Part 15

Believing the present incumbent unfit for the great office to which he aspires for a second time, and not doubting that a vote for him would be regarded as the sanction of abuses and pretensions unrepublican in character, I early saw the difficulty of taking any part for his reëlection. Long ago I declared, that, while recognizing party as an essential agency and convenience, I could not allow it to constrain my conscience against what seemed the requirements of public good. Regarding always substance rather than form, I have been indifferent to the name by which I might be called. Nor was I impressed by the way in which the candidate was urged. Supporters, while admitting his failure, and even the abuses and pretensions so notorious in his civil life, commended his reëlection as necessary to uphold the party with which I have been associated. But it is easy to see that a vote for such a candidate on such a reason was “to do evil that good might come,” which is forbidden in politics as in morals.

Two courses seemed open. One was to abstain from voting,--and I confess that this was my first inclination. But it is not easy for me to be neutral,--certainly where wrong-doing is in question; nor is it my habit to shrink from responsibility. But the doubt that beset me was removed when I saw the Democratic Party adopt the candidate opposed to President Grant, being an original Republican already nominated by a Republican Convention, and at the same time accept the Republican platform on which he was nominated. An old party, which had long stood out against the Republican cause, now placed itself on a Republican platform, the best ever adopted, with a Republican candidate, who was the most devoted Republican ever nominated,--thus completely accepting the results of the war, and offering the hand of reconciliation. At once the character of the contest changed. This was no common event. Pardon me, if I say that to me it was of peculiar interest. For years I have sought to establish in the National Government the great principles of the Declaration of Independence, avowing always that when this was done nobody should surpass me in generosity towards former Rebels. Not only by the logic of my life, but by constant speeches, was I bound to welcome those who placed themselves on this glorious platform. The extent of this obligation will appear before I close. And now its performance harmonizes with opposition to the prolonged misrule of the present incumbent.

TWO REASONS IN FAVOR OF GREELEY.

Evidently I am not at liberty to abstain from voting. In considering the reasons in favor of Horace Greeley, I find two, differing in character, but of chief importance: first, that he represents a reformed civil service, beginning with the One-Term principle, without which this reform is too much like a sham; and, secondly, that he represents reconciliation, not only between the two sections, but between the two races, which is essential to the repose of the country and the safeguard of Equal Rights.

To these must be added, that he does not represent those personal pretensions, so utterly inconsistent with Republican government, which are now known as Grantism. In voting for Horace Greeley you will not sustain nepotism, you will not sustain gift-taking and repayment by official favor, and you will not lend your sanction to the San Domingo machination, with its unconstitutional usurpations, its violations of International Law, and its indignity to the Black Republic. Elsewhere I have considered these fully,[177] and I am not aware of any answer to the undeniable facts. I shall only glance at them now.

NEPOTISM.

Nepotism is already condemned by history, and most justly; for it is obviously a form of self-seeking, hostile to purity of government, and strangely out of place in a Republic. Nothing for self, but all for country and mankind, should be the rule of our President. If the promptings of his inner nature fail, then must he feel the irresistible obligation of his position. As he does, so will others do; and therefore must his example be such as to elevate the public service. Nothing in Washington’s career has shone with more constant light than his refusal to confer office on his relations. Even at the time, it arrested attention not only at home but abroad, landing praise in England. Of this there is a striking illustration. The “Register of the Times,” published at London in 1795, in an article entitled “Interesting and Authentic Documents respecting the United States of America,” records its homage:--

“The execution of the office of the Chief Magistrate has been attended through a term of four years with a circumstance which to an admiring world requires no commentary. A native citizen of the United States, transferred from private life to that station, has not, during so long a term, appointed a single relation to any office of honor or emolument.”[178]

With such confession an admiring world looked on. Something would I do--something, I trust, the American people will do at the coming election--to secure this beautiful praise yet again for our country.

GIFT-TAKING.

Like nepotism, the taking of gifts by a public servant is condemned by history. No honest nature can uphold it. How well did our late General Thomas, so admirable in character, rebuke this abuse, when he replied to an offer of $100,000, as I am told, “Let it go to my men”! If not a form of bribery, it is kindred in nature,--and this has long been recognized, from the Bible down to our day. According to the old scriptures it is destructive: “The king by judgment stablisheth the land; but he that receiveth gifts overthroweth it.”[179] Here again is the example of Washington brightly lighting the true republican pathway. The same President who would not appoint a relation would not take a gift, even when out of office. His example was in harmony with the lesson of Colonial days. As long ago as April 20, 1703, Queen Anne, in a communication to Lord Cornbury, Governor of New York and New Jersey, laid down the following rule: that neither the Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, Commander-in-Chief, or President of the Council “do receive any gift or present from the Assembly _or others_ on any account or in any manner whatsoever, upon pain of our highest displeasure, and of being recalled from that our Government.”[180] This rule is as good for our day as for that in which it was ordained by royal authority.

There is another instance, which should not be forgotten. It is that of Lord Wellesley, the accomplished brother of the Duke of Wellington. A work so common as that of Smiles on “Self-Help” records, that, while Governor-General of India, he positively refused a present of £100,000 from the Directors of the East India Company on the conquest of Mysore; and here the terms of his refusal are important:--

“It is not necessary for me to allude to the independence of my character and the proper dignity attaching to my office; other reasons besides these important considerations lead me to decline this testimony, which is not suitable to me. I think of nothing but our army. I should be much distressed to curtail the share of those brave soldiers.”[181]

His refusal remained unalterable. At a later period, when nearly eighty years of age, embarrassed by debts, and entirely withdrawn from public life, he allowed the Company to vote him a much smaller sum in consideration of his signal services.[182]

GIFT-MAKERS APPOINTED TO OFFICE.

The allowances voted by Parliament to Marlborough and Wellington on account of their victories can be no precedent for the acceptance of gifts from fellow-citizens. The distinction is clear. But the case against the present incumbent is not only that while holding high office he accepted gifts from fellow-citizens, but subsequently appointed the gift-makers to office,--thus using the Presidency to pay off his own personal obligations. Please bear this in mind; and when some apologist attempts to defend the taking of gifts, let him know that he must go still further, and show that the Presidency, with all its patronage, is a perquisite to be employed for the private advantage of the incumbent.

SAN DOMINGO.

Next in illustration of the prevailing misrule is the San Domingo business, with its eccentricities of wrong-doing; and this, too, is now in issue. At the thought of this unprecedented enormity, where wrong assumes such various forms, it is hard to be silent; but I shall be brief. The case is clear, and stands on documents which cannot be questioned. I keep within the line of moderate statement, when I say, that, from the beginning of our Government, nothing in our foreign relations has been so absolutely indefensible. It will not do to call it simply a fault and an insolence; it was an elaborate contrivance, conceived in lust of territory, pursued in ignorance, maintained in open violation of the National Constitution, pushed forward in similar violation of International Law in fundamental principles, and crowned by intolerable indignity to the Black Republic, even to the extent of menacing hostilities and the sinking of its ships,--all without authority of Congress, and by Presidential prerogative alone. In this drama the President, like a favorite actor, assumed every part. In negotiating the treaty he was President; in declaring war he was Congress; in sending ships and men he was Commander-in-Chief; and then in employing private influence with Senators to promote his scheme--according to the promise in the protocol with Baez, signed in his name by Orville E. Babcock, entitled therein “Aide-de-Camp to his Excellency General Ulysses S. Grant, President of the United States of America”--he was lobbyist. That such things can be done by a President without indignant condemnation, loud and universal, shows a painful demoralization in the country. That their author can be presented for reëlection to the Presidency, whose powers he has thus misused, shows a disheartening insensibility to public virtue.

Here I remark, that, so long as the President confined himself to negotiation, he was strictly within the line of the Constitution. Even if indiscreet in character and impolitic in object, it was not unconstitutional. But in seizing war powers without the authority of Congress, in upholding the usurper Baez that he might sell his country, in menacing the Black Republic, and then in playing the lobbyist to promote the contrivance, the President did what no other President ever did before, and what, for the sake of Republican Institutions, should be rebuked by the American people. It was the knowledge of these proceedings that changed essentially my relations to the question.

PERSONAL MISREPRESENTATIONS.

I allude with hesitation to personal misrepresentations on the matter. It has been said that I promised originally to support the treaty. This is a mistake. I knew nothing of the treaty, and had no suspicion of it, until several months after the protocol, and some time after the negotiation was completed; and then my simple promise was that it should have from me “the most careful and candid consideration”; and such I gave it most sincerely. At first my opposition was reserved and without allusion to the President. It was only when the strange business was fully disclosed in official documents communicated in confidence to the Senate, and it was still pressed, that I felt impelled to a sterner resistance. Especially was I constrained, when I found how much the people of Hayti suffered. It so happened that I had reported the bill acknowledging their independence and establishing diplomatic relations between our two countries, assuring that equality which had been violated. Not unmoved could I witness the wrong inflicted upon them. And has it come to this, that the President of the Great Republic, instead of carrying peace and good tidings to Africans commencing the experiment of self-government, should become to them an agent of terror?

It is difficult to see how I could have done otherwise. Anxious to excuse the anger towards me, it has been said that I opposed the treaty because Mr. Motley was unceremoniously removed from the mission at London; and here you will see the extent to which misrepresentation has gone. It so happens that Mr. Motley was removed on the day immediately following the rejection of the treaty. Evidently my opposition was not influenced by the removal: was the removal influenced by my opposition?

Equally absurd is the story that I am now influenced by personal feelings. I am a public servant, trained to duty; and now, as always before, I have yielded only to this irresistible mandate. With me there is no alternative. The misconduct of the President, so apparent in the San Domingo device, became more conspicuous in the light of illustrative facts, showing it to be part of a prevailing misrule, which, for the sake of our country, should not be prolonged. As a patriot citizen, anxious for the national welfare and renown, am I obliged to declare these convictions.

* * * * *

I am now brought to those two chief measures to be advanced by the election of Horace Greeley, each of controlling importance,--one looking directly to purity and efficiency in the government, and the other to the peace and welfare of our country.

ONE-TERM PRINCIPLE.

The principle of One Term for President is the corner-stone of a reformed civil service. So plain is this to my apprehension, that I am at a loss to understand how any one sincerely in favor of such reform can fail to insist upon this principle. All experience shows that the employment of the appointing power to promote the personal ends of the President is the great disturbing influence in our civil service. Here is the comprehensive abuse which envelops all the offices of the country, making them tributary to one man, and subordinate to his desires. Let this be changed, and you have the first stage of reform, without which all other measures are dilatory, if not feeble and inefficient. How futile to recommend, as is done by the Commissioners on Civil Service, “an honest competitive examination,” while the rules for this system are left to the discretion of a President seeking reëlection! “Lead us not into temptation” is part of the brief prayer we are all taught to repeat; nor are Presidents above the necessity of this prayer. The misuse of the appointing power to advance ambitious aims is a temptation to which a President must not be exposed. For his sake, and for the sake of the country, this must not be.

In attributing peril to this influence, I speak not only from my own careful observation, but from the testimony of others whose words are authoritative. You do not forget how Andrew Jackson declared that the limitation of the office to one term was required, in order to place the President “beyond the reach of any improper influences” and “uncommitted to any other course than the strict line of constitutional duty,”[183]--how William Henry Harrison announced, that, with the adoption of this principle, “the incumbent would devote all his time to the public interest, and there would be no cause to misrule the country,”[184]--how Henry Clay was satisfied, after much observation and reflection, “that too much of the time, the thoughts, and the exertions of the incumbent are occupied during his first term in securing his reëlection,”[185]--and how my senatorial associate of many years, Benjamin F. Wade, after denouncing the reëligibility of the President, said, “There are defects in the Constitution, and this is among the most glaring.”[186] According to this experienced Senator, the reëligibility of the President is not only a defect in the Constitution, but one of its most glaring defects.

And such also was the declared opinion of the present incumbent before his election and the temptation of a second term. It has been stated by one who conferred with him at the time, that immediately before his nomination General Grant said, in the spirit of Andrew Jackson, “The liberties of the country cannot be maintained without a One-Term Amendment of the Constitution”; and another writes me, that while on a walk between the White House and the Treasury, just at the head of the steps, near the fountain, the General paused a moment, and said, “I am in favor of restricting the President to a single term, and of abolishing the office of Vice-President.” By the authority of this declaration, the “Morning Chronicle,”[187] the organ of the Republican party at Washington, proclaimed of its Presidential candidate, “He is, moreover, an advocate of the One-Term principle, as conducing toward the proper administration of the law”; and then at a later date,[188] after calling for the adoption of this principle, the same Republican organ said, “General Grant is in favor of it.” Unquestionably at that time, while the canvass was proceeding, he allowed himself to be commended as a supporter of this principle. That he should now disregard it gives new reason for the prayer, “Lead us not into temptation.”

Never before was the necessity for this beneficent Amendment more apparent; for never before was the wide-spread abuse from the reëligibility of the President more grievously conspicuous. De Tocqueville, the illustrious Frenchman, who saw our institutions with a vision quickened by genius and chastened by friendly regard, discerned the peril, when he said:--

“Intrigue and corruption are the natural vices of elective government; but when the head of the State can be reëlected, these evils rise to a great height and compromise the very existence of the country. When a simple candidate seeks to rise by intrigue, his manœuvres must be limited to a very narrow sphere; _but when the Chief Magistrate enters the lists, he borrows the strength of the Government for his own purposes_.… If the representative of the Executive descends into the combat, the cares of Government dwindle for him into second-rate importance, and the success of his election is his first concern.”[189]

Nothing can be more true than these remarkable words, which are completely verified in what we now behold. The whole diversified machinery of the National Government in all its parts, operating in State, District, Town, and Village, is now at work to secure the reëlection of the President, as for some time before it worked to secure his renomination,--the whole being obedient to the central touch.

Look for a moment at this machinery, or, if you please, at this political hierarchy, beginning with Cabinet officers, and reaching to the pettiest postmaster, every one diligent to the single end of serving Presidential aspiration. The Jeffersonian rule was, “Is he honest? Is he capable? Is he faithful to the Constitution?” But this is now lost in the mightier law, “Is he faithful to reëlection?” This failing, all merit fails. Every office-holder, from highest to lowest, according to his influence, becomes propagandist, fugleman, whipper-in. Members of the Cabinet set the example, and perambulate the country, instructing the people to vote for reëlection. Heads of Bureaus do likewise. Then, in their respective localities, officers of the Customs, officers of the Internal Revenue, marshals with their deputies, and postmasters, each and all, inspired from the National Capitol, are all calling for reëlection. This organized power, variously estimated at from sixty to eighty thousand in number, all paid by the Government, and overspreading the whole country in one minute network, has unprecedented control at this moment, partly from increased facilities of communication, and partly from the military drill which still survives the war, but more, perhaps, from the determined will of the President, to which all these multitudinous wills are subjugated. This simple picture, which nobody can question, reveals a tyranny second only to that of the Slave Power itself,--which Jefferson seems to have foreseen, when, after portraying the Legislature as most to be feared in his day, he said, “The tyranny of the Executive will come in its turn.”[190] Even his prophetic vision did not enable him to foresee the mournful condition we now deplore, with the One-Man Power lording itself through all the offices of the country.

The recent election in North Carolina made this practically manifest. Even without a telescope, all could discern the operations of the field. Postmasters and officers of Internal Revenue were on hand, each in his place; then came the Marshal, with files of deputies, extemporized for the occasion; while, ranging over the extensive circuit, was the Supervisor of the Revenue; the whole instructed and animated by members of the Cabinet, who abandoned their responsible duties to help reëlection, which for the time was above all departments of Government and all exigencies of the public service. In the same way the chief Custom-Houses of the country have been enlisted. Each has become a political centre whose special object is reëlection. Authentic evidence before a Congressional Committee shows that Thomas Murphy, while Collector of New York, acting as Lieutenant of the President, sought to control the Republican State Convention by tendering office to four men, in consideration of the return of certain delegates, promising that “he would immediately send their names on to Washington and have them appointed”; and by way of enforcing the Presidential supremacy, he announced with startling effrontery that “President Grant was the representative and head of the Republican party, and all good Republicans should support him in all his measures and appointments, and any one who did not do it should be _crushed out_.”[191] If this were not authenticated under oath, it would be hard to believe. But the New Orleans Custom-House has a story much worse. Here Presidential pretension is mixed with unblushing corruption, in which the Collector, a brother-in-law, is a chief actor. And all for reëlection.[192]

This prostitution of the offices of the country to the Presidential will can be upheld only by unhesitating partisan zeal, discarding reason and patriotism. Already it has been condemned in an official Report made to the House of Representatives, November 25, 1867, by Mr. Boutwell, as Chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary, and signed by him. His direct object was to arraign Andrew Johnson; but these words declare a rule applicable to all Presidents:--

“The presence and active participation of _two of the Heads of Departments_ in a political convention at Philadelphia, having for its object the organization of a party to sustain the policy of the President and defeat the will of Congress and the people, and one of those functionaries the prime agent in the removals from and appointments to office for ‘political reasons,’ is a fact well known to the country. The like had not happened before in its history. In the view of right-minded men, it was something more than a public scandal.”[193]