Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2

by George Frisbie Hoar

CHAPTER II PRESIDENT HAYES

President Hayes's Administration began under circumstances of peculiar difficulty. In the first Congress of his term the Democrats had a majority in the House. They had refused to pass the Army Appropriation Bill the winter before and would not consent to such a bill in the following winter without a condition that no military force should be used to maintain order at elections, or to keep in power state governments obnoxious to them. But his worst foes were of his own household. There were two factions among the Republicans, one led by Mr. Blaine and the other by Conkling and Cameron. Blaine and Conkling had been disappointed aspirants for the Presidency. Mr. Hayes and his advisers were in favor of what was called reform in the civil service and utterly rejected the claim of Senators and Representatives to dictate nominations to executive and judicial offices. With the exception of Stanley Matthews of Ohio and my colleague, Mr. Dawes, I was, I believe, the only cordial supporter of the President in the Senate.

Mr. Blaine was disposed, I think, in the beginning, to give the President his support. But he was rendered exceedingly indignant by the refusal of President Hayes to appoint Mr. Frye to a seat in the Cabinet, which Mr. Blaine desired, as it would smooth the way of Mr. Eugene Hale, his most intimate friend and strongest supporter, to succeed Mr. Hamlin in the Senate. President Hayes was willing to appoint Mr. Hale to a Cabinet office. But Mr. Hale, I think very wisely, declined the overture, as he had before declined the tender of a seat in the Cabinet from President Grant. He would have made an excellent Cabinet officer. But he was specially fitted for the more agreeable and permanent public service of Senator. I do not know what occasioned President Hayes's reluctance to comply with Mr. Blaine's desire. But it was a fortunate decision for Mr. Frye. If he had gone into the Cabinet, in all likelihood the people of Maine would have chosen another Senator when Mr. Blaine became Secretary of State under Garfield in 1881, and according to the habit of the people of that State would have continued him in their service. So Mr. Frye's brilliant and useful career in the Senate would have been wanting to the history of the Republic.

I had myself something to do with the selection of the Cabinet. I had been a member of the Convention held at Cincinnati that had nominated President Hayes. The Massachusetts delegation had turned the scale between him and Blaine. Their votes gave him the slender majority to which he owed his nomination. I had also been a member of the Electoral Commission to which the contest between him and Tilden had been submitted and I had been on the committee that framed the bill under which that Commission was created. I had voted with the Democrats of the House to support that bill against the judgment of a large majority of the Republicans. I agreed with President Hayes in the matter of a reform in the civil service and in his desire to free the Executive power from the trammel of senatorial dictation.

I had formed a strong friendship with Mr. McCrary in the House of Representatives and had earnestly commended him to the President for appointment to the office of Attorney-General. I did not expect to make any other recommendation. There had been an unfortunate estrangement between the Republicans of Massachusetts and of Maine by reason of the refusal of the Massachusetts delegation to support Mr. Blaine for the Presidency. I thought it desirable for the interest of the Republican Party that that breach should be healed and especially desirable that the incoming administration, so beset with difficulty, should have the powerful support of Mr. Blaine and of those Republicans of whom he was the leader and favorite. So I thought it best that he should be consulted in the matter of the selection of a Cabinet officer from New England and that I should keep aloof.

But the day after President Hayes's inauguration, rather late in the afternoon, Mr. Blaine came into the Senate Chamber and told me with some appearance of excitement that he thought the President wanted to see the Massachusetts Senators. I did not, however, act upon that message, and did not go to the White House that day. I was at my room in the evening when Senator Morrill of Vermont came and told me that President Hayes wished him to inquire of me what Massachusetts man I desired to have appointed to a place in the Cabinet. I told Mr. Morrill that there were two gentlemen of great capacity and high character, either of whom would make an excellent Cabinet officer. One of them was William B. Washburn, and the other Alexander H. Rice. Each of them had held the office of Governor of the Commonwealth, and each of them had been a very eminent member of the House of Representatives. But I said that each belonged to what might be called a separate faction or division in the Republican Party, and the appointment of either would be distasteful to some of the supporters of the other. I added that there was one man of whom I thought very highly indeed, an intimate friend of mine, whose appointment I thought would give pleasure to everybody in Massachusetts. That was General Charles Devens, then Judge of the Supreme Court, a very eminent advocate and orator, and one of the most distinguished soldiers the State had sent into the war.

Mr. Morrill went back to the President with the message. Early the next morning I received notice from the White House that the President wished to see me. I complied with his desire at once. Mr. Dawes had also been sent for and was there. The President said he could offer General Devens the Department of War, or perhaps the Navy. Mr. Dawes thought that he would not be willing to accept the latter. I told the President that I thought he would; that General Devens was a native of Charlestown. He had always taken a great interest in the Navy. He had known a great many of the old and famous naval officers, and some of his near relatives had been in that service. But the President finally authorized me to send a telegram to General Devens offering him the Department of War. I sent the telegram and requested Devens to come at once to Washington, which he did. At the same time, the President stated his purpose to offer Mr. McCrary the Department of Justice. In the course of the day, however, it was reported to the President that Mr. McCrary had formed a decided opinion in favor of the McGarrahan claim, a claim which affected large and valuable mining properties in California. Most persons who had investigated the claim believed it to be utterly fraudulent. There were many persons of great influence who were interested in the mining property affected. They strongly appealed to the President not to place in the office of Attorney-General a man who was committed in favor of the claim. The President then asked me if I thought General Devens would be willing to accept the office of Attorney-General, and exchange it for that of Secretary of War later, when the McGarrahan claim had been disposed of so far as Executive action was concerned. I told the President that I thought he would. When General Devens arrived I stated the case to him. He said he should be unwilling to agree to such an arrangement. He would be willing to accept the office in the beginning, but if he were to give up the office of Attorney-General after having once undertaken it, he might be thought to have failed to discharge his duties to the satisfaction of the President, or that of the public. He was unwilling to take that risk.

So the President determined to offer the Department of Justice to General Devens, and the Department of War to Mr. McCrary, a good deal to the disappointment of the latter. All McCrary's ambitions in life were connected with his profession. He took the first opportunity to leave the Executive Department for a judicial career.

The other members of the Cabinet were: William M. Evarts,
Secretary of State; John Sherman, Secretary of the Treasury;
Carl Schurz, Secretary of the Interior; David M. Key, Postmaster-
General; Richard M. Thompson, of Indiana, Secretary of the
Navy.

President Hayes was a simple-hearted, sincere, strong and wise man. He is the only President of the United States who promised, when he was a candidate for office, not to be a candidate again, who kept his pledge. He carried out the principles of Civil Service Reform more faithfully than any other President before or since down to the accession of President Roosevelt. General Grant in his "Memoirs" praises the soldierly quality of President Hayes very highly. He was made Brigadier- General on the recommendation of Sheridan, and brevetted Major- General for gallant and distinguished services. He wrote, after the Presidential election, to John Sherman, as follows: "You feel, I am sure, as I do about this whole business. A fair election would have given us about forty electoral votes at the South, at least that many; but we must not allow our friends to defeat one outrage by another. There must be nothing curved on our part. Let Mr. Tilden have the place by violence, intimidation and fraud rather than undertake to prevent it by means that will not bear the severest scrutiny."

He upheld the good faith of the nation in his veto of the bill to authorize the coinage of the silver dollar of 412-1/2 grains, and to restore its legal tender character in 1879; and in his veto of the bill violating our treaty with China. He grew steadily in public favor with all parties, and with all parts of the country, as his Administration went on. Under his Administration the resumption of specie payments was accomplished; and, in spite of the great difficulties caused by the factional opposition in his own party, he handed down his office to a Republican successor.

The weakness and folly of the charge against the decision of the Electoral Commission, that it was unconstitutional or fraudulent, and the fact that the American people were never impressed by these charges, is shown by the fact that General Garfield, one of the majority who gave that decision, was elected to succeed President Hayes, and that six of the eight members of that majority, now dead, maintained, every one them, throughout their honored and useful lives, the respect and affection of their countrymen, without distinction of party. Certainly there can be found among the great men of that great generation no more pure and brilliant lights than Samuel F. Miller, William Strong, Joseph P. Bradley, Frederick T. Frelinghuysen, Oliver P. Morton and James A. Garfield. There are two survivors of that majority, Mr. Edmunds and myself. Neither has found that the respect in which his countrymen held him has been diminished by that decision.

President Hayes has been accused of abandoning the reconstruction policy of his party. It has also been said that he showed a want of courage in failing to support the Republican State Governments in Louisiana and South Carolina; that if the votes of those States were cast for him they were cast for Packard and Chamberlain at the elections for Governor held the same day, and that he should have declined the Presidency, or have maintained these Governors in place. But these charges are, at the least, inconsiderate, not the say ignorant. It ought to be said also that President Grant before he left office had determined to do in regard to these State Governments exactly what Hayes afterward did, and that Hayes acted with his full approval. Second, I have the authority of President Garfield for saying that Mr. Blaine had come to the same conclusion. The Monday morning after the electoral count had been completed and the result declared, Blaine had a long talk with Garfield, which Garfield reported to me. He told him that he had made up his mind, if he had been elected, to offer the office of Secretary of State to Mr. Evarts, or, if anything prevented that, to Judge Hoar. He further said that he thought it was time to discontinue maintaining Republican State Governments in office by the National power and that the people of the Southern States must settle their State elections for themselves. Mr. Blaine by his disappointment in the formation of President Hayes's Cabinet was induced to make an attack on him which seems inconsistent with this declaration. But Mr. Blaine soon abandoned this ground, and, so far as I now remember, never afterward advocated interference with the control of the Southern States by National authority. It seems to me that President Hayes did only what his duty under the Constitution peremptorily demanded of him. I entirely approved his conduct at the time, and, so far as I know and believe, he agreed exactly with the doctrine on which I always myself acted before and since. The power and duty of the President are conferred and limited by the Constitution. The Constitution requires that no appropriation shall be made for the support of the Army for more than two years. In practice the appropriation is never for more than one year. That is for the express purpose, I have always believed, of giving to Congress, especially to the House of Representatives, which must inaugurate all appropriation bills, absolute control over the use of the Army, and the power to determine for what purposes the military power shall be used. At the session before President Hayes's inauguration the Democratic House of Representatives had refused to pass an Army Bill. The House refused to pass an Army Bill the next year, except on condition that the soldiers should not be used to support the State Government.

It became necessary to call a special session of Congress in October, 1877, by reason of the failure of the Army Appropriation Bill the winter before. The first chapter of the Statutes of that session, being an act making appropriations for the support of the Army for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1878, and for other purposes, enacts "that none of the money hereby appropriated shall be expended, directly or indirectly, for any use not strictly necessary for, and directly connected with, the military service of the Government; and this restriction shall apply to the use of public animals, forage, and vehicles."

It was, therefore, President Hayes's Constitutional duty, in my judgment, to desist from using the military power of the Government on the 30th day of June, 1877, when the fiscal year expired for which there was an appropriation for the support of the Army. In fact he removed the troops a little earlier. But he received assurances from the Democratic leaders— whether they were made good I will not now undertake to inquire— that there should be no unlawful force on their part after the removal of the troops. Mr. Hayes was right and wise in securing this stipulation if he could, by freeing these communities from military grasp a few weeks before he would have been compelled to do it at any rate. Obedience to this clear mandate of Constitutional duty was not in the least inconsistent with a faithful and vigorous use of all the other powers which were lodged in his hands by the Constitution for securing the rights of the colored people, or the purity and integrity of National elections. It is true that substantially the same vote elected Packard of Louisiana as that which chose the Hayes electors. But the authority to declare who is the President lawfully chosen, and the Constitutional power to maintain the Governor in his seat by force are lodged in very different hands. The latter can only be used by the National Executive under the circumstances specially described in the Constitution, and it can never be used by him for any considerable period of time contrary to the will of Congress, and without powers put in his hands by legislation which must originate in the body which represents the people.

The infinite sweetness and tact of his wife contributed greatly to the success of the Administration of President Hayes. She was a woman of great personal beauty. Her kindness of heart knew no difference between the most illustrious and the humblest of her guests. She accomplished what would have been impossible to most women, the maintenance of a gracious and delightful hospitality while strictly adhering to her principles of total abstinence, and rigorously excluding all wines and intoxicating liquors from the White House during her administration. The old wine drinkers of Washington did not take to the innovation very kindly. But they had to console themselves with a few jests or a little grumbling. The caterer or chef in charge of the State dinners took compassion on the infirmity of our nature so far as to invent for one of the courses which came about midway of the State dinner, a box made of the frozen skin of an orange. When it was opened you found instead of the orange a punch or sherbet into which as much rum was crowded as it could contain without being altogether liquid. This was known as the life-saving station.

Somebody who met Mr. Evarts just after he had been at a dinner at the White House asked him how it went off. "Excellently," was the reply, "the water flowed like champagne."