Part 25

═══════════════╤═══════════════════╦═════════════════ │ POPULAR VOTE. ║ ELECTORAL VOTE. STATES. ├─────────┬─────────╫────────┬──────── │ Grant. │ Seymour.║ Grant. │Seymour. ───────────────┼─────────┼─────────╫────────┼──────── Maine │ 70,426 │ 42,396 ║ 7 │ ―― New Hampshire │ 38,191 │ 31,224 ║ 5 │ ―― Vermont │ 44,167 │ 12,045 ║ 5 │ ―― Massachusetts │ 136,477 │ 59,408 ║ 12 │ ―― Rhode Island │ 12,993 │ 6,548 ║ 4 │ ―― Connecticut │ 50,641 │ 47,600 ║ 6 │ ―― New York │ 419,883 │ 429,883 ║ ―― │ 33 New Jersey │ 80,121 │ 83,001 ║ ―― │ 7 Pennsylvania │ 342,280 │ 313,382 ║ 26 │ ―― Delaware │ 7,623 │ 10,980 ║ ―― │ 3 Maryland │ 30,438 │ 62,357 ║ ―― │ 7 Virginia[20] │ ―――――― │ ―――――― ║ ―― │ ―― West Virginia │ 29,025 │ 20,306 ║ 5 │ ―― North Carolina │ 96,226 │ 84,090 ║ 9 │ ―― South Carolina │ 62,301 │ 45,237 ║ 6 │ ―― Georgia │ 57,134 │ 102,822 ║ ―― │ 9 Florida[21] │ ―――――― │ ―――――― ║ 3 │ ―― Alabama │ 76,366 │ 72,086 ║ 8 │ ―― Mississippi[20]│ ―――――― │ ―――――― ║ ―― │ ―― Louisiana │ 33,263 │ 80,225 ║ ―― │ 7 Texas[20] │ ―――――― │ ―――――― ║ ―― │ ―― Arkansas │ 22,152 │ 19,078 ║ 5 │ ―― Missouri │ 85,671 │ 59,788 ║ 11 │ ―― Tennessee │ 56,757 │ 26,311 ║ 10 │ ―― Kentucky │ 39,566 │ 115,889 ║ ―― │ 11 Ohio │ 280,128 │ 238,700 ║ 21 │ ―― Michigan │ 128,550 │ 97,069 ║ 8 │ ―― Indiana │ 176,552 │ 166,980 ║ 13 │ ―― Illinois │ 250,293 │ 199,143 ║ 16 │ ―― Wisconsin │ 108,857 │ 84,710 ║ 8 │ ―― Minnesota │ 43,542 │ 28,072 ║ 4 │ ―― Iowa │ 120,399 │ 74,040 ║ 8 │ ―― Nebraska │ 9,729 │ 5,439 ║ 3 │ ―― Kansas │ 31,049 │ 14,019 ║ 3 │ ―― Nevada │ 6,480 │ 5,218 ║ 3 │ ―― California │ 54,592 │ 54,078 ║ 5 │ ―― Oregon │ 10,961 │ 11,125 ║ ―― │ 3 ├─────────┼─────────╫────────┼─────── Totals │3,012,833│2,703,249║ 214 │ 80 ═══════════════╧═════════╧═════════╩════════╧═══════

[20] Did not vote.

[21] Chosen by Legislature.

There was dispute as to the right of some of the Southern States to participate in the election. It will be seen that West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, and Kentucky had all participated in the election. Fortunately, the disputed States did not in any way affect the result, and Congress passed a joint resolution declaring that none of the rebellious States should be entitled to electoral votes, unless at the time of the election they had adopted Constitutions since the 4th of March, 1867, and had an organized State Government, and unless such States had representation in Congress under the Reconstruction laws. Of course, President Johnson vetoed the measure, but it was promptly passed over the veto by both branches of Congress, and became a law. By that resolution, Virginia, Mississippi, and Texas were absolutely excluded from the election.

The other Southern States had representation in Congress, with the exception of Georgia. The question whether Georgia should be permitted to have her vote counted resulted in a very serious dispute, on which the Senate and the House divided, but Mr. Wade, President of the Senate, in declaring the result, counted the vote of Georgia and precipitated a very disgraceful scene, in which General Butler most offensively assailed the presiding officer. There was no question whatever as to the election of Grant and Colfax, and Congress duly declared them President and Vice-President of the United States.

The contest of 1868 crystallized the “Greenback” sentiment of the country under the leadership of George H. Pendleton, who was the nominee for Vice-President with McClellan in 1864, and who expected to capture the Democratic National Convention of 1868, to nominate himself for President on the Greenback platform. The Pendleton followers were the hustlers of that convention, and they were all decorated with a badge that was an imitation of the greenback. Gold had been at a high premium during the war, and was at a considerable premium in 1868, with resumption apparently very far off. The cheap-money idea had been industriously impressed upon the people by the demagogues of that day, and as many of the obligations of the United States were payable only in lawful money, while the bonds issued during the war were payable in coin, it was easy to make plausible appeal to the prejudices of the industrial classes, who were paying very high prices for all the necessaries of life.

This theory had been very widely discussed by the various shades of opposition to the Republicans, but the Pendleton movement for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency dignified it as a national issue, and it succeeded in making the New York Democratic platform go more than half way in favor of repudiation of our obligations by payment in greenbacks. The greenback issue thus vitalized became a very important one in many of the States and caused strange political revolutions, such as the election of Democratic Governors and Democratic Legislatures in Maine and Ohio.

It is doubtful whether the Republicans could have been lined up squarely in the support of the national credit with any other candidate than Grant, and one of the first acts that he signed as President distinctly provided for the payment in coin of all bonds of the Government bearing interest, and declared also that specie payments should be resumed as speedily as practicable. The Greenback party not only figured largely in State politics, but became formidable as a third party in national contests, and the free-silver theory of to-day is simply the old greenback issue of cheap money in another form.

THE GRANT-GREELEY CONTEST

1872

General Grant was a thorough soldier, with little qualification for civil duties and a natural distaste for politics. I doubt whether he had any defined political policy when he entered the Presidency. He believed in maintaining the credit of the Government, and accepted in a conservative way the general policy of the Republican party, but he knew little or nothing of the political leadership of the nation, and his friends generally felt that the success of his administration would depend very largely upon surrounding him with a Cabinet composed of the ablest and most sagacious men of the party, but Grant cherished no such ideas himself. He evidently assumed that politics could be run by general orders, as an army could be commanded, and it was that mistake that alienated a very large portion of the Republicans from him in the early period of his administration, and culminated in the Liberal Republican Convention at Cincinnati in 1872.

I had frequently met General Grant before his nomination and election to the Presidency, but only in the most casual way on social occasions, and never had any conversation with him, either on politics generally or on his candidacy for the Presidency. I was earnestly in favor of his nomination and election, because I believed that calling him to the Presidency would do more to reconcile the South and give better assurance of sectional tranquillity than the election of any of the leading Republican statesmen of that day. I had just changed my residence to Philadelphia, having suffered serious financial disaster in the burning of Chambersburg by McCausland, and it was my settled purpose after Grant’s election to cease active participation in politics and devote my efforts wholly to my profession.

My first and only meeting with Grant before his retirement from the Presidency, at which we had any protracted conversation, was a short time before his inauguration. Chief Justice Read, of Pennsylvania, handed me a letter, addressed to the President-elect, and asked me to deliver it in person when I next visited Washington. I did not know its contents, but inferred that it related to the appointment of Curtin to a Cabinet office. A few days thereafter when in Washington I called upon General Grant at his headquarters and delivered the letter, and after a very brief conversation, rose to take my leave. He had opened the letter in the meantime, and as I reached the door he called me back, saying that Judge Read’s letter strongly urged the appointment of Curtin to the Cabinet, and that he desired to tell me frankly as a close friend of Curtin why he could not meet the wishes of the many friends of Curtin by giving him a Cabinet portfolio. He spoke very highly of Curtin, and showed his appreciation of Curtin’s position by nominating him as Minister to Russia at an early day after his inauguration, and against the protest of Senator Cameron. In the course of the conversation I saw Grant’s crude theory of conducting a national administration. He said that his Cabinet officers would be his official confidential family, and he desired to appoint them entirely in accordance with his personal preferences. I said to him that it was certainly his right to have only men in his Cabinet who were entirely agreeable to himself, but that it was very important for him to have the ablest politicians of the country largely represented in it, to save his administration from the many political complications which would otherwise confront him.

I saw that Grant was not a willing listener to any suggestions, although given in the most courteous manner, and he answered with a somewhat liberal display of what some called “obstinacy” and others called “determination,” as one of the leading attributes of his character. I then spoke more freely and frankly, and finally said to him that if I were suddenly called to the command of the army, with little or no military experience, I would feel that my greatest need was generals; and I added that it was in no measure disrespectful to him to say that, having been called from the command of the army to the Presidency of the Republic, without experience in high civil duties, his greatest need was statesmen. The advice was not grateful to Grant; on the contrary, he was obviously fretted, as none of the many who sought favors at his hands had ventured to tell him the truth so plainly. When the conversation ended he gave me a moderately cordial good-by, and I never again met him, excepting once at the large banquet given by Mr. Childs on the evening after the opening of the Philadelphia Centennial in 1876, until soon after he had retired from his eight years’ service in the Presidency, and never had any communication with him.

I opposed his renomination, participated in the Liberal Republican Convention that nominated Greeley, had charge of the Greeley campaign in Pennsylvania, and labored very earnestly for Grant’s defeat in 1872. On the day that he retired from the Presidency I had an editorial in the Philadelphia _Times_, speaking of General Grant as history would record his achievements, and of necessity highly complimentary to him. A few days thereafter I met him with Mr. Childs at the Continental Hotel, and he came forward in a manner that was unusually demonstrative for Grant, and was profuse in his thanks for the editorial referred to. He said that he specially valued it because it came from one who had been among his severest critics during his Presidential term, and he ended by inviting me to lunch with him at Mr. Drexel’s office that afternoon.

I willingly accepted the invitation and spent two hours with Grant, most of the time alone after Mr. Drexel and Mr. Childs had left us. I was surprised to find him one of the most agreeable of conversationalists, and he discussed politics generally and the Hayes-Tilden contest with a degree of frankness and intelligence that surprised me. He said that he confidently expected the Electoral Commission to give the vote of Louisiana to Mr. Tilden, but that as Chief Magistrate it was his duty only to maintain the law, and that when the law of the nation made the Electoral Commission a final tribunal for the settlement of the dispute, he would have maintained that judgment with all the power of the Government.

I was specially gratified at this interview to have a particular prejudice that I had cherished against Grant since 1864 entirely dissipated by a conversation into which I cautiously led him on the Lincoln-McClellan campaign of 1864. I have stated in another chapter that Mr. Lincoln hesitated in October, 1864, to send an order to General Grant to furlough five thousand of his Pennsylvania soldiers home to vote for President, and sent it to Meade. I had known how Lincoln had sustained Grant after the battle of Shiloh, when Grant had few friends and none outside of Lincoln able to sustain him. When Lincoln hesitated to send the order to Grant, I spoke very freely and reminded Lincoln how he had saved Grant, and wanted to know why he could not now trust the man who would have been overwhelmed but for the generous and heroic offices of Lincoln. Lincoln finally answered that he had never received or heard of any expression from General Grant expressing a preference for his election over General McClellan. Lincoln certainly at that time doubted Grant’s attitude in that contest, and having been one of the many who had urged Lincoln to remove Grant from his command after Shiloh, I could not fail to cherish some prejudice against Grant as wanting in fidelity to Lincoln.

In our general discussion of politics I remarked that he had very studiously avoided all political expression during the war, and that I had specially noted his silence during the campaign of 1864 between Lincoln and McClellan. His answer was prompt and given evidently in the frankest manner, as he said substantially: “Of course, I could not with propriety give any public expression in a political contest where one candidate had given me the highest commission in the army and the other candidate had been my predecessor in command of the army.” The answer was given in such simple earnestness that I never thereafter doubted Grant’s fidelity to Lincoln, although Lincoln certainly was disappointed that Grant gave no expression during the campaign. On the night of Lincoln’s election Grant sent him a very hearty telegram of congratulation.

President Grant drifted into a political control that ultimately made his administration intensely sectional and factional, and during his first administration he was intolerant of criticism, and often openly disregarded Republican sentiment in sustaining many of his favorites, who brought scandals upon his rule. On great questions, however, Grant certainly was great. He conceived the idea of territorial expansion that has been so successfully carried out by the present administration with the hearty approval of an overwhelming majority of the people. He made an earnest movement for the annexation of San Domingo, and he gave exhaustive public and private efforts to attain it. This policy was severely criticised by some of the leading members of the party, prominent among whom were Sumner and Greeley, and the San Domingo scheme was ridiculed from one end of the country to the other as a wild, visionary, political enterprise, designed to give place and fortune to administration favorites.

So bitter did the Republican national feud become that the anti-administration leaders decided to take the initiative in opposing Grant’s re-election. At no time in the history of any administration was the political machinery of the Government so complete and despotic as it was under Grant, although not in any degree personally directed by himself, and it was well known that the opposition would have little voice in the regular Republican convention, and that it was entirely powerless to prevent Grant being presented as the Republican nominee.

The first national conventions of the year were held at Columbus, O., in February. The Labor Reformers were first in the field, as their convention was held at Columbus on the 21st of February, with Edward M. Chamberlain, of Massachusetts, as President. This convention was made up largely or wholly of men who believed in the greenback policy, as it demanded an indefinite issue of greenbacks, which would be a legal tender for the payment of all public and private debts. The following is the full text of its platform:

We hold that all political power is inherent in the people, and free government is founded on their authority and established for their benefit; that all citizens are equal in political rights, entitled to the largest religious and political liberty compatible with the good order of society, as also to the use and enjoyment of the fruits of their labor and talents; and no man or set of men is entitled to exclusive separable endowments and privileges, or immunities from the Government, but in consideration of public services; and any laws destructive of these fundamental principles are without moral binding force, and should be repealed. And believing that all the evils resulting from unjust legislation now affecting the industrial classes can be removed by the adoption of the principles contained in the following declaration, therefore,

_Resolved_, That it is the duty of the Government to establish a just standard of distribution of capital and labor by providing a purely national circulating medium, based on the faith and resources of the nation, issued directly to the people without the intervention of any system of banking corporations; which money shall be legal tender in the payment of all debts, public and private, and interchangeable at the option of the holder for Government bonds bearing a rate of interest not to exceed 3.65 per cent., subject to future legislation by Congress.

2. That the national debt should be paid in good faith, according to the original contract, at the earliest option of the Government, without mortgaging the property of the people or the future earnings of labor, to enrich a few capitalists at home and abroad.

3. That justice demands that the burdens of Government should be so adjusted as to bear equally on all classes, and that the exemption from taxation of Government bonds bearing extortionate rates of interest is a violation of all just principles of revenue laws.

4. That the public lands of the United States belong to the people and should not be sold to individuals nor granted to corporations, but should be held as a sacred trust for the benefit of the people, and should be granted to landless settlers only, in amounts not exceeding one hundred and sixty acres of land.

5. That Congress should modify the tariff so as to admit free such articles of common use as we can neither produce nor grow, and lay duties for revenue mainly upon articles of luxury and upon such articles of manufacture as will, we having the raw materials in abundance, assist in further developing the resources of the country.

6. That the presence in our country of Chinese laborers, imported by capitalists in large numbers for servile use, is an evil, entailing want and its attendant train of misery and crime on all classes of the American people, and should be prohibited by legislation.

7. That we ask for the enactment of a law by which all mechanics and day-laborers employed by or on behalf of the Government, whether directly or indirectly, through persons, firms, or corporations, contracting with the State, shall conform to the reduced standard of eight hours a day, recently adopted by Congress for national employés, and also for an amendment to the acts of incorporation for cities and towns, by which all laborers and mechanics employed at their expense shall conform to the same number of hours.

8. That the enlightened spirit of the age demands the abolition of the system of contract labor in our prisons and other reformatory institutions.

9. That the protection of life, liberty, and property are the three cardinal principles of government, and the first two are more sacred than the latter; therefore money needed for prosecuting wars should, as it is required, be assessed and collected from the wealth of the country, and not entailed as a burden upon posterity.

10. That it is the duty of the Government to exercise its power over railroads and telegraph corporations, that they shall not in any case be privileged to exact such rates of freight, transportation, or charges, by whatever name, as may bear unduly or unequally upon the producer or consumer.

11. That there should be such a reform in the civil service of the national Government as will remove it beyond all partisan influence, and place it in the charge and under the direction of intelligent and competent business men.

12. That as both history and experience teach us that power ever seeks to perpetuate itself by every and all means, and that its prolonged possession in the hands of one person is always dangerous to the interests of a free people, and believing that the spirit of our organic laws and the stability and safety of our free institutions are best obeyed on the one hand and secured on the other by a regular constitutional change in the chief of the country at each election; therefore, we are in favor of limiting the occupancy of the Presidential chair to one term.

13. That we are in favor of granting general amnesty and restoring the Union at once on the basis of equality of rights and privileges to all, the impartial administration of justice being the only true bond of union to bind the States together and restore the government of the people.

14. That we demand the subjection of the military to the civil authorities, and the confinement of its operations to national purposes alone.

15. That we deem it expedient for Congress to supervise the patent laws, so as to give labor more fully the benefit of its own ideas and inventions.

16. That fitness, and not political or personal considerations, should be the only recommendation to public office, either appointive or elective, and any and all laws looking to the establishment of this principle are heartily approved.

Four ballots were had to nominate a candidate for President, resulting in the choice of David Davis, of Illinois. The following table exhibits the ballots in detail:

═══════════════════════════════════╤════════╤════════╤════════╤═══════ │ First. │ Second.│ Third. │Fourth. ───────────────────────────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼─────── John W. Geary, of Pennsylvania │ 60 │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― Horace H. Day, of New York │ 59 │ 21 │ 59 │ 3 David Davis, of Illinois │ 47 │ 88 │ 93 │ 201 Wendell Phillips, of Massachusetts │ 13 │ 76 │ 12 │ ―― J. M. Palmer, of Illinois │ 8 │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― Joel Parker, of New Jersey │ 7 │ 7 │ 7 │ 7 George W. Julian, of Indiana │ 6 │ 1 │ 5 │ ―― B. Gratz Brown, of Missouri │ ―― │ ―― │ 14 │ ―― Horace Greeley, of New York │ ―― │ ―― │ 11 │ ―― ═══════════════════════════════════╧════════╧════════╧════════╧═══════

Two ballots were had for Vice-President, as follows: