Part 23

I first saw Mrs. Lincoln at Harrisburg on the night that Lincoln made his midnight journey to Washington, and the greatest difficulty we had on that occasion was to prevent her from creating a scene that would have given publicity to the movement. I thought her a fool, and was so disgusted with her that I never spoke to her afterward, although I had frequently gone with ladies to her receptions. I wronged her, for she was then not wholly responsible, and soon after Lincoln’s death the climax came, leaving her to grope out the remainder of her life in the starless midnight of insanity. With Lincoln’s many other sorrows, considering his love of home and family, it may be understood how keenly he suffered, and how he was clouded by shadows for which the world could give no relief.

No man ever came in contact with Abraham Lincoln who did not learn to love, honor, and even reverence him. His ablest political enemies ever paid the highest tributes, not only to his personal attributes, but to his masterly ability, and none surpassed Stephen A. Douglas, the ablest foeman Lincoln ever met, in his appreciation of Lincoln’s qualities. He had to accept vastly the gravest responsibilities ever put upon any President of the United States, and I am quite sure that no other man could have filled Lincoln’s place during the Civil War with equal safety to the Republic. Had he been vindictive and resentful his fame would not be without blemish to-day.

What was to me the most beautiful tribute I have ever heard paid to him came from the lips of Jefferson Davis, when I visited him at his home in Mississippi some ten years after the war. He never tired of discussing the character and the actions of Lincoln, and asked me many questions about his personal qualities. After he had heard all that could be given in the brief time that I had, he said with a degree of mingled earnestness and pathos that few could have equalled:

“Next to the destruction of the Confederacy, the death of Abraham Lincoln was the darkest day the South has ever known.”

THE GRANT-SEYMOUR CONTEST

1868

To the casual reader of our political history, the election and re-election of Grant to the Presidency immediately after the close of the war would seem to be a result at once logical and inevitable; but there are few of the present day who have any knowledge of the many obstacles which confronted Grant in his transfer from the highest military to the highest civil duties of the nation.

It is noted that Grant, the Great Captain of the Age, was elected and re-elected by large majorities; that General Hayes, another soldier of national fame, succeeded him; that General Garfield, a soldier-statesman, succeeded Hayes, defeating Hancock, the most brilliant Democratic soldier of the war, by only a few thousands on the popular vote; that Blaine, the first civilian candidate of the party, was the first Republican to suffer defeat after the political revolution of 1860; that General Harrison, another honored soldier, was successful as the Republican candidate in 1888, and that Major McKinley, now Chief Magistrate of the Republic, carried his musket as a private in the flame of battle, and came out of the war an officer promoted for gallantry. With such a line of military Presidents, the natural assumption of the student of our political history would be that General Grant’s election came about because none could question its fitness.

There were very serious obstacles to Grant’s nomination for the Presidency by the Republicans in 1868. First, he was not a Republican and never had been. He had never voted a Republican ticket, and he never cast a Republican ballot until after he had been eight years a Republican President. His last vote before he re-entered the army was cast for a radical pro-slavery Democrat, and he did not even sympathize with Stephen A. Douglas in 1860, although he lived in Illinois, the home of the great Democratic leader of that day. Second, he was resolutely averse to being a candidate for the Presidency. He was General of the Army, with freedom to retire without diminution of pay; he had no political training, and felt himself unfitted for a political career. He was honest and apparently fixed in his purpose not to become a candidate. These objections at first appeared to be insuperable obstacles to Grant’s nomination, but he was human, and had he declined the Presidency when it was apparently within his reach, he would have stood as the only man in the history of the Republic who had refused its crown.

The Democrats were in a hopeless condition, and they at once began a systematic movement to make him their candidate. This alarmed the Republicans, and they made equally earnest and methodical efforts to make him their leader. It is doubtful upon which side General Grant would have fallen had it not been for the early estrangement between President Johnson and himself. Johnson made repeated attempts to overslaugh him either directly or indirectly. He ordered Grant to Mexico to get him out of the country, but Grant refused to go, and he afterward made an earnest effort to supersede Grant by calling General Thomas to the command of the army, but Thomas stubbornly refused to consider the call. As the Republicans were then in bitter warfare against Johnson, Grant logically found sympathy in Republican circles, and finally, with visible reluctance, he agreed to become the candidate of the Republicans. Had he been nominated by the Democrats he would have been elected, but his administration would have greatly conserved and liberalized the Democratic teachings of that day. His final assent to become the Republican candidate for President was obtained by the late Colonel Forney.

The assassination of Lincoln and the succession of Vice-President Johnson to the Presidency repeated the political history of Tyler and Fillmore in a radical change of the policy of the Government. Johnson started under a cloud in his career as Vice-President. On the day of his inauguration he appeared in the Senate visibly intoxicated, and delivered a maudlin harangue so disgraceful that a correct report was never permitted to be given to the public. The report of that address as severely modified by the omission of the most offensive expressions was highly discreditable. He was immediately hurried away to the country residence of the elder Francis P. Blair, and there remained most of the time until more than a month later, when Lincoln was assassinated. He never attempted to resume his place in the Senate as presiding officer, although he was frequently in Washington and was there on the night of the assassination.

As President he at first startled the country by the most violent demands for the punishment of all those prominently engaged in the Rebellion. His favorite declaration was that “treason must be made odious.” It was not long, however, until his views were materially changed, and he gradually drifted into entire sympathy with the South and aggressively against the policy of the Republicans in Congress. It was this conflict between the Executive and the legislative powers of the Government that led to the radical policy of reconstruction and the wholesale enfranchisement of the colored voters of the South. All the reconstruction measures were vetoed by the President and passed over his veto by the Senate and House, and the issue grew more and more in bitterness until it culminated in the impeachment of Johnson, in which he escaped conviction by a single vote. Grant and Johnson had an acrimonious dispute when Grant, as Secretary of War _ad interim_, admitted Stanton back to the office after the Senate had refused to approve his removal by the President, and from that time Grant and Johnson never met or exchanged courtesies on any other than official occasions, where the necessity for it was imperative. When the arrangements were about to be made for the inauguration of Grant, he peremptorily refused to permit President Johnson to accompany him in the carriage to the Capitol for the inauguration ceremonies, and Johnson did not make his appearance on that occasion.

I never met President Johnson but once during his term in the White House. I had met him casually before and during the war, but cherished a strong prejudice against him as an arch demagogue because of a debate between him and Senator Bell, his colleague from Tennessee, that I happened to hear in the Senate. Bell was one of the ablest and most dignified of Senators, and I never witnessed a more offensive exhibition of the studied arts of the demagogue than Johnson displayed in that Senatorial controversy. It was on some phase of the sectional issue, and Bell’s exalted patriotism and manly plea for union and fellowship contrasted with Johnson as the soaring eagle contrasts with the mousing owl. I had voted for his nomination for Vice-President in the Republican convention of 1864, because I surrendered my own preferences to considerations of expediency presented by Lincoln.

When he made the disgraceful exhibition of himself on inauguration day as he appeared as Vice-President in the Senate, I published an editorial in my Chambersburg paper denouncing Johnson as having offended against the dignity and decency not only of our own Government, but of civilized governments throughout the world, and demanded his resignation. Little more than a month thereafter he became President, and a troop of new friends flocked about him. It is needless to say that he was soon advised of the severe criticism I had made upon the inauguration address. I did not see or hear from him or communicate with him in any way until the early fall, when Governor Curtin informed me that he had received a request from the President for Curtin and myself to visit him at Washington. My answer to Curtin was that as he was in an official position it was probably his duty to regard a request from the President as a command, but as I was not anybody of consequence, I would not go. Within a fortnight a second and more pressing request was made to Curtin for us to come to Washington to confer with the President on the political situation. Curtin felt that we should go. He thought it possible that Johnson might yet be saved from political apostasy, although I had no confidence whatever in the future of the administration, judging from the surroundings he had invited, but I accompanied the Governor to Washington and called upon the President.

At that time Johnson had attempted and largely carried out a scheme of reconstruction of his own, that had gradually drifted him into very close and sympathetic relations with the ruling class of the South that had been active in rebellion. He had appointed provisional Governors, Legislatures had been chosen, Congressmen and Senators had been elected to some extent, and I was utterly surprised to find the President entirely confident that his scheme of reconstruction would be sanctioned by Congress. I was well informed by conference with the leading Republicans of the North as to the policy they would pursue in Congress, and I knew that there was not the shadow of a chance for any of his reconstructed States to be readmitted into the Union on the basis of his policy.

Curtin’s more responsible official position and general distrust made him quite willing to avoid discussion with the President, who opened the conversation by an earnest appeal to us to give tranquillity to the country and renewed prosperity to business by accepting his method of reconstruction, that he always spoke of as “my policy.” I answered by stating that it would be simply a waste of time and effort to attempt to maintain his policy, as not a single Senator and Representative then elected to the next Congress, or to be elected thereafter by Southern States as then reconstructed, would be admitted into Congress. He seemed to be utterly amazed at the audacity of such a declaration, and informed me in the most imperious and insolent manner that every State would be restored to the Union and to representation in the coming Congress. I told him that he was suffering from the common misfortune of power in seldom hearing the truth. He exhibited much irritation, and several times walked the full length of the Executive Chamber with rapid step, apparently to get cooling time for his passion. He finally tempered the discussion by more courteous expression, and we went over the whole ground with rugged frankness on both sides, ending in the disagreement on which we had started.

I then asked him what he proposed to do with Jefferson Davis, who was still in prison at Fortress Monroe, charged with complicity in the assassination of Lincoln. I saw that he was much embarrassed by the inquiry, and told him that he owed it to the truth of history, to Davis himself and to public justice to give him a fair trial. I reminded him also that Wurz, who had just been tried by a court-martial for wanton and murderous brutality to the Union prisoners, with the judgment in the case then in the hands of the Government, but not announced, would be condemned and executed, as he was poor and friendless. I said that if Wurz was guilty of studied brutality to prisoners he deserved to die, but that if he was simply executing the policy of the government of the Confederacy, as was then publicly charged, of deliberately and systematically murdering Union prisoners by giving them unwholesome or insufficient food, and withholding the necessary and possible attention to the sick and dying, the responsible criminal was Jefferson Davis. In answer, the President asked how that could be done, to which I responded by saying that a court-martial, consisting of Generals Grant, Sherman, Thomas, Sheridan and Meade, could well be charged with so grave an inquiry, as their judgment would be accepted by the country and the world. If they condemned Davis, he deserved to be executed. If they acquitted him, as I believed they would, he would stand acquitted of one of the most colossal crimes ever charged against an individual. To my surprise, the President answered that there was strong prejudice growing up against court-martials. He was quite right in that declaration, as up to that time he had used them freely and almost wholly in the administration of justice in all cases having any connection with the war. He had denounced Davis as an assassin, and in his new relations with the South, which changed his conditions materially, he was anxious to protect Davis, and evidently did not wish his accusations to be passed upon by a competent court.

I then said to the President that it was his duty to discharge Davis; that Davis should either be tried or given his liberty at an early day, as he had already been long in prison, and I reminded him also that he could not try a man for treason who was President of a government that had beleaguered our Capitol for four years, and that had been recognized by our own Government and by the leading governments of the world as a belligerent power. The discussion of the Davis question, that was a very unpleasant one to the President, brought the conference to a finish, and every prediction that I made to him about his reconstruction policy was fulfilled to the letter. Curtin took only an incidental part in the conference, and we parted with ceremonial courtesy, never to meet again.

While the Republicans had been seriously divided by Johnson’s defection, chiefly because of the large patronage he had to dispense, their columns became gradually reunited, and in 1868 it was practically a solid Republican party arrayed against Johnson with a very few deserters; and the Democrats, while appreciating Johnson’s betrayal of the Republicans, had no love and little respect for the betrayer. From the time that Grant’s candidacy was announced no other aspirant was seriously discussed in Republican circles, and his name brought not only most of the later stragglers of the party into the fold, but commanded the support of a large Democratic element in addition.

The Republican National Convention met at Chicago on the 20th of May, and easily finished its work in two days. Carl Schurz was temporary president, and General Joseph R. Hawley, of Connecticut, was the permanent president. The usual preliminaries were disposed of without jar during the first day, and the committee on resolutions reported promptly on the morning of the second day. The following is the full text of the platform as adopted by a unanimous vote:

The National Republican party of the United States, assembled in national convention in the city of Chicago, on the 21st day of May, 1868, make the following declaration of principles:

1. We congratulate the country on the assured success of the reconstruction policy of Congress, as evinced by the adoption, in the majority of the States lately in rebellion, of constitutions securing equal civil and political rights to all; and it is the duty of the Government to sustain those institutions and to prevent the people of such States from being remitted to a state of anarchy.

2. The guarantee by Congress of equal suffrage to all loyal men at the South was demanded by every consideration of public safety, of gratitude, and of justice, and must be maintained; while the question of suffrage in all the loyal States properly belongs to the people of those States.

3. We denounce all forms of repudiation as a national crime; and the national honor requires the payment of the public indebtedness in the uttermost good faith to all creditors at home and abroad, not only according to the letter, but the spirit of the laws under which it was contracted.

4. It is due to the labor of the nation that taxation should be equalized, and reduced as rapidly as the national faith will permit.

5. The national debt, contracted as it has been for the preservation of the Union for all time to come, should be extended over a fair period for redemption; and it is the duty of Congress to reduce the rate of interest thereon, whenever it can be honestly done.

6. That the best policy to diminish our burden of debt is so to improve our credit that capitalists will seek to loan us money at lower rates of interest than we now pay, and must continue to pay, so long as repudiation, partial or total, open or covert, is threatened or suspected.

7. The Government of the United States should be administered with the strictest economy; and the corruptions which have been so shamefully nursed and fostered by Andrew Johnson call loudly for radical reform.

8. We profoundly deplore the untimely and tragic death of Abraham Lincoln, and regret the accession to the Presidency of Andrew Johnson, who has acted treacherously to the people who elected him and the cause he was pledged to support; who has usurped high legislative and judicial functions; who has refused to execute the laws; who has used his high office to induce other officers to ignore and violate the laws; who has employed his executive powers to render insecure the property, the peace, the liberty and life of the citizen; who has abused the pardoning power; who has denounced the national Legislature as unconstitutional; who has persistently and corruptly resisted, by every means in his power, every proper attempt at the reconstruction of the States lately in rebellion; who has perverted the public patronage into an engine of wholesale corruption; and who has been justly impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, and properly pronounced guilty thereof by the vote of thirty-five Senators.

9. The doctrine of Great Britain and other European powers, that because a man is once a subject he is always so, must be resisted at every hazard by the United States as a relic of feudal times, not authorized by the laws of nations, and at war with our national honor and independence. Naturalized citizens are entitled to protection in all their rights of citizenship, as though they were native born; and no citizen of the United States, native or naturalized, must be liable to arrest and imprisonment by any foreign power for acts done or words spoken in this country; and, if so arrested and imprisoned, it is the duty of the Government to interfere in his behalf.

10. Of all who were faithful in the trials of the late war, there were none entitled to more special honor than the brave soldiers and seamen who endured the hardships of campaign and cruise and imperilled their lives in the service of the country; the bounties and pensions provided by the laws for these brave defenders of the nation are obligations never to be forgotten; the widows and orphans of the gallant dead are the wards of the people—a sacred legacy bequeathed to the nation’s protecting care.

11. Foreign immigration, which in the past has added so much to the wealth, development, and resources, and increase of power to this Republic—the asylum of the oppressed of all nations—should be fostered and encouraged by a liberal and just policy.

12. This convention declares itself in sympathy with all oppressed peoples struggling for their rights.

13. We highly commend the spirit of magnanimity and forbearance with which men who have served in the Rebellion, but who now frankly and honestly co-operate with us in restoring the peace of the country and reconstructing the Southern State governments upon the basis of impartial justice and equal rights, are received back into the communion of the loyal people; and we favor the removal of the disqualifications and restrictions imposed upon the late rebels in the same measure as the spirit of disloyalty will die out, and as may be consistent with the safety of the loyal people.

14. We recognize the great principles laid down in the immortal Declaration of Independence as the true foundation of Democratic government; and we hail with gladness every effort toward making these principles a living reality on every inch of American soil.

The convention then proceeded to make nominations, and after an able and impassioned speech by General Logan presenting General Grant’s name, the roll was called and every vote responded in favor of Grant, giving 650 in all. As soon as the vote was announced, a curtain on the rear of the stage was lifted, presenting a heroic picture of Grant, and the convention responded to the nomination and the picture of the Great Captain with deafening cheers.

There was a spirited contest for the Vice-Presidency. Wade, of Ohio, had the lead, and Fenton, of New York, Wilson, of Massachusetts, and Colfax, of Indiana, all started with a very promising vote. I was chairman of the Pennsylvania delegation, and in obedience to the unanimous instructions of the State, presented to the convention the name of Andrew G. Curtin for second place on the ticket. It soon became evident that the contest would be between Wade and Colfax, and when the struggle was thus narrowed Colfax won an easy victory. The following table presents the several ballots for Vice-President: