Mr. Henry M. Palmer of Wisconsin, who was chosen temporary chairman, did not delay the Convention, and the organization was speedily completed by the election of Governor Seymour as permanent president. He had filled the same position in the convention of 1864. He was destined to hold a still more important relation to the present body, but that was not yet foreseen. His admirers looked to him as a political sage, who if not less partisan than his associates was more prudent and politic in his counsels. No other leader commanded so large a share of the confidence and devotion of his party. No other equaled him in the art of giving a velvety touch to its coarsest and most dangerous blows, or of presenting the work of its adversaries in the most questionable guise. It was his habit to thread the mazes of economic and fiscal discussion, and he was never so eloquent or apparently so contented as when he was painting a vivid picture of the burdens under which he imagined the country to be suffering, or giving a fanciful sketch of what might have been if Democratic rule had continued. From the beginning of the war he had illustrated the highest accomplishments of political oratory in bewailing, like the fabled prophetess of old, the coming woes—which never came. In his address on the present occasion he arraigned the Republican party for imposing oppressive taxes, for inflicting upon the country a depreciated currency, and for enforcing a military despotism. Like all the other speakers he affected to see a serious menace in the nomination of General Grant. Referring to the Republican platform and candidate he said, "Having declared that the principles of the Declaration of Independence should be made a living reality on every inch of American soil, they put in nomination a military chieftain who stands at the head of that system of despotism which crushes beneath its feet the greatest principles of the Declaration of Independence." And with this allusion he proceeded to condemn an assumed military rule with all its asserted evils.
Extreme as was the speech of Mr. Seymour, it was moderate and conservative in spirit compared with other displays and other proceedings of the Convention. The violent elements of the Democratic party obtained complete mastery in the construction of the platform. They presented in the resolutions the usual declarations on many secondary questions, together with an elaborate and vehement arraignment of Republican rule. But the real significance of the new Democratic creed was embodied in two salient and decisive propositions. The first was the declaration "that all the obligations of the Government, not payable by their express terms in coin, ought to be paid in lawful money." This was a distinct adoption of the Greenback heresy. The movement to nominate Mr. Pendleton did not succeed in its personal object, but it did succeed in embodying its ruling thought in the Democratic creed. It proved to be the guiding and mastering force of the Convention. The greenback issue went there with the positive, resolute support of a powerful candidate, and of a formidable array of delegates who knew precisely what they wanted. It was organized under a name and had the strength of a personality. There was opposition, but it was not coherent, organized or well led. In fact the platform was expressly framed to fit Mr. Pendleton; and if, as often happens, the champion and the cause did not triumph together, he compelled his party to commit itself fully and unreservedly to his doctrine.
The second vital proposition related to the policy and Acts of Reconstruction. If Chief Justice Chase was to be nominated, the party must accept the broad principle of universal suffrage or it must abandon his lifelong professions. But universal suffrage, especially if ordained by National authority, was irreconcilable with Democratic traditions and Democratic prejudices. The Democrats had uniformly maintained that the right of suffrage was a question which came within the political power of the States and did not belong to National jurisdiction. They denied that the States had in any degree, even by rebellion, forfeited their prerogatives or changed their relations. They insisted that nothing remained but to recognize them as restored to their old position. In framing the present platform they re-affirmed this doctrine, under the declaration that "any attempt of Congress, on any pretext whatever, to deprive any State of its right (to regulate suffrage), or interfere with its exercise, is a flagrant usurpation of power, which cannot find any warrant in the Constitution." This broad assertion was designed to deny even the right of Congress to make impartial suffrage in the revised constitutions a condition precedent to the re-admission of the rebellious States to representation. But the platform did not stop here. With a bolder sweep it declared "that we regard the Reconstruction Acts of Congress as usurpations, unconstitutional, revolutionary, and void." This extreme proposition, deliberately adopted, was calculated to produce a profound public impression. It was not a mere challenge of the policy or rightfulness of the Reconstruction Acts; it was not a mere pledge of opposition to their progress and completion; but it logically involved their overthrow, with the subversion of their results, in case the Democratic party should acquire the power to enforce its principles and to execute its threats.
The import of this bold declaration received additional light from the history of its genesis and adoption. Its immediate paternity belonged to Wade Hampton of South Carolina. In a speech at Charleston, within two weeks from the adjournment of the Convention, General Hampton recounted the circumstances which attended its insertion in the platform, and proudly claimed it as his own plank. He himself was a member of the Committee on Resolutions, and took an active part in its deliberations. All the members, he said, agreed that the control of suffrage belonged to the States; but General Hampton himself contended that the vital question turned on what were the States. In order that there might be no room for dispute he proposed that the platform should specifically say "the States as they were before 1865." To this however some of the members objected as impolitic and calculated to raise distrust, and it was accordingly dropped. General Hampton then proposed to insert the declaration that the "Reconstruction Acts are unconstitutional, revolutionary, and void;" and the manner in which this suggestion was received is given by General Hampton himself: "When I presented that proposition every member, and the warmest were from the North, came forward and pledged themselves to carry it out." He further reported to his people that the Democratic leaders declared their "willingness to give us every thing we could desire; but they begged us to remember that they had a great fight to make at the North, and they therefore besought us not to load the platform with a weight that they could not carry against the prejudices which they had to encounter.Help them once to regain the power, and then they would do their utmost to relieve the Southern States and restore to us the Union and the Constitution as it had existed before the war."
This declaration received still further emphasis from at least one of the nominations to which the Convention was now ready to proceed. The New-York delegation, which was believed to be friendly to Chief Justice Chase, had determined to mask itself for the present behind a local candidate, and it chose Sanford E. Church for that purpose. Pennsylvania, whose ultimate design was less certain, put forward Asa Packer in the same way. James E. English of Connecticut, Joel Parker of New Jersey, and several minor candidates, were presented as local favorites. The first ballot verified the claims of Mr. Pendleton's friends, and showed him to be decisively in the lead, though still far short of the number necessary to nominate. He had 105, while Andrew Johnson had 65, Judge Church 34, General Hancock 33, Packer 26, English 16, with the remainder scattering. President Johnson had a higher vote than was expected, but after the first ballot it immediately and rapidly declined. On the second ballot Pendleton fell of to 99, but recovered on the third, rising to 119, and thereafter slowly declining. The first day of voting, which was the third of the Convention, ended after six ballots without any material change or decisive indication.
The name of Mr. Hendricks of Indiana had been brought forward just at the close of the third day with thirty votes, and at the opening of the following day he immediately developed more strength. The adroit use of his name, devised by the New-York regency, was fatal to Mr. Pendleton. Coming from the adjoining State Mr. Hendricks divided a section on which the Ohio candidate relied. A majority of the Indiana delegation deserted to his banner. New York, with an air of gratified surprise, withdrew Church and voted solidly for Hendricks. Pendleton reached his highest vote of 156½ on the eighth ballot and thenceforward steadily declined. Meanwhile Hancock had been gaining as well as Hendricks. South Carolina, Virginia, and several other States changed to his support. Then Illinois broke from Pendleton and cast half her vote for Hendricks. On the twelfth ballot the announcement of ½ a vote from California for Chief Justice Chase was received with a great and prolonged outburst of cheering. It was suspected that a single delegate from the Pacific coast had cast the vote at the instigation of the New-York managers, in order to test the sense of the galleries as well as of the Convention. The day closed with the eighteenth ballot, on which Hancock had 144½, Hendricks 87, and Pendleton 56½. With such an apparent lead after so many ballots, the nomination of General Hancock on the ensuing day would, under ordinary circumstances, have been reckoned as a probable result. But it was not expected. It was indeed against the logic of the situation that a Democratic Convention could at that time select a distinguished Union general, of conservative record and cautious mind, for a Presidential candidate. General Hancock's name was in fact used only while the actual contestants of the Convention were fencing for advantageous position in the final contest.
The outlook for Mr. Hendricks was considered flattering by his immediate supporters, but to the skilled political observer it was evident that the figures of the eighteenth ballot gave no assurance to the friends of any candidate. After the adjournment of the Convention, and throughout the night that followed, calculation and speculation took every shape. The delegations from New York and Ohio absorbed the interest of the politicians and the public. The two delegations were playing at cross-purposes—each trying to defeat the designs of the other, and each finding its most available candidate in the State of the other. The tactics of New York had undoubtedly defeated Pendleton, and the same men were now planning to nominate Chief Justice Chase. The leading and confidential friends of Mr. Pendleton were resolved that the New York plot should not succeed, and that Mr. Chase should not, in any event, be the candidate. In a frame of mind which was half panic, half reason, they concluded that it would be impossible to defeat the Chief Justice if his name should be placed before the Convention by the united delegation of New York speaking through the glowing phrases of Mr. Seymour, who, as it was rumored, would next morning leave the chair for that purpose. It was concluded, therefore, in the consultations of Mr. Pendleton's friends, that the movement should be anticipated by proposing the name of Mr. Seymour himself. The consultations in which these conclusions were reached were made up in large part of the aggressive type of Western Democrats, who had been trained to political fighting under the lead of Stephen A. Douglas. Among the most active and combative was Washington McLean of the CincinnatiEnquirer. It was this class of Democrats that finally rendered the nomination of the Chief Justice impossible.
On the following morning (of the last day of the Convention, as it proved), the Ohio delegation took the first and most important step, in formally withdrawing the name of Mr. Pendleton. The voting was then resumed, and the nineteenth and twentieth ballots showed a slight loss for Hancock, and a corresponding gain for Hendricks. On the twenty-first ballot Hancock had 135½, and Hendricks 132; with 48½ divided among minor candidates. At this point the Ohio delegation, having been absent in conference, entered the hall, and amid a hush of expectation and interest proposed the name of Horatio Seymour. Mr. Seymour had been frequently mentioned, and would have been formidable from the first if he had permitted the use of his name, but he had invariably met the proposition with the answer that he could under no circumstances become a candidate. He now repeated this statement from the chair, but Ohio insisted and New York assented. With a whirl of excitement all the States followed, and the nomination was made on the twenty-second ballot by a unanimous vote. Mr. Seymour had, no doubt, been sincere in declining to be a candidate; but the prolonged balloting had produced a great anxiety among the delegates, and the pressure had at last come in a form which he could not resist.
The ticket was completed without delay. Just prior to the Convention General Frank Blair had written a remarkable letter to Colonel Brodhead, one of the Missouri delegates. General Blair's name had been mentioned as a Presidential candidate, and in this letter he defined his position. He insisted, as the supreme issue, that the Reconstruction Acts and their fruits must be overthrown. How they should be overthrown he thus indicated: "There is but one way to restore the Government and the Constitution, and that is for the President to declare these Acts null and void, compel the army to undo its usurpations at the South, dispossess the carpet-bag State governments, allow the white people to re-organize their own governments and elect senators and representatives." General Blair contended that this was "the real and only question," and that until this work was accomplished "it is idle to talk of bonds, greenbacks, the public faith, and the public credit." This letter, as will be noted, harmonized in thought and language with the plank which Wade Hampton had inserted in the platform, and its audacious tone commended its author to those who had been potential in committing the Convention to this extreme position. General Preston of Kentucky, who had won his stars in the Confederate army, presented General Blair for Vice-President. General Wade Hampton, distinguished in the same cause, seconded it, and the nomination was made of acclamation.
The Democratic party thus determined, through its platform and partially through its candidates, to fight its battle on the two issues of paying the debt in depreciated paper currency and overthrowing Reconstruction. Other questions practically dropped out. The whole discussion of the canvass turned on these two controlling propositions. No violence of design which the Republicans imputed to their adversaries exceeded their open avowals. The greater positiveness of General Blair, the keener popular interest in the Southern question and the broader realization of its possible dangers, made the issue on Reconstruction overshadow the other. The utterances of Southern leaders confirmed its superior importance in the public estimate. The jubilant expressions of Wade Hampton at Charleston have already been given. In a speech at Atlanta, Robert Toombs declared that "all these Reconstruction Acts, as they are called, these schemes of dissolution, of violence and of tyranny, shall no longer curse the statute-book nor oppress the free people of the country; these so-called governments and legislatures which have been established in our midst shall at once be made to vacate. The convention at New York appointed Frank Blair specially to oust them." Howell Cobb and Benjamin H. Hill also made incendiary speeches during the canvass, proclaiming their confidence in the practical victory of those who had waged the Rebellion; and Governor Vance of North Carolina boasted that all they had lost when defeated by Grant they would regain when they triumphed with Seymour.
It is not probable that the Democrats could, by any policy, have achieved success in this contest. The prestige of Grant's great fame and the momentum given to the Republican party by his achievements during and immediately after the war, would have defeated any opposition, however skillful. But had Governor Seymour himself framed the platform on which he was to stand, and had he been free from the burden and the embarrassment of Blair's imprudent and alarming utterances, his greater sagacity and adroitness would have insured a more formidable battle. As it was, the rash action of the Democratic Convention made it reasonably clear from the beginning that the ticket was doomed to defeat. The progress of the canvass strengthened this impression; the Democracy was placed everywhere on the defensive; its own declarations shotted every gun that was aimed against it; and its orators and organs could neither make effective reply nor divert public attention from its fatal commitment.
The Democrats however made a strenuous contest and sought to counterbalance the weakness of their national contest by strong State tickets. In Indiana Mr. Hendricks was nominated for Governor, and it was hoped that the influence of his name would secure the advantage of success in the preliminary October struggle. In Pennsylvania a vigorous canvass was conducted under the skillful management of William A. Wallace. But all these efforts were unavailing. The October elections clearly presaged Republican victory. The Republicans carried Pennsylvania, in spite of surprising and questionable Democratic gains in Philadelphia; they held Ohio by a satisfactory majority; and in Indiana, Conrad Baker was elected Governor over Mr. Hendricks. With this result in the October States the November battle could not be doubtful.
The Democratic leaders however did not yet surrender the field. They made one more energetic effort to snatch the victory which seemed already in the grasp of their adversaries. But their counsels were divided. One element proposed to try heroic surgery and cut off the diseased member. While the echoes of the October verdict were still resounding, theNew-York World, the leading Metropolitan organ of the Democratic party, in a series of inflammatory articles demanded that General Blair should be withdrawn from the ticket. This disorganizing demonstration met with little favor in the ranks of the party, and only served as a confession of weakness without accomplishing any good. A more significant and better advised movement was that of Governor Seymour himself. He had thus far borne no public part in the campaign, but he now took the field in person to rally the broken cohorts of his party and if possible recover the lost ground. Up to this time General Blair, through his self-assertion and his bold proclamation of Democratic designs, had been the central figure of the canvass. It was now determined that Blair should go to the rear and that Governor Seymour should go to the front and make a last and desperate effort to change the line of battle.
He started the week following the October elections, and went through Western New York, Ohio, Illinois and Pennsylvania; ending his tour only with the close of the National canvass. Delivering at least one extended address each day at some central point, and speaking frequently by the way, his journey fastened the attention of the country and amply illustrated his versatile and brilliant intellectual powers. No man was more seductive in appeal, or more impressive in sedate and stately eloquence. With his art of persuasion he combined rare skill in evading difficult questions while preserving an appearance of candor. His speeches were as elusive and illusive as they were smooth and graceful. In his present series of arguments he labored to convince the country that if the Democrats elected the President they would still be practically powerless, and that apprehension of disturbance and upheaval from their success was unfounded. He sought also to draw the public thought away from this subject and give it a new direction by dwelling on the cost of government, the oppression of taxes, the losses from the disordered currency and the various evils that had followed the trials and perils through which the country had passed. But it was not in the power of any man to change the current of public feeling. The popular judgment had been fixed by events and by a long course of concurrent evidences, and no single plea or pledge could shake it. The election resulted in the success of General Grant. Virginia, Mississippi, and Texas, in which Reconstruction was not yet completed, did not choose electors. Of the remaining thirty-four States Mr. Seymour carried but eight. General Grant's majority on the popular vote was 309,584. Of the electors he had 214 and Mr. Seymour had 80.
While the result of the Presidential election of 1868 was, upon the record of the electoral votes, an overwhelming victory for the Republican party and its illustrious candidate, certain facts tended to qualify the sense of gratulation and triumph on the part of those who give serious study to the progress and results of partisan contests. It was the first Presidential election since the close of the war, and the candidates represented in sharp and definite outline the antagonistic views which had prevailed among Northern men during the period of the struggle. General Grant was the embodiment of the war feeling, and presented in his own person the spirit of the contest for the Union and the evidence of its triumph. The Democratic candidate, if not open to the charge of personal disloyalty, had done much as Governor of New York to embarrass the National Administration in the conduct of the war, and would perhaps have done more but for the singular tact and address with which Mr. Lincoln had prevented an open quarrel or even a serious conflict of authority. Mr. Seymour was indeed unpleasantly associated in the public mind with the riot which had been organized in the city of New York against the enforcement of the draft. He had been a great favorite of the Peace party, and at the most critical point in the civil struggle he had presided over a National convention which demanded that the war should cease.
Under these circumstances it was not altogether re-assuring to the ardent loyalists of the country, that the city of New York, whose prosperity depended in so great a degree upon the preservation of the Union, should now give Mr. Seymour a majority of more than sixty thousand over General Grant, and that the Empire State, which would cease to be Imperial if the Union ceased to exist, should in a popular contest defeat General Grant by fully ten thousand votes. New Jersey made an equally discouraging record by giving Mr. Seymour a majority of three thousand. The Pacific coast, whose progress and prosperity depended so largely upon the maintenance of the Union, presented an astonishing result,—California giving General Grant a majority of only 514, while Oregon utterly repudiated the great leader and gave her electoral vote for Mr. Seymour. Indiana, in the test vote of the October election for governor, was carried for the Republicans by only 961; Ohio gave a smaller majority in the hour of National victory than she had given during any year of the civil struggle, while Pennsylvania at the same election gave the party but ten thousand majority. In the city and county of Philadelphia the Democrats actually had a majority of nearly two hundred votes. The Republican majorities in these three States were considerably increased in the November election by the natural falling off of the Democratic vote, but the critical and decisive battle had been fought in each State in October. It was a very startling fact that if Mr. Seymour had received the electoral vote of the solid South (which afterwards came to be regarded either as the rightful inheritance or the fraudulent prerogative of the Democratic part), he would, in connection with the vote he received in the North, have had a majority over General Grant in the Electoral College. Considering the time of the election, considering the record and the achievements of the rival candidates, the Presidential election of 1868 must be regarded as the most remarkable and the most unaccountable in our political annals.
The result was not comforting to the thoughtful men who interpreted its true significance and comprehended the possibilities to which it pointed. Of the reconstructed States (eight in number) General Grant received the electoral votes of six,—North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas, and Florida. A full vote was secured in each, and the lawfulness and fairness of the result under the system of Reconstruction were not questioned. The vote of Georgia was disputed on account of some alleged irregularity in her compliance with the Acts of Reconstruction, and the suspicion that the Presidential election was not fairly conducted. But in Louisiana there was no moral doubt that violence and disorder had done their evil work. The result in that State was declared to be in favor of Mr. Seymour. The subject was brought before Congress, and the counting of the votes of these States was challenged; but as the alleged irregularity in Georgia and the alleged fraud in Louisiana had not been legally investigated, Congress (Republican at that time by a large majority in both branches) declined to exclude them from the electoral count.
There was great dissatisfaction on the part of a considerable number of Republicans in Congress with the determination to admit the vote of Louisiana without some qualifying record or explanation. In the House General Schenck offered a resolution, declaring that "the vote of the State was counted because no proof was formally submitted to sustain the objections thereto." General Shanks of Indiana offered a much more decisive resolution, declaring that "in the opinion of the House the acceptance of the electoral vote of Louisiana will encourage the criminal practice of enforcing elections in the States lately in rebellion, and involves the murder of thousands of loyal people." The rule of the House required unanimous consent to admit these resolutions, and they were strenuously objected to by Fernando Wood, Charles A. Eldridge, and other leading Democrats of the House.
In the Senate Mr. Morton of Indiana submitted a resolution, declaring that "while there is reason to believe from common report and information that the late Presidential election in Louisiana was carried by force and fraud, still there being no legal evidence before the Senate on that subject the electoral vote of Louisiana ought to be counted." No debate being allowed under the rule regulating the proceedings of the Senate in regard to the count of the electoral vote, the resolution was defeated. It received however the support of twenty-four Republican senators, some of them among the most prominent members of the body. Mr. Sumner, Mr. Chandler, Mr. Conkling, Mr. Cameron, Mr. Morton, Mr. Morgan, and Mr. Morrill of Vermont were among those who thought some record should be made of the Senate's knowledge of the frauds in Louisiana, even if they were unable on strictly legal grounds to reject her electoral vote. Other Republican senators evidently thought, as they were unable legally to reject the vote, it was not wise to make any record on the question.
Subsequent investigation abundantly established the fact (of which at the time Congress did not possess legal knowledge) that the State of Louisiana had been carried for Mr. Seymour by shameless fraud, by cruel intimidation, by shocking violence. As incidental and unmistakable proof of fraud, it was afterwards shown from the records that in the spring election of 1868, in the parish of Orleans 29,910 votes had been cast, and that the Republicans had a majority of 13,973; whereas in the ensuing autumn, at the Presidential election, the returns for the same parish gave General Grant but 1,178 votes, while Mr. Seymour was declared to have received 24,668. In the parish of Caddo, where in the spring election the Republicans had shown a decided majority, General Grant received but one vote. In the parish of Saint Landry, where the Republicans had prevailed in the spring election by a majority of 678, not a single vote was counted for General Grant, the returns giving to Mr. Seymour the entire registered vote—4,787. In other parishes the results, if less aggravated and less startling, were of like character, and the State, which the Republicans had carried, at an entirely peaceful election in the spring, by a majority of more than 12,000, was now declared to have given Mr. Seymour a majority of 47,000.
There was no pretense that there had been a revolution of public opinion in the State to justify these returns. It was not indeed denied that General Grant was personally far stronger before the people of Louisiana than any Republican candidate at previous State or Parish elections. The change was simply the result of fraud, and the fraud was based on violence. Various investigations ordered by Congress establish this view. "From these investigations," as was stated in a subsequent report, "it appears that over two thousand persons were killed, wounded, and otherwise injured in that State within a few weeks of the Presidential election of 1868; that half the State was overrun by violence, midnight raids, secret murders, and open riots, which kept the people in constant terror, until the Republicans surrendered all claims, and then the election was carried by the Democracy."
The same report states that in the parish of Orleans "riots prevailed for weeks, filling New Orleans with scenes of blood, and Ku-Klux notices were scattered throughout the city warning the colored men not to vote." In the parish of Caddo, where as already stated only one vote was counted for General Grant, "there occurred one of the bloodiest riots on record, in which the Ku-Klux killed and wounded over two hundred Republicans, hunting and chasing them for two days and nights through fields and swamps. Thirteen captives were taken from the jail and shot, and a pile of twenty-five dead bodies were found buried in the woods." These atrocious crimes immediately preceded the election, and "having thus conquered the Republicans and killed and driven off their white leaders, the masses of the negroes were captured by the Ku-Klux, marked with badges of red flannel, enrolled in clubs, led to the polls and compelled to vote the Democratic ticket, after which they were given certificates of that fact."
One of the most alarming features connected with this series of outrages was the promptness with which Louisiana resorted to violence after her re-admission to the right of representation in Congress. Her senators and representatives had taken their seats in their respective Houses only the preceding summer, and her right to participate in the Presidential election was established at the same time. Within less than five months after her formal reconstruction, outrages which would be exceptional in the governments of Algiers or Egypt were committed in utter defiance of law, and without any attempt at punishment by the authorities of the State. Not to punish was in effect to approve.
As a mere question of figures, it is impossible that Mr. Seymour could have received the 80,225 votes with which he was credited. Indeed, his alleged majority of 47,000 over General Grant was greater than the total vote which the Democratic party could honestly cast in Louisiana. In the Presidential election of 1860, when circumstances tended to call every Democrat in the South to the polls, the united vote of Breckinridge and Douglas in Louisiana was but 30,306, while the total vote, including that given for John Bell, was but 50,510. In 1867 the entire registered white vote of Louisiana was but 45,199. The white voting population of the State, therefore, was certainly no larger in 1868 than in 1860—if as large. It was not denied that since the close of the war a considerable number of white men had joined the Republican party; white it was not even claimed that a single negro voted the Democratic ticket in 1868, except as he was led to the polls under the cover of Ku-Klux weapons, terrorized by the violence of that association of lawless men.
It amounts therefore to a mathematical demonstration, that nearly one-half of Mr. Seymour's vote was fraudulent; and of that fact concealment is no longer attempted from any respectable source. It has been matter of surprise to the cotemporaries of Mr. Seymour, that sensitive as he has shown himself on many occasions in regard to the record of his political life, he would consent, after investigation and exposure of the atrocities had been made, to remain in history without protest as the beneficiary of a vote that was demonstrably fraudulent in its character,—a vote that was tainted with crime and stained with the blood of innocent men. It is assuredly not to be presumed that violent acts and murderous deeds are less repulsive to Mr. Seymour than to any other refined Christian gentleman. But his silence in respect to the wicked transactions of his supporters in Louisiana, when he was a candidate for the Presidency, has persuaded many honest-minded Democrats that the whole narrative of crime was a slander, concocted in the interest of the Republican party. It has served also a far more deplorable purpose, for it has in large measure aided in screening from public reprobation, and possibly from exemplary punishment, the guilty principals and the scarcely less guilty accomplices in the maiming and murder of American citizens, who were only seeking to exercise their Constitutional right of suffrage.
The Republican victory of 1866 led to the incorporation of impartial suffrage in the Reconstruction laws. The Republican victory of 1868, it was now resolved in the councils of the party, should lead to the incorporation of impartial suffrage in the Constitution of the United States. The evasive and discreditable position in regard to suffrage, taken by the National Republican Convention that nominated General Grant in 1868, was keenly felt and appreciated by the members of the party when subjected to popular discussion. There was something so obviously unfair and unmanly in the proposition to impose negro suffrage on the Southern States by National power, and at the same time to leave the Northern States free to decide the question for themselves, that the Republicans became heartily ashamed of it long before the political canvass had closed. When Congress assembled, immediately after the election of General Grant, there was found to be a common desire and a common purpose among Republicans to correct the unfortunate position in which the party had been placed by the National Convention; and to that end it was resolved that suffrage, as between the races, should by organic law be made impartial in all the States of the Union—North as well as South.
Various propositions were at once offered, both in the Senate and House, to amend the Constitution of the United States in order to attain impartial suffrage. It was both significant and appropriate that the draught proposed by Mr. Henderson of Missouri was taken as the basis of the Amendment first reported to the Senate. In the preceding Congress, when the Fourteenth Amendment was under consideration (in the spring of 1866), Mr. Henderson had proposed substantially the same provision, and had solemnly warned his Republican associates that though they might reject it then, it would be demanded of them in less than five years. This declaration was all the more suggestive and creditable, coming from a senator who represented a former slave-holding State. And it was not forgotten that Mr. Henderson had with equal zeal and equal foresight been among the earliest to propose the Thirteenth Amendment. Mr. Henderson's proposition, now submitted and referred to the Judiciary Committee, was in these words: "No State shall deny or abridge the right of its citizens to vote or hold office, on account of race, color, or previous condition." It was reported from the Judiciary Committee by Mr. Stewart of Nevada, with an amendment proposing another form of statement; namely, "The right of citizens of the United States to vote and hold office shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."
During the debate on the question Mr. Hendricks of Indiana reproached the Republican party for forcing this question now upon Congress, when in the platform of principles upon which they appealed for popular support they had distinctly waived it, and when the Legislatures to which it must go for ratification had been elected without the slightest reference to it in the popular mind. In order to prevent what might seem to be an unfair submission of the Amendment, Mr. Dixon of Connecticut proposed that it should be referred to conventions in the respective States instead of to the Legislatures, and thus give the people, in the election of members of the conventions, a full opportunity to pass upon the merits of the question. It was contended on the other hand by Republican senators, that no subject had been more fully matured in the popular mind than this had been by the discussion which had taken place since the beginning, and especially since the close, of the war. But this was not a candid or truthful statement of the case, as had been abundantly shown by the action of the National Republican Convention. Only a few of the leaders of the party had openly announced themselves in favor of negro suffrage in the Nation; a few were openly hostile, while the great majority of the prominent members feared it and refrained from open expression in regard to it. The mass of the party, as is usual on questions of this character, had made their own conclusions, and their earnestness of convictions finally forced, if it did not persuade, the reluctant chiefs to adopt it. When they at last came to it, there was a natural disposition to represent it as one of the cardinal principles of the party. The Democratic criticisms, as to the time and method of presenting the Amendment, were well aimed and practically remained unanswered for the simple reason that no adequate or logical response could be made to them.
Mr. Garrett Davis of Kentucky charged that the Republican party, in proposing this Amendment, was simply seeking to perpetuate its power in the country; but on this point he was effectively answered by Mr. Wilson of Massachusetts. "The senator from Kentucky knows, and I know," said Mr. Wilson, "that this whole struggle to give equal rights and equal privileges to all citizens of the United States has been an unpopular one; that we have been forced to struggle against passion and prejudice engendered by generations of wrong and oppression; that we have been compelled to struggle against great interests and powerful political organizations. I say to the senator from Kentucky that the struggle of the last eight years to give freedom to four and a half millions of men who were held in slavery, to make them citizens of the United States, to clothe them with the right of suffrage, to give them the privilege of being voted for, to make them in all respects equal to the white citizens of the United States, has cost the Republican party a quarter of a million votes."
The House of Representatives had been considering the question of the suffrage amendment at equal step with the Senate. On the 11th of January Mr. Boutwell of Massachusetts, from the Committee on the Judiciary, proposed an Amendment to the Constitution in these words: "The right of any citizen of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State, by reason of the race, color, or previous condition of slavery of any citizen or class of citizens of the United States.—The Congress shall have power to enforce by proper legislation the provisions of this Article."
Mr. Boutwell made one of the strongest and most pointed arguments delivered in Congress for the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment. He showed that by the Fourteenth Amendment we had declared that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the States wherein they reside." "There are," said he, "citizens in Kentucky and Maryland eligible to-day to the office of President or Vice-President of the United States, yet who cannot vote for representatives in Congress, or even for a State, county or town officer. What is the qualification for the office of President? He must be a native-born citizen of the United States and thirty-five years of age. Nothing more! These are the only qualifications for the office of President. By the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, we have declared that all the black men in Maryland and other States shall be citizens of the United States. Certain State governments have for the present denied those people the right to vote, and yet one of them is eligible to the Presidency of the United States and another to the Vice-Presidency. Is there such an anomaly in our Government? Are we prepared to admit its existence unless the Constitution imperatively requires it?"
The speech of Mr. Boutwell was answered by Mr. Beck of Kentucky and Mr. Eldridge of Wisconsin, their respective arguments resting mainly upon the propriety of leaving the regulation of suffrage within the power of the States, where it was originally left by the Constitution. After several ineffectual attempts to amend the Constitutional Amendment as reported from the Judiciary Committee, the House, on the 30th of January (1869), passed it byayes150,noes42, not voting 31.
When the House Amendment reached the Senate it was at once taken up for consideration, and the Amendment which that body had been considering was laid aside. This was done for the purpose of expediting an agreement between the two branches. Numerous modifications and additions were then proposed, including the one originally reported by the Judiciary Committee. Every modification or substitute failed, until Senator Wilson offered the following: "No discrimination shall be made in any State among the citizens of the United States in the exercise of the elective franchise, or in the right to hold office in any State, on account of race, color, nativity, property, education, or religious creed." Mr. Trumbull declared that the adoption of this Amendment would abolish the constitutions of perhaps all, certainly of half, the States of the Union. He then pointed out that the constitution of almost every State prescribed a qualification of age for the governor of the State, and of a certain length of residence, many of them requiring a natural-born citizen; and that the effect of Mr. Wilson's Amendment would be to level all the constitutions, and radically reverse the deliberate judgment of the people of the States who had ordained them. Serious objections were also made against prohibiting an educational test, as would be the effect of Mr. Wilson's Amendment. Mr. Wilson frankly avowed his hostility to an educational test, and declared that the one existing in Massachusetts had never proved valuable in any sense. Against all objections and arguments Mr. Wilson's Amendment was adopted by the Senate.
A proposition was now introduced and supported with equal zeal by Mr. Morton of Indiana and Mr. Buckalew of Pennsylvania, proposing an amendment to the pending resolution, which should in effect be a sixteenth amendment to the Constitution. Its aim was to take from the States the power now confided in them by the Constitution, to direct the manner in which electors of President and Vice-President shall be chosen. The declared motive for the change was to prevent the possibility of the electors being chosen by the State Legislatures, as had been done in some cases, and to guarantee the certainty of a popular vote in their selection in every State of the Union. To insure this result it was proposed in the amendment that the entire power over the choice of electors should be transferred to Congress. After a brief debate the amendment was agreed to,(1) and the two proposed articles, included under one resolution, were adopted byayes39,noes16, and sent to the House for concurrence.
The House not being willing to accept the Senate's Amendments, refused by formal vote to concur, and asked for a conference. The Senate took the unusual step of declining a conference, promptly receded from its own Amendments, and sent to the House the original proposition of that body. The House, not to be outdone by the Senate in capricious change of opinion, now refused to agree to the form of amendment it had before adopted, and returned it to the Senate with the added requirement of nativity, property, and creed, which the Senate had originally proposed. The rule indeed seemed to be for each branch to desert its own proposition as soon as there was a prospect that the other branch would agree to it. The strange controversy was finally ended and the subject brought into intelligible shape by a conference committee, which reported the Fifteenth Amendment in the precise form in which it became incorporated in the Constitution. It received the sanction of the house by a vote far beyond the two-thirds required to adopt it, theayesbeing 145, thenoes44. In the Senate theayeswere 39, thenoeswere 13. The action of Congress on the Amendment was completed on the 26th of February, six days before General Grant was installed in the Presidency.
The gradual progress of public opinion in the United States on questions relating to slavery and to the personal and political rights of the negro race, may be clearly traced in the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution.
—The Thirteenth Amendment, proposed by Congress while the war was yet flagrant, simply declared that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist within the United States or in any place subject to National jurisdiction.
—The Fourteenth Amendment advanced the negro to the status of a citizen, but did nothing affirmatively to confer the right of suffrage upon him. Negatively it aided him thereto, by laying the penalty of a decreased representation upon any State that should deny or in any way abridge his right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof.
—The Fifteenth Amendment, now proposed, did not attempt to declare affirmatively that the negro should be endowed with the elective franchise, but it did what was tantamount, in forbidding to the United States or to any State the power to deny or abridge the right to vote on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. States that should adopt an educational test or a property qualification might still exclude a vast majority of negroes from the polls, but they would at the same time exclude all white men who could not comply with the tests that excluded the negro. In short, suffrage by the Fifteenth Amendment was made impartial, but not necessarily universal, to male citizens above the age of twenty-one years.
The adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment seriously modified the effect and potency of the second section of the Fourteenth Amendment. Under that section a State could exclude the negro from the right of suffrage, if willing to accept the penalty of the proportional loss of representation in Congress, which the exclusion of the colored population from the basis of apportionment would entail. But the Fifteenth Amendment took away absolutely from the State the power to exclude the negro from suffrage, and therefore the second section to the Fourteenth Amendment can refer only to those other disqualifications never likely to be applied, by which a state might lessen her voting population by basing the right of suffrage on the ownership of real estate, or on the possession of a fixed income, or upon a certain degree of education, or upon nativity, or religious creed. It is still in the power of the States to apply any one of these tests or all of them, if willing to hazard the penalty prescribed in the Fourteenth Amendment. But it is not probably that any one of these tests will ever be applied. Nor were they seriously taken into consideration when the Fourteenth Amendment was proposed by Congress. Its prime object was to correct the wrongs which might be enacted in the South, and the correction proposed was direct and unmistakable; viz., that the Nation would exclude the negro from the basis of apportionment wherever the State should exclude him from the right of suffrage.
When therefore the nation by subsequent change in its Constitution declared that the State shall not exclude the negro from the right of suffrage, it neutralized and surrendered the contingent right before held, to exclude him from the basis of apportionment. Congress is thus plainly deprived by the Fifteenth Amendment of certain powers over the representation in the South, which it previously possessed under the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment. Before the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment, if a State should exclude the negro from suffrage, the next step would be for Congress to exclude the negro from the basis of apportionment. After the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment, if a State should exclude the negro from suffrage, the next step would be for the Supreme Court to declare that the act was unconstitutional, and therefore null and void. The essential and inestimable value of the Fourteenth Amendment still remains in the three other sections, and pre-eminently in the first section.
The contentions which have arisen between political parties as to the rights of negro suffrage in the Southern States, would scarcely be cognizable judicially under either the Fourteenth or the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Both of those Amendments operate as inhibitions upon the power of the State, and do not have reference to those irregular acts of the people which find no authorization in the public statutes. The defect in both Amendments, in so far as their main object of securing rights to the colored race is involved, lies in the fact that they do not operate directly upon the people, and therefore Congress is not endowed with the pertinent and applicable power to give redress. By decisions of the Supreme Court, the Fourteenth Amendment has been deprived in part of the power which Congress no doubt intended to impart to it. Under its provisions, as construed by the Court, little, if any thing, can be done by Congress to correct the evils or avert the injurious consequences arising from such abuses of the suffrage as distinguished the vote of Louisiana in the Presidential election of 1868, and in the numerous and flagrant cases which followed that baleful precedent of unrestrained violence and unlimited wrong. Those outrages are the deeds of individual citizens or of associated masses, acting without authority of law and in defiance of law. Yet when a vitiated public opinion justifies their course, and when indictment and conviction are impossible, the injured citizen loses his rights as conclusively as if the law had denied them, and indeed far more cruelly.
Undoubtedly a large proportion of the members of Congress, while following the lead of those who constructed the Fourteenth Amendment, sincerely believed that it possessed a far greater scope than judicial inquiry and decision have left it. It is hazarding little to say that if the same political bodies which submitted the Amendment to the people could have measured both the need of its application and the insufficiency of its power, it would have been seriously changed, and would have conferred upon the National Government the unquestioned authority to protect individual citizens in the right of suffrage, so far as that suffrage is used in the choice of officers of the United States. The opportunity was neglected and may never return. It is not at all probable that any political party will succeed in time of peace, upon financial and industrial issues, in electing two-thirds of the Senate and two-thirds of the House of Representatives. No further change in the Constitution of the Republic is probable therefore, within any period whose line of thought or action may now be anticipated with reasonable certainty; and if a sudden political convulsion should possibly give two-thirds of each branch of Congress to one political party, it would be found impracticable to propose any change in the Constitution, in the direction of enlarging the scope of liberty, that would be likely to secure the support of three-fourths of the States of the Union.
The Constitutional Amendments were proposed and adopted under the belief that they would be honorably observed and enforced in all the States alike. The presumption was certainly in favor of that loyal obedience to the organic law of the Republic without which Anarchy has already begun its evil work. If however, by reason of infidelity to the Constitutional provisions in some sections, if by violence in resisting them in others, it be suggested that they should have been drawn with greater circumspection, with a broader comprehension of all the contingencies of the future, the fact yet remains that they are of priceless value to the Government and the people. They have added largely to the muniments of personal liberty; they have immeasurably increased the just power of the National Government; they have exerted a constantly growing force against the spirit that organized the Rebellion; they have strengthened the bonds of the Union against every form of danger which it has hitherto encountered.
Without the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments the Thirteenth would have proved of little value to the oppressed race which it declared to be free. In every step taken after the simple article of emancipation was decreed, the Republicans who controlled the Government met with obstacles from without and from within. There were thousands in their own ranks who did not wish the negro advanced to citizenship; there were tens of thousands who were unwilling to see him advanced to the elective franchise. But happily there were hundreds of thousands who plainly saw that without the rights of citizenship his freedom could be maintained only in name, and that without the elective franchise his citizenship would have no legitimate and (if the phrase be allowed) no automatic protection.
To the brave men who led the Republican party to its duty and its mission, who overcame the numbers of the opposition, who lifted their associates from the slough of prejudice and led them out of the darkness of tradition, let there be all honor and praise. They gave hope to the hopeless, help to the helpless, liberty to the downtrodden. They did more: they elevated the character and enlightened the conscience of the oppressing race. The struggle is not yet ended, the final battle is not yet fought; but complete victory sooner or later is assured. The three great Amendments to the Constitution were bought with a great price—even the blood of the slain—and they will assuredly, in their letter and in their spirit, be vindicated and enforced. Mr. Lincoln taught his countrymen the lesson that he who would be no slave must be content to have no slave. It is yet to be learned with equal emphasis that he who would preserve his own right to suffrage must never aid in depriving another citizen of the same great boon. In moral as in physical conflicts it may be easy to determine who strikes the first blow, but it is difficult to foresee who may strike the last.
[(1) The proposition of Messrs. Morton and Buckalew for a Sixteenth Article of Amendment was as follows:—
"The second clause, first section, second article of the Constitution of the United States shall be amended to read as follows: 'Each State shall appoint by vote of the people thereof qualified to vote for representatives in Congress, a number of electors equal to the whole number of senators and representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress; but no senator or representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States, shall be appointed an elector; and the Congress shall have power to prescribe the manner in which such electors shall be chosen by the people.'"]
General Grant was inaugurated on Thursday, the 4th of March, 1869, amid a great display of popular enthusiasm. All parties joined in it. The Republicans, who had been embarrassed by President Johnson's conduct for the preceding four years, felt that they had overcome a political enemy rather than a man whom they had themselves placed in power; and the Democrats, who had supported Johnson so far as was necessary to embarrass and distract the Republicans, were glad to be released from an entangling alliance which had brought them neither profit or honor. Contrary to the etiquette of the occasion, the incoming President was not escorted to the Capitol by his predecessor. The exceptions to this usage have been few. John Adams was so chagrined by the circumstances attending his defeat that he would not remain in Washington to see Mr. Jefferson installed in power; and the long-established hatred which General Jackson and John Quincy Adams so heartily sustained for each other forbade any personal intercourse between them. General Grant had conceived so intense a dislike of Johnson, by reason of the effort to place him in a false position in connection with the removal of Stanton, that he would not officially recognize his predecessor, even so far as to drive from the White House to the Capitol in the same carriage.
The Inaugural Address of the President was brief and characteristic. "I have," said he, "taken the oath of office without mental reservation, and with the determination to do to the best of my ability all that it requires of me. The responsibilities of the position I feel, but accept them without fear. The office has come to me unsought. I commence its duties untrammeled. I bring to it a conscientious desire and determination to fill it to the best of my ability, and to the satisfaction of the people." He declared that on all subjects he should have "a policy to recommend, but none to enforce against the will of the people. Laws are to govern all alike, —those opposed as well as those who favor them. I know of no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution." He was very emphatic upon the duty and necessity of upholding the public credit and paying the public debt. "Let it be understood," said he, "that no repudiator of one farthing of our public debt will be trusted in public place, and it will go far to strengthen our public credit, which ought to be the best in the world." "The question of suffrage," he said, "is one which is likely to agitate the public so long as a portion of the citizens of the Nation are excluded from its privileges in any State. It seems to me very desirable that this question should be settled now; and I entertain the hope and express the desire that it may be by the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution."
General Grant had never been in any way connected with the civil administration of Nation or State. The charge of being a mere military chieftain had been in vain preferred against some of his most illustrious predecessors; but with the possible exception of General Taylor, no President ever came to the office with so little previous experience in civil affairs. Washington's fame, prior to his accession to the Presidency, rested mainly on his victorious leadership of the Revolutionary army; but he had, as a young man, served in the Provincial Assembly of Virginia, had been a member of the Continental Congress, and had, after the close of his miliary career, presided over the convention that framed the Constitution. Jackson was chosen President on account of his campaign in the South-West, ending in his brilliant triumph at New Orleans; but his experience in civil life had already been long and varied. He entered Congress as a representative from Tennessee when Washington was President, took his seat in the Senate of the United States the day John Adams was inaugurated, and afterwards served as a judge of the Supreme Court of Tennessee. All these civil duties had been performed before he received a military commission. After his stormy career in the army had ended, he was again sent to the Senate during the second term of President Monroe. President Taylor, like General Grant, had been simply a soldier; but the people remembered that his service in the Executive Chair was faithful, resolute, and intelligent; and they remembered also that some of the greatest military heroes of the world had been equally distinguished as civil rulers. Cromwell, William III., Frederick the Great, the First Napoleon, left behind them records of civil administration which for executive force and personal energy established a fame as great as they had acquired on the field of battle. The inexperience of General Grant had not therefore hindered his election, and left no ground for apprehension as to the successful conduct of his administration.
The President had so well kept his own counsels in regard to the members of his Cabinet that not a single name was anticipated with certainty. Five of the appointments were genuine surprises.
—Elihu B. Washburne, long the faithful friend of General Grant, was nominated for Secretary of State. He had just entered upon his ninth term as representative in Congress from Illinois, and resigned immediately after swearing in Mr. Blaine as Speaker,—a duty assigned to him as the oldest member of the House in consecutive service. He was elected to Congress in 1852, from the Galena district, and his first term began on the day Franklin Pierce was inaugurated President. His period of service was crowded with events of great magnitude, commencing with the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and ending with the elevation to the Presidency of the chief hero in the great civil war, to which that repeal proximately led. During all these years Mr. Washburne was an aggressive, courageous, faithful representative, intelligent in all his actions, loyal to the Nation, devoted to the interests of his State.
—Jacob D. Cox, of Ohio, who had acquired credit in the war, and added to it by his service as Governor of his State, was nominated for Secretary of the Interior, and was universally considered to be an admirable selection. His thorough training and his intellectual strength fitted him for any station.
—E. Rockwood Hoar of Massachusetts was named for Attorney-General. His learning as a lawyer had been previously recognized by his appointment to the Supreme Bench of his State,—a bench always eminent for the legal ability and personal character of its members, and for the value of its decisions. Outside of his mere professional sphere, Judge Hoar was known as a man of generous culture, varied knowledge, and the keenest wit. In party relations he had originally been an anti-slavery Whig, and was prominent and influential in organizing the Republican party.
—John A. J. Creswell of Maryland was nominated for Postmaster-General. He was the best living representative of those loyal men of the Border States who had proved a tower of strength to the Union cause. He was the confidential friend, the eloquent eulogist, of Henry Winter Davis, and had by service in both House and Senate won general recognition as a man of ability and great moral courage.
These four appointments met with general approbation. If their names had not all been anticipated, they were nevertheless welcome to the great mass of the Republican party. Two other nominations created general astonishment. Alexander T. Stewart, the well-known merchant of New York, was named for Secretary of the Treasury; and Adolph E. Borie of Philadelphia, long known in that city as a man of probity and wealth, was named for Secretary of the Navy. No new nomination was made for Secretary of War, and the hope with many was that General Schofield might be continued in a place whose duties he had so faithfully and so successfully discharged.
The President was very anxious to have Mr. Stewart in his Cabinet, and was therefore surprised and chagrined to find, after he had been nominated, that under the law he was not eligible to the office of Secretary of the Treasury. In the Act establishing the Treasury department, passed at the first session of the First Congress under the Federal Government, it was provided that no person could be appointed secretary, assistant secretary, comptroller, auditor, treasurer, or registrar, who was "directly or indirectly concerned or interested in carrying on the business of trade or commerce." It was further provided that any person violating this Act should be deemed guilty of a high misdemeanor, and upon conviction, fined three thousand dollars, removed from office, and forever thereafter rendered incapable of holding any position under the Government of the United States. General Grant frankly informed the Senate that he had ascertained Mr. Stewart's disability after the nomination, and suggested that "in view of these provisions of law and the fact that Mr. Stewart has been unanimously confirmed by the Senate, he be exempted, by joint resolution of the two Houses of Congress, from the operation of this law."
As soon as the President's message was read, Mr. Sherman of Ohio asked "unanimous consent to introduce a bill repealing as much of the Act of September 2, 1789, as prohibits the Secretary of the Treasury from being concerned in carrying on the business of trade or commerce; and providing instead that in no case shall he act on any matter, claim, or account in which he is personally interested." Mr. Sumner objected to the introduction of the bill, suggesting that it ought to be "most profoundly considered before it is acted upon by the Senate." These proceedings were on Saturday, March 6th. On Monday Mr. Sherman did not call up the bill, it having been ascertained in private conferences that the Senate was unwilling to pass it. On Tuesday General Grant withdrew the request, Mr. Stewart resigned, and Hon. George S. Boutwell was nominated and confirmed as Secretary of the Treasury.
Mr. Boutwell was at that time fifty-one years of age. He had enjoyed a large experience in public affairs. He had served seven years in the Massachusetts Legislature, had been Bank Commissioner, Secretary of the Board of Education, a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1853, and Governor of the Commonwealth. Under the National Government he had been Commissioner of Internal Revenue, and six years a representative in Congress. He was an industrious student, a strong debater, possessed of great capacity for work, and had always maintained a spotless reputation.
The surprises in connection with General Grant's cabinet were not yet ended. A week after the inauguration Secretary Washburne resigned, and a few days later was appointed Minister to France. He was succeeded in the State Department by Mr. Hamilton Fish of New York. Mr. Fish was a member of one of the old Knickerbocker families. He had inherited wealth, was of the highest social rank, and enjoyed in a marked degree the confidence and respect of his fellow-citizens. He was bred to the law, and as a young man took deep interest in political affairs, earnestly attaching himself to the fortunes of Mr. Clay in his contest against General Jackson, and having the great advantage of Mr. Webster's personal friendship. He had served in both branches of the New-York Legislature, was a representative from New-York City in the Twenty-eighth Congress, was chosen Governor of his State in 1848, and in 1851 succeeded Daniel S. Dickinson in the United-States Senate, where he served for a full term as the colleague of Mr. Seward. At the close of his senatorial service he was but forty-eight years of age, and by his own wish retired from all participation in political affairs, thought he heartily united with his fellow Republicans of New York in the effort to nominate Mr. Seward for the Presidency in 1860. It was therefore an almost equal surprise to the country that General Grant should call Mr. Fish from his retirement, and that Mr. Fish, at sixty years of age, should again be willing to enter the political field. His career as Secretary of State was fruitful in good works. He was throughout the eight years of his service devoted to his official duties, and it was his good fortune to be connected with public events of exceptional importance. He brought great strength to the Cabinet of General Grant, and added in many ways to the prestige and power of the administration.
The changes in the Cabinet continued. Immediately after Mr. Washburne's resignation as Secretary of State, General Schofield retired from the War Department, and was succeeded by General John A. Rawlins, who had been chief of staff to General Grant during some of his most important campaigns. General Rawlins was born in Galena, and was a personal friend of General Grant before the outbreak of the war. He was a lawyer, but had held no civil position, and entered the Cabinet with only a military experience. He was in ill health, and died in the following September, when General Sherman succeeded him as Secretaryad interim, and administered the affairs of the War Department until the appointment of General Belknap at the close of October.
Mr. Borie, though gratified with the compliment of being called to the Cabinet, had no aptitude or desire for public affairs. He urgently requested General Grant to accept his resignation, and in June, three months after his appointment, he was succeeded by Mr. George M. Robeson. Mr. Robeson was connected with some of the old families of New Jersey that became especially distinguished in the Revolutionary war. He received a thorough intellectual training in his youth, and graduated at Princeton College in 1847. He studied law in the office of the Chief Justice of his State, and came to the bar under the most favorable auspices. He began practice as soon as he had attained his majority, and rapidly advanced in his profession. At thirty-six years of age he was appointed Attorney-General of his State, and discharged the duties of that important office with an ability which justly added to his legal reputation. He has displayed great power in arguing questions of Constitutional Law. While engaged in the Attorney-Generalship he was appointed Secretary of the Navy by President Grant. He was then thirty-nine years of age, and beyond his legal learning was a man of literary taste and general knowledge of affairs. Mr. Fish and Mr. Robeson were the only members of General Grant's Cabinet appointed the first year of his administration who served throughout his Presidency.
General Grant would not resign his military commission in season for President Johnson to control the Army changes which would follow. There was no dispute about his immediate successor. Not only the rank, but the illustrious services, the high personal character, and the popular estimate of Lieutenant-General Sherman established his right to the promotion. But discussion arose in army circles and among the people as to the Lieutenant-Generalship. Those holding the rank of Major-General were five in number,—Henry W. Halleck, whose commission bore date August 19, 1861; George G. Meade, August 18, 1864; Philip H. Sheridan, November 8, 1864; George H. Thomas, December 15, 1864; and Winfield S. Hancock, July 26, 1866. The President had the right under the law to fill the office of Lieutenant-General by selection, and he was not bound even by usage to regard any claim based only upon seniority of commission.
General Halleck's distinction had not been won by service in the field. He was a graduate of West Point with a good record in the Mexican war. He was appointed Major-General at the outbreak of the Rebellion on account of his well-known ability and the presumption of his fitness for high command—a presumption which proved to be not well founded. Meade had gained his commission by the splendid victory of Gettysburg. Sheridan, besides earning his commission by his brilliant success in the valley of Virginia, had been personally and most impressively commended by President Lincoln: his success was in fact political as well as military, for it totally destroyed General McClellan as a candidate for the Presidency. Thomas had received his promotion on account of the great victory at Nashville, without which Sherman might have been seriously embarrassed in his march to the sea. General Hancock was commissioned after the war for general efficiency as a soldier and for heroism on many battle-fields. No task could be more invidious than to decide between officers of merit so marked. If Mr. Johnson could have had the opportunity, it was well known that he would appoint Thomas to succeed General Sherman; not so much from love as Thomas as from hatred of Sheridan,—a hatred which did honor to Sheridan. It was the fixed purpose of General Grant to defeat this; not from unfriendliness towards Thomas, but from a profound admiration of the military genius of Sheridan, quickened by a very strong personal attachment to him.
There was little discussion as to the relative claims of Sheridan and Thomas. Sheridan undoubtedly ranked Thomas in command, while Meade outranked both. General Meade however was not put in rivalry with these two distinguished officers. Not rated so high in military skill as at least four other commanders of the Army, it had happened to General Meade to meet the chief commander of the rebel army on the most critical battle-field of the war, and to win a victory which may well be termed the turning-point in the civil struggle. The only battle fought on the soil of a Northern State, it was quite natural that an extraneous interest should attach to Gettysburg, and it is almost the only field of the war which steadily attracts the visits of tourists and patriots alike.
In the end there was no doubt complete satisfaction in the Army and among the people at large with the promotion of Sheridan, which was ordered by President Grant the very day of his inauguration, directly after Sherman had been gazetted as General. There was at the same time a strong popular desire that the heroic achievements of Meade and Thomas should be marked by some form of National recognition; not, however, in any way to interfere with the just reward of Sheridan. The proposition to make three Lieutenant-Generals was canvassed in military and Congressional circles; but the general aversion to a large military establishment in time of peace prevented its favorable consideration, and these eminent soldiers received no attention or favor from Congress after their work had been crowned with success by the suppression of the Rebellion and the complete restoration of the Union. Thomas left Washington soon after President Grant's inauguration to take command of the Department of the Pacific. He was disappointed in his expectations and depressed in feeling. He died suddenly a year later (March 28, 1870) at the age of fifty-four. His death was noticed in a peculiarly impressive manner by a meeting of the two branches of Congress in the Hall of Representatives, to hear addresses commemorative of his character. General Meade, born a year earlier, survived him for a brief period,—dying November 6, 1872. He had evinced no dissatisfaction with the measure of his reward, and had been especially gratified by the privilege of maintaining his headquarters in Philadelphia (from which city he was originally appointed to the Army) and of passing his closing years on the soil of the noble State with which his fame is inseparably associated.
Peculiar circumstances surrounded the career of Thomas, imparting great interest and enlisting on his behalf a strong affection among the loyal people of the Nation. The popular regret that he had not been appropriately recognized by the National Government for his great services, was deepened by his untimely death. The regard usually felt by soldiers for their successful leader was exceptionally strong in his case, and manifested itself in many acts of personal devotion. He was commended to popular favor by his steadfast loyalty to the Union, when he was subjected to all the temptations and all the inducements which had led Lee and Johnston into the rebellion. He, like them, was born in Virginia, was reared in Virginia, was appointed to the army from Virginia; but in the hour of peril to the Government he remembered that he was a citizen and soldier of the United States, and had sworn to uphold the Constitution. How well he maintained his faith to his country is written in the history of great battles and great victories!