been maintained for a generation, was frittered away and its voters alienated by causes that need not be recapitulated here. The once noble party, which had its genesis twenty years previous in the great principle of the restriction of human slavery, which had gone from triumph to triumph until slavery was not only restricted but utterly destroyed, the party which had added the salvation of the Union to its fame as the emancipator of a race, had sunk under the combined effects of political money making, inflated currency, whisky rings, revenue frauds, Indian supply steals, and pension swindles. General Grant, though himself honest, appeared unable to discern dishonesty in others, and suffered for the sins of henchmen who contrived to attach to the Republican party an odium which should have attached wholly to themselves.
"It was my fortune or misfortune," said General Grant in his last and eighth annual message to Congress, "to be called to the office of the Chief Executive without any previous political training." A great and successful soldier, he knew absolutely nothing of civil government. His natural diffidence was strangely mingled with the habit of authority, and he undertook all the responsibilities of civil power without any of the training which is essential to its wise exercise, as if his glory as General would more than atone for his deficiencies as President.
[Facsimile] F. E. Spinner FRANCIS E. SPINNER was born at German Flats, New York, January 21st, 1802; was cashier of the Mohawk Valley Bank for twenty years; was a Representative in Congress from New York, December 3d, 1855 - March 3d, 1861; was appointed by President Lincoln Treasurer of the United States March 16th, 1861; was successively re-appointed by Presidents Johnson and Grant; resigned July 1st, 1875, when he retired to private life, passing his winters in Florida.
Governor Hayes, having been notified by friends at Washington that the electoral count would declare his election as President, left Columbus for the national capital on the afternoon of the first of March. Very early the next morning he was informed by a telegraph operator that the count had been peacefully completed, and that Senator Ferry, the Presidentpro tem.of the Senate, had announced that Rutherford B. Hayes had been duly elected President, and William A. Wheeler Vice-President. This announcement was Mr. Hayes' only notification.
Arriving at Washington at ten o'clock on the morning of the second of March, in a heavy rain-storm, Governor Hayes and his wife were received by Senator Sherman and his brother, General Sherman, who escorted them under umbrellas to a carriage, in which they were driven to the residence of the Senator. After having breakfasted, the President-elect, accompanied by General Sherman and ex-Governor Dennison, went to pay their respects to the President at the Executive Mansion. They were received by General Grant in his private office, and the outgoing and incoming President held a brief conversation on general topics, without, however, alluding to anything of a political character. Subsequently, the members of General Grant's Cabinet came into the room and were introduced to the President-elect. The stay at the White House occupied less than half an hour, and from there the party drove to the Capitol and were ushered into the Vice-President's room, adjoining the Senate Chamber. Here the President-elect held quite a levee, lasting nearly two hours. All of the Republican and most of the Democratic Senators paid their respects to him, those who had no previous acquaintance being introduced by ex-Governor Dennison. The presence of the new President in the Capitol soon became known in the House of Representatives, and a stampede of members followed, thronging the Senate reception room and all the surrounding lobbies. The Georgia delegation paid their respects in a body, and among the callers were many Democrats from other Southern States.
Between this time and the next afternoon there were several important political consultations on the situation, the Cabinet, and the inaugural, with much speculation as to whether Mr. Tilden would take the oath of office as President of the United States upon the following day, March 4th, which fell this year upon Sunday. It was finally decided that the oath should be administered to Governor Hayes on Saturday evening. He was one of a party which had been invited to dine at the Executive Mansion, and while the guests were assembling, Governor and Mrs. Hayes, with two or three friends, stepped into the Red Parlor with General Grant, where the Governor took the oath of office, by which he becamede jureandde factoChief Magistrate of the United States. The proceeding was temporarily kept secret, even from the other guests at the dinner.
Monday, March 5th, was a rainy and cloudy day. Despite the prolonged uncertainty as to the result of the Presidential election, and the short time given for arrangements, the city was crowded. It was estimated that thirty thousand persons left New York for Washington on Saturday and Sunday. Pennsylvania Avenue was gayly attired in waving bunting, the striking features being pyramids or arches composed of flags and streamers of variegated colors, suspended across the avenue by strong cords. The decorations were not so extensive as would have been the case had longer time been afforded for preparation.
The procession was under the direction of Major Whipple, of the army, as Chief Marshal. It was escorted by the United States troops, which had been concentrated at Washington, the Marines, the District Volunteer Militia, the Philadelphia State Fencibles, and the Columbus Cadets. Governor Hayes rode with General Grant in the latter's carriage, and they were followed by the Grand Army of the Republic, Veteran Associations from Philadelphia and Baltimore, local political associations, and the steam fire engines.
In the Senate Chamber there was the usual assemblage of dignitaries, with crowds of ladies in the galleries. Vice-President Wheeler was sworn in and delivered a brief address, after which he administered the oath to the new Senators. The customary procession was formed, and moved to the platform erected over the eastern entrance to the rotunda. Governor Hayes was greeted with loud cheers from the assembled multitude, and when silence had been restored he read his inaugural in a clear voice. When he had concluded the oath of office was formally administered to him by Chief Justice Waite, and the new President returned to the White House, amid cheers of the multitude and salutes of artillery.
At the White House Mrs. Grant had provided a handsome collation, which was enjoyed by the members of the retiring Administration and a few personal friends of the incoming official. President Hayes was warmly congratulated on having received, through the agency of the Electoral Commission, a title to office that no one would dare to dispute openly. Reckless friends of Mr. Tilden, who had hoped to plunge the country into the turmoil and uncertainty of another election, found that their chief had tamely accepted the situation, and they quietly submitted.
The selection of a Cabinet was not fully determined upon until after President Hayes had arrived in Washington. Before he came General Burnside and other Republicans who had served in the Union army urged the appointment of General Joseph E. Johnston as Secretary of War, but after much discussion the intention was reluctantly abandoned. When President Hayes had been inaugurated the names of several Southerners were presented to him, including ex-Senator Alcorn, Governor John C. Born, and General Walthall, a gallant soldier and an able lawyer. President Hayes finally decided to give the position of Postmaster-General to "Dave" Key.
Judge Key had just before served in the Senate for a year, by appointment of the Governor of Tennessee, as the successor of Andrew Johnson, and his known popularity in that body rendered it certain that his nomination would be confirmed. At the close of the war the Judge had found himself in North Carolina very poorly off for clothes, surrounded by his wife and six children, also poor in raiment, without a dollar of money that would buy a rasher of bacon or a pint of cornmeal. He had a few dollars of Confederate money, but that was not worth the paper it was printed upon. Nearly everybody about him was as poor as himself, and the suffering through the section in which he found himself was very great. He owned nothing in the world but a half-starved mule that had been his war-horse for many months. This was before the days of the Commune, and he didn't know that mule meat was good; besides, he did not want to kill his war-horse that had carried him through so many deadly breaches. Before Judge Key and his family had reached that point when prayers take the place of hunger, however, relief came. An old resident of North Carolina heard of Key's necessities, and helped him out. He gave him seed to sow, a shanty to live in, and some land to till, also a small supply of bacon and cornmeal.
The Judge then went to work. He beat his sword into a plowshare and his fiery charger into a plow-horse. He worked with his little family and lived scantily the whole summer long. There was no fancy farming about it. When the corn was sold the Judge had eighty dollars in despised Yankee greenbacks. He then applied to President Andrew Johnson, who was announcing that "treason is a crime and must be punished," for leave to return to Tennessee, and he awaited a reply with a good deal of apprehension. It came in due course of mail, a very kind, brotherly letter, inclosing a pardon. Judge Key had not asked for this, and was quite overwhelmed. It was stated in the Senate in open session on the day of his confirmation that he had voted for Tilden, but he loyally sustained the Hayes Administration.
The other members of the Cabinet were well-known Republicans. William M. Evarts, who had so successfully piloted Mr. Hayes through the Electoral Commission, was very properly made Secretary of State. Tall, without the slightest tendency toward rotundity, and with an intellectual head set firmly on his shoulders, Mr. Evarts displayed great energy of character, unswerving integrity, and devotion to his clients. Great in positive intellect, he rendered it available, as an able general manoeuvres for position and arranges strategic movements, and was ready to meet his adversaries in a rhetorical struggle with volleys of arguments framed in sentences of prodigious length.
John Sherman, the Secretary of the Treasury, was a financial tower of strength, whose honesty, patriotism, and ability had endeared him to the people, while Carl Schurz, the Secretary of the Interior, was a man of great tact, invariable good temper, and superior education, whose personal appearance was very like that of Mephistopheles, except that Schurz wore glasses.
"Uncle Dick Thompson," although he knew nothing about the navy committed to his charge, was a silver-tongued Indiana stump speaker. The gallant General Devens, of Massachusetts, was to have been Secretary of War, and ex-Representative G. W. McCrary was to have been Attorney-General. But this was not satisfactory to the agents of the New Idria Company, as Mr. McCrary had on one occasion expressed a favorable opinion on the claim of William McGarrahan to the quicksilver mine of which the New Idria had obtained possession. So a pressure was brought to bear upon the President, the result of which was the transposition of Devens and McCrary. The soldier was made Attorney-General, and the country lawyer, ignorant of military matters, was made Secretary of War.
The Cabinet met on Tuesdays and Fridays. The members dropped in one by one, but they were all on hand by "high twelve," each bringing his portfolio containing matters to be submitted. President Hayes sat at the head of the table and Secretary Schurz at the foot; on the right, next to the President, was the Secretary of State, next to him the Secretary of War, and beyond him the Postmaster-General. On the left, next to the President, was the Secretary of the Treasury, the next to him the Secretary of the Navy, and next to the Secretary of the Interior, on that side, the Attorney-General. After the Cabinet met it was ten or fifteen minutes before the members got to work. That ten minutes was taken up in greetings and off-hand talk, in which the spirit of fun and humor cropped out a good deal. When out of official harness, the members of the Cabinet were all men with a sunny, fun-loving side. Judge Key was, perhaps, the jolliest, though the Attorney-General pushed him hard for that distinction. Secretary Thompson was a proverbial lover of a pleasant joke, while Secretary Schurz was hardly equalled in telling one. Secretary McCrary was a good story-teller. Secretary Sherman did not indulge in humor often, but when he did it was, on account of its unexpected character, the more enjoyable. Secretary Evarts was a quiet humorist, and his fund of dry humor and wit was inexhaustible.
The Cabinet jokes always found their way into public circulation and provoked many hearty laughs. It was intimated that Attorney- General Devens delighted in joking the "Ancient Mariner" of the Navy Department. One day Secretary Thompson presented to the Cabinet a list of midshipmen who had passed their examinations. The Secretary called attention to them, and said he would like to have their nominations for promotion to ensigns sent to the Senate as soon as possible, "as they are worthy young men who have thoroughly earned their spurs." "Mr. Thompson," interrupted Mr. Devens, "how long since have they been wearing spurs in the navy?" After ten minutes of so of boy's play before school, the President would call the meeting to order. The Secretary of State would present his budget, and when disposed of he would be followed by the other members of the Cabinet in their order of precedence. The meetings generally occupied about two hours, and the business was conducted in a conversational way.
It was unfortunate for Mr. Hayes that he felt obliged to appoint as his private secretary Mr. Rodgers, of Minnesota. It was understood at Washington that he had been unsuccessful in several business operations, and he certainly was a failure as private secretary. Instead of smoothing down the variety of little grievances that arose between the President and the politicians, he invariably made matters worse. The consequence was that the President was often seen in an unfavorable light by Congressmen, correspondents, and others whose good opinions he merited.
[Facsimile] Sincerely R.B.Hayes RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES was born at Delaware, Ohio, October 4th, 1822; studied law, and commenced practice at Cincinnati; served in the Union Army receiving promotion from the rank of Major to that of Brigadier-General, 1862-1865; was a Representative in Congress from Ohio from December 4th, 1865, to December, 1867, when he resigned, having been elected Governor of Ohio, serving 1868-1872, and again 1876-1877; was elected President of the United States on the Republican ticket in 1876, and was inaugurated March 5th, 1877.
Rutherford B. Hayes had not entered upon his fifty-fifth year when he was inaugurated as President. He was a well-built man, of stalwart frame, with an open countenance ruddy with health, kind blue eyes, a full, sandy beard in which there were a few silver threads, a well-shaped mouth, and a smile on his lips. He had served gallantly in the army and creditably in Congress, without having contracted any bad habits or made any personal enemies. His manners were courteous; he bore himself with dignity, yet was affable to all; quick in speech, but open as the day. Politicians did not always obtain the places which they imperiously demanded for themselves or for their henchmen, and he refused to acknowledge that some who had busied themselves about the Southern electoral votes had claims on him which he was to repay by appointments to office. Impassive, non-committal, and always able to clothe his thoughts in an impenetrable garment of well-chosen words, applicants for place rarely obtained positive assurances that their prayers would be granted, but they hoped for the best, thinking that
"The King is kind, and, well we know, the KingKnowest what time to promise, when to pay."
Mrs. Hayes exercised a greater influence over public affairs than any lady had since Dolly Madison presided over the White House. Tall, robust, and with a dignified figure, the whole expression of her face, from the broad forehead, which showed below her hair, worn in the old-fashioned style, to the firm mouth and modest chin, bespoke the thoughtful, well-balanced, matronly woman. She had such a bright, animated face that nothing seemed lacking to complete the favorable impression she made upon every one who came under the influence of her radiant smile. That smile was the reflection of a sunny disposition and a nature at rest with itself. She and her husband looked like a couple who lay down at night to peaceful slumbers, undisturbed by nervous dreams of ambition, and awoke in the morning refreshed and well prepared for the duties of the new day, which never found them fretted or flurried.
Mrs. Hayes brought with her from her rural home what was known as "the Ohio idea" of total abstinence from intoxicating drinks, and she enforced it at the White House, somewhat to the annoyance of Mr. Evarts, who, as Secretary of State, refused to permit the Diplomatic Corps to be invited to their customary annual dinner unless wine could be on the table. This Mrs. Hayes refused to allow, and all of the state dinners served while she presided over the hospitalities of the White House were ostensibly strictly temperance banquets, although the steward managed to gratify those fond of something stronger than lemonade. True, no wine glasses obtruded themselves, no popping of champagne corks was heard, no odor of liquor tainted the air fragrant with the perfume of innocent, beautiful flowers. The table groaned with delicacies; there were many devices of the confectioner which called forth admiration. Many wondered why oranges seemed to be altogether preferred, and the waiters were kept busy replenishing salvers upon which the tropical fruit lay. Glances telegraphed to one another that the missing link was found, and that, concealed within the oranges, was delicious frozen punch, a large ingredient of which was strong old Santa Croix rum. Thenceforth (without the knowledge of Mrs. Hayes, of course) Roman punch was served about the middle of the state dinners, care being taken to give the glasses containing the strongest mixture to those who were longing for some potent beverage. This phase of the dinner was named by those who enjoyed it "the Life-Saving Station."
While Mrs. Grant had always denounced the White House as not suitable for a President's residence, Mrs. Hayes was charmed with it. She once took an old friend through it, showed him the rooms, and exclaimed: "No matter what they build, they will never build any more rooms like these!" She had the lumber rooms ransacked, and old china and furniture brought out and renovated, and, when it was possible, ascertained its history. Every evening after dinner she had an informal reception, friends dropping in and leaving at their will, and enjoying her pleasant conversation. Often her rich voice would be heard leading the song of praise, while the deep, clear bass notes of Vice-President Wheeler rounded up the melody. She almost always had one or two young ladies as her guests, and she carried out the official programme of receptions to the letter.
While the President was earnestly endeavoring to restore peace at the South and to reform political abuses at the North, Mrs. Hayes was none the less active in inaugurating a new social policy. One of the evils attendant upon the "gilded era" of the war and the flush times that followed was the universal desire of every one in Washington to be in "society." The maiden from New Hampshire, who counted currency in the Treasury Department for nine hundred dollars a year; the young student from Wisconsin, who received twelve hundred dollars per annum for his services as a copyist in the General Land Office; the janitor of the Circumlocution Bureau, and the energetic correspondent of theCranberry Centre Gazette, each and all thought that they should dine at the foreign legations, sup with the members of the Cabinet, and mingle in the mazes of the "German" with the families of the Senators. The discrepancy in income or education made no difference in their minds, and to admit either would be to acknowledge a social inferiority that would have been unsupportable. But while some of them, by their persistency, wriggled into "society," the stern reality remained that their compensations did not increase, because their owners sillily diminished them in what they called, maintaining their social position. "Vanity Fair" no longer existed, and the shoddy magnates no longer furnished champagne and terrapin suppers for fashionable crowds, regardless as to who composed those crowds; the strugglers for social position retired into modest quietude, and no longer aspired to be ranked among those in "society."
The people one met at the White House and in society, after the inauguration of President Hayes, were an improvement on those who had figured there since the war. One seldom saw those shoddy and veneer men and women who had neither tradition nor mental culture from which to draw the manner and habit of politeness. They lacked the sturdy self-respect of the New England mechanic, the independent dignity of the Western farmers, or the business-like ease of the New York merchants, but they evidently felt that their investments should command them respect, and they severely looked down upon "them literary fellers," and others with small bank accounts. In the place of these upstarts there were cultivated gentlemen and ladies, who could converse sensibly upon the topics of the day, and if there were neither punch-bowls nor champagne glasses on the supper-table, there were fewer aching heads the next day.
Mrs. Hayes, while blessed with worldly abundance, showed no desire to initiate the extravagances or the follies of European aristocracy. The example she set was soon followed, and her pleasant expression and manners, retaining the ready responsiveness of youth, while adding the wide sympathies of experience, won for her the respect of even those devotees of fashion who at first laughed about her plainly arranged hair and her high-neck black silk dresses. Lofty structures of paupers' hair, elaborately frizzled, were seldom seen on sensible women's heads, nor were the party dresses cut so shamefully low in the neck as to generously display robust maturity or scraggy leanness. It cannot be denied that fear of women and not love of man makes the fair sex submit to the tyranny of the fashions, and Mrs. Hayes having emancipated herself, the emancipation soon became general. While, however, "the first lady of the land" discarded the vulgar extravagances which had become common at Washington, she by no means held herself superior to the obligation of dress, and of the pleasant little artificial graces belonging to high civilization. Some of her evening dresses were elegant, the colors harmonizing, and the style picturesque and becoming. If she had the good taste not to disfigure her classically-shaped head, or to load herself with flashy jewelry, so much the better.
Prominent among the festivities at the White House during the Hayes Administration was the silver-wedding of the President and his wife, which was the first celebration of the kind that had ever occurred there. The vestibule, the halls, and the state apartments were elaborately trimmed with bunting and running vines. In the East Room, at the doors, and in the corners and alcoves tropical plants were clustered in profusion. The mantles were banked with bright-colored cut flowers, smilax was entwined in the huge glass chandeliers, and elsewhere throughout the room were stands of potted plants. Over the main entrance was the National coat-of-arms, and just opposite two immense flags, hanging from ceiling to floor, completely covered the large window. The Green, the Red, and the Blue Parlors were similarly decorated, the flowers used being chiefly azalias, hyacinths, and roses.
The members of the Cabinet and their families were the only official personages invited to this celebration, and with them were a few old friends from Ohio connected with the President's past life and pursuits. A delegation of the regiment which he commanded, the Twenty-third Ohio Volunteer Infantry, brought a beautiful silver offering. Among the President's schoolmates was Mr. Deshla, of Columbus, who said: "I knew him when we called him 'Rud,' when he was called 'Mr. Hayes,' then 'Colonel Hayes,' and 'General Hayes,' then 'Governor Hayes,' and now that he is President we are equally good friends." The guests promenaded through the parlors, and engaged in conversation, the Marine Band playing at intervals.
Precisely at nine o'clock the band struck Mendelssohn's Wedding March, and President Hayes, with his wife on his arm, came down- stairs, followed by members of the family and the special guests, two by two. The procession passed through the inner vestibule into the East Room, where the President and Mrs. Hayes stationed themselves, with their backs to the flag-draped central window, and there remained until the invited guests had paid their congratulations. Mrs. Mitchell, the daughter of the President's sister, Mrs. Platt, stood next Mrs. Hayes and clasped her hand, as she did when a little child, during the marriage ceremony twenty- five years back.
Mrs. Hayes wore a white silk dress, with draperies of white brocade, each headed with two rows of tasseled fringe, and with a full plaiting at the sides and bottom of the front breadth; the heart- shaped neck was filled in with tulle, and the half-long sleeves had a deep ruching of lace. Her hair, in plain braids, was knotted at the back and fastened with a silver comb, while long white kid gloves and white slippers completed the bridal array. On the day previous, which was the actual anniversary, Mrs. Hayes had worn her wedding dress, making no alterations save in letting out the seams. It was a flowered satin, made when ten or twelve breadths of silk were put in a skirt, and there was no semblance of a train appended thereto.
The Rev. Dr. McCabe, who had married Mr. Hayes and Miss Webb twenty- five years before, was present, with Mrs. Herron, who was at the wedding, and who was a guest at the White House. She had an infant daughter, six weeks old, with her, which was christened on the day previous Lucy Hayes. After the happy couple had been congratulated, the President and Mrs. Hayes led the way into the state dining- room, which had been elaborately decked for the occasion with cut flowers and plants. The table was adorned with pyramids of confectionery, fancy French dishes and ices in molds, the bill of fare including every delicacy in the way of eatables, but no beverage except coffee. At midnight, when the guns announced the birth of a new year, congratulations and good wishes were exchanged, and then the company dispersed.
The gossips had much to say about the petition of the venerable ex- Senator Christiancy for a divorce from a young Washington woman, who was a clerk in the Treasury Department when he married her. The irascible, jealous old man magnified trifling circumstances into startling facts, and deliberately attempted to brand his young wife with infamy. She may have been foolish, she may have said or done what was not wise, but those who knew her well asserted that she had given no cause for the terrible accusations brought against her by the man who persuaded her to become his wife, and who proved the truth of the proverb, that "There is no fool like an old fool." His resignation of his seat in the Senate to accept a diplomatic appointment, that Mr. Zach. Chandler might return to it, was said to have been anything but creditable to him, although profitable.
Washington society was also kept in hot water by the young secretaries and attaches of foreign legations, who prided themselves on their success in breaking hearts. There were two classes of these foreign lady-killers. Those of the Castilian type had closely cropped, coal-black hair, smooth faces, with the exception of a moustache, and flashing eyes that betrayed an intriguing disposition. The Saxons (including the British, the Germans, and the Russians) were tall, slender fellows, with their hair parted in the middle, soft eyes, and downy side-whiskers. Both sets were exquisitely polite, courteous in their deportment, and very deferential to those with whom they conversed. They stigmatized a residence in Washington after their sojourn at the various capitals of Europe as unendurable; they intimated that the women of America were "incomplete" and "fastidious," but their criticisms were so courteous that no one could muster heart to contradict them. Every year or two, though, some poor girl was captivated by the glitter of their small talk, and got more or less scorched before she could be extricated.
[Facsimile] W. M. Evarts WILLIAM MAXWELL EVARTS was born at Boston, February 6th, 1818; was graduated at Yale College in 1837; studied in the Harvard Law School, and was admitted to the bar in New York in 1841; was Attorney- General of the United States, July 15th, 1868 - March 3d, 1869; was counsel for President Johnson on his trial upon his impeachment in 1868; was counsel for the United States before the Alabama Claims Tribunal at Geneva, Switzerland, in 1872; was counsel for President Hayes in behalf of the Republican party before the Electoral Commission; was Secretary of State of the United States, March 12th, 1877 - March 3d, 1881; and was a United States Senator from March 4th, 1885.
Fourteen years after the surrender of Appomattox, the Republicans surrendered in the Capitol at Washington and passed into the minority. President Grant having failed in his severe Southern policy, President Hayes tried conciliation. Never did a President enter upon his duties with more sincere good-will for every section. There was displayed in every act of the incoming Administration a kindliness toward Southern men and Southern interests that almost aroused a jealousy in the North. It was not an affectation on the part of the President, but a true and honest sentiment. The good- will experiment was not quickly made. It took a long time to determine results, and even after the uncompromising spirit of the Southern Democrats had become apparent President Hayes was slow to pronounce the plan a failure. It had seemed to him the only hope of making the South peaceful and prosperous, and he had determined to give it a full trial.
It was evident that the Democrats would have in the Senate of the Forty-sixth Congress that majority that had passed from them in that body when many of its curule chairs were vacated by those who went into the Rebellion. The Democrats in the House of the Forty- fifth Congress, by refusing to make the necessary appropriation for the support of the army, rendered an extra session necessary. When Congress met, on the 18th of March, 1879, the Democrats had a majority of ten in the Senate, and over twenty in the House.