CHAPTER XV.
The stirring events which preceded the Presidential campaign of 1868 brought both parties to that contest with aroused feeling and earnest purpose. The passionate struggle of which President Johnson was the centre, had inspired the Republicans with an ardor and a resolution scarcely surpassed during the intense period of the war. The failure, on the 16th of May, to find the President guilty as charged in the Eleventh Article of Impeachment, was received by the public as a general acquittal, without waiting for the vote of the 26th. A large proportion of the delegates to the Republican National Convention which met at Chicago on the 20th of May, gathered under the influence of keen disappointment at the President's escape from what they believed to be merited punishment. Though baffled in their hope of deposing the man whom they regarded with the resentment that always follows the political apostate, they were none the less animated by the high spirit which springs from conscious strength and power. They were the representatives of an aggressive and triumphant party, and felt that though suffering an unexpected chagrin they were moving forward with certainty to a new and brilliant victory. The chief work of the Convention was determined in advance. The selection of General Grant as the candidate for the Presidency had for months been clearly foreshadowed and universally accepted by the Republican party. At an earlier stage there had been an effort to direct public thought towards some candidate who was more distinctively a party chief, and who held more pronounced political views; but public sentiment pointed so unmistakably and irresistibly to General Grant that this effort was found to be hopeless and was speedily abandoned. The enthusiasm for General Grant was due to something more than the mere fact that he was the chief hero of the war. It rested upon broader ground than popular gratitude for his military services—great as that sentiment was. During the conflict between Congress and the President, General Grant had been placed in a trying position, and he had borne himself with a discretion and dignity which deepened the popular confidence in his sound judgment and his tact. The people felt that besides the great qualities he had displayed in war, he was peculiarly fitted to lead in restoring peace and the reign of law.
Though the main work of the Convention was simply to ratify the popular choice, the party sent many conspicuous men as delegates. Joseph R. Hawley, William Claflin, Eugene Hale, George B. Loring, and William E. Chandler were present from the New-England States. New York was especially strong in the number of its prominent men. General Daniel E. Sickles, with his honorable war record, Lyman Tremaine, who had been Attorney-General of the State, Charles Andrews, since its Chief Justice, Moses H. Grinnell, Chauncey M. Depew, Ellis H. Roberts, Frank Hiscock, and others of scarcely less rank made up the notable delegation. Pennsylvania sent Colonel Forney and General Harry White, while Colonel A. K. McClure appeared in the Convention as a substitute. Maryland sent John A. J. Creswell, afterward in General Grant's Cabinet. John A. Bingham came from Ohio. The Indiana delegation included Richard W. Thompson and Senator Henry S. Lane. John A. Logan and Emory A. Storrs represented the great State of which General Grant was a citizen. Governor Van Zandt of Rhode Island, Senator Cattell and Cortlandt L. Parker of New Jersey, Ex-Attorney-General Speed of Kentucky, Carl Schurz and Governor Fletcher of Missouri, added strength and character to the roll of delegates.
The Convention rapidly completed its work, being in session but two days. The opening speech by the Chairman of the National Committee, Governor Ward of New Jersey, was short and pointed. He expressed the dominant thought in the minds of all when he said: "If, as indicated by the unanimity of feeling which prevails here, you shall designate as our leader the great Captain of the age, whose achievements in the field have been equaled by his wisdom in the Cabinet, the Nation will greet is as the precursor of victory to our cause, of peace to the Republic." Carl Schurz was selected as temporary chairman, and his speech reflected the prevalent feeling of all Republicans. He exulted in the great achievements of the party, now freshly recalled in its first National Convention since the successful close of the war, and proclaimed its purpose to finish and perfect the work of reconstructing the Union on the broad basis of equal rights.
For permanent President of the Convention General Sickles and General Hawley had both been prominently mentioned and warmly advocated. The vote between them in the committee on permanent organization was a tie. But New York bent every thing to the purpose of nominating Governor Fenton for the Vice-Presidency, and feared that the selection of General Sickles for the highest honor of the Convention might prejudice his chances. By the casting vote of Hamilton Harris of Albany, a special friend of Governor Fenton and a man of marked sagacity in political affairs, the choice fell upon General Hawley. His speech on taking the chair was earnest and impressive. He briefly reviewed what the party had accomplished, in war and in peace, and emphasized the obligation of crowning these triumphs with the permanent establishment of equal and exact justice. He was especially forcible in rebuking the current financial heresies and in insisting that the full demands of the Nation's honor should be scrupulously observed. "For every dollar of the national debt," he declared, "the blood of a soldier is pledged." "Every bond, in letter and in spirit, must be as sacred as a soldier's grave." As these patriotic maxims were pronounced by General Hawley, the whole Convention broke forth in prolonged applause.
The platform, reported on the second day, succinctly stated the Republican policy. It made two principles conspicuous: first, equal suffrage; and second, the maintenance of the public faith. These were the pivots on which the political controversy of the year turned. They embraced the two supreme questions left by the war. The one involved the restoration of public liberty, in harmony with public safety, in the lately rebellious States. The other involved the honor of the Republic in observing its financial obligations. The Reconstruction policy rested on equal suffrage as its corner-stone, and the Convention congratulated the country on its established success, as shown by its acceptance already in a majority of the Southern States, and its assured acceptance in all. Equal suffrage was still regarded however rather as an expedient of security against disloyalty than as a measure of National right, rather as an incident to the power of re-organizing rebellious communities than as a subject of National jurisdiction for all the States.
The Fourteenth Amendment was about to be proclaimed, and would place American citizenship under Constitutional protection. The Fifteenth Amendment, ordaining equal political and civil rights, had not yet come. In this period of transition the platform asserted that the guarantee of suffrage to the loyal men of the South must be maintained, but that the question of suffrage in the loyal States belonged to the States themselves. This was an evasion of duty quite unworthy of the Republican party, with its record of consistent bravery through fourteen eventful years. It was a mere stroke of expediency to escape the prejudices which negro suffrage would encounter in a majority of the loyal States, and especially in Indiana and California, where a close vote was anticipated. The position carried with it an element of deception, because every intelligent man knew that it would be impossible to force negro suffrage on the Southern States by National authority, and leave the Northern States free to exclude it from their own domain. It was an extraordinary proposition that the South, after all the demoralization wrought by the war, should be called upon to exhibit a higher degree of political justice and virtue than the North was willing to practice.
On the financial issue the platform was earnest and emphatic. It denounced all forms of repudiation as a national crime, and demanded the payment of the public debt in the utmost good faith, according to the letter and the spirit of the law. The resolutions reflected universal Republican feeling in an impassioned arraignment of President Johnson. At the same time they commended the spirit of magnanimity and forbearance with which those who had taken up arms against the Union were received into fellowship with loyal men, and favored the removal of all political disabilities as rapidly as was consistent with public safety.
When the preliminary business of the Convention had been concluded, John A. Logan, in a vigorous and eloquent speech, presented the name of General Grant for President. On a call of the roll the nomination was repeated by the entire Convention without a dissenting voice. The announcement of his unanimous nomination was received with a great outburst of enthusiasm. The parallel to his unanimity could be found in but few instances in our political history, and it augured well for the success of the canvass in which General Grant was thus made the standard-bearer.
The absence of any contest on the chief nomination imparted unusual spirit and interest to the struggle for the Vice-Presidency. Three candidates were urged by their respective friends with great zeal and earnestness. Benjamin F. Wade, of Ohio, President pro tempore of the Senate, was already acting Vice-President. If the Impeachment trial had ended in the conviction of President Johnson, Mr. Wade would have succeeded him for the unexpired term, and from this coign of vantage would doubtless have secured the nomination for the second office. The failure of Impeachment, though fatal to his success, did not dissipate the support which his long services and marked fidelity had commanded, without any of the adventitious aids of power. He had entered the Senate seventeen years before and found there but four members devoted to the cause of free soil. Seward, Sumner, Chase, and John P. Hale had preceded him. Less favored than these senators in the advantages of early life, less powerful in debate, he yet brought to the common cause some qualities which they did not possess. His bluff address, his aggressive temper, his readiness to meet the champions of slavery in physical combat as well as in intellectual discussion, drew to him a large measure of popular admiration.
For several years Governor Fenton had been rising to leadership among New-York Republicans. His political skill had been shown while a member of the House, in forming the combination which made Galusha A. Grow Speaker of the Thirty-seventh Congress. Though not conspicuous in debate he had gained a high reputation as a sagacious counselor and a safe leader. Of Democratic antecedents, he had never been in favor with the political dynasty which so long ruled New York, and of which Thurlow Weed was the acknowledged head. With his conservative views that consummate politician could not keep pace with his party during the war, and thus lost the mastery which he had so long held without dispute. Thereupon Mr. Fenton quietly seized the sceptre which Mr. Weed had been compelled to relinquish. Elected Governor over Horatio Seymour in 1864, he was re-elected in 1866 over John T. Hoffman, and his four years in that exalted office not only increased his reputation but added largely to his political power. The New-York delegation to the National Convention was chosen under his own eye and was admirably fitted to serve its purpose. It was not only earnest in its loyalty but strong in character and ability. It embraced an unusual number of representative men, and with the favorable estimate which Republicans everywhere held of Governor Fenton's services and administration, their efforts made a marked impression upon the Convention.
The friends of Schuyler Colfax relied less on thorough organization and systematic work than upon the common judgment that he would be a fit and available candidate. He was then at the height of his successful career. He was in the third term of his Speakership, and had acquitted himself in that exacting place with ability and credit. Genial and cordial, with unfailing tact and aptitude, skilful in cultivating friendships and never provoking enmities, he had in a rare degree the elements that insure popularity. The absence of the more rugged and combative qualities which diminished his force in the stormy struggles of the House, served now to bring him fewer antagonisms as a candidate.
Beside the names of Wade, Fenton, and Colfax, two or three others were presented, though not so earnestly urged or so strongly supported. Senator Wilson of Massachusetts had warm friends and was fourth in the rank of candidates. Pennsylvania presented Governor Curtin, but with a divided and disorganized force which crippled at the outset the effort in his behalf. The delegation was nominally united for him, but fourteen of the number were friends of Senator Cameron, and were at heart hostile to Governor Curtin. Mr. J. Donald Cameron, son of the senator, appeared in person as a contesting delegate. The State Convention had assumed the authority to name the delegates from the several Congressional districts. Mr. Cameron denied that the State Convention had any such prerogative. He presented himself with the Dauphin credentials as the champion of the right of district representation. He was admitted to nothing more than an honorary seat, but the opposition of himself and his friends had the desired effect in preventing the candidacy of Governor Curtin from becoming formidable.
On the first ballot Mr. Wade led with 147 votes. Mr. Fenton was next with 126, Mr. Colfax followed with 125, and Mr. Wilson with 119. Mr. Curtin had 51, and the remainder were scattering. Several of the minor candidates immediately dropped out, and on the second ballot the vote for Wade was raised to 170, for Colfax to 145, and for Fenton to 144. The third and fourth ballots showed nearly equal gains for Wade and Colfax, while Fenton made no increase. All other names were withdrawn. Wade had been weakened by the fact that after the first ballot his own State of Ohio had given several votes for Colfax, to whom the tide now turned with great strength. Iowa was the first State to break solidly. Pennsylvania turned her vote to Colfax instead of Wade whose friends had confidently counted upon it. Other changes rapidly followed, until the fifth ballot, as finally announced, showed 541 for Colfax, 38 for Wade, and 69 for Fenton. The result was received with general and hearty satisfaction, and the Convention adjourned with undoubting faith in a great victory for Grant and Colfax. General Grant's brief letter of acceptance followed within a week, and its key-note was found in the memorable expression, "Let us have peace!" It was spoken in a way and came from a source which gave it peculiar strength and significance.
The Democratic National Convention of 1868 was invested with remarkable interest, less from any expectation that it would seriously contest and jeopard Republican ascendency, than from the several personal issues which entered into it, and the audacious public policies which would be urged upon it. The general drift of the party was clear and unmistakable, but its personal choice and the tone of its declarations would determine how bold a stand it would take before the country. Would it openly proclaim the doctrine of paying the public debt in depreciated paper money, and emphasize its action by nominating Mr. George H. Pendleton, the most distinct and conspicuous champion of the financial heresy? Would it attempt a discussion and review of its tendency and designs, and make what would approach a new departure, in appearance if not in fact, by going outside of its own ranks and nominating Chief Justice Chase? Would the recreancy of President Johnson to his own party and his hope of Democratic support find any considerable response? And aside from the issue of virtually repudiating the public debt, would the party now re-assert its hostile and revolutionary attitude towards the well-nigh completed work of Reconstruction? These various possibilities left a degree of uncertainty which surrounded the Convention with an atmosphere of curious expectation.
The movement most deliberately planned and most persistently pressed was that on behalf of Mr. Pendleton. The Greenback heresy had sprung up with rapid growth. The same influence which had resisted the issue of legal-tender notes during the war, when they were deemed vital to the National success, now demanded that they be used to pay the public debt, though depreciated far below the standard of coin. "The same currency for the bond-holder and the plough-holder" was a favorite cry in the mouths of many. This plausible and poisonous fallacy quickly took root in Ohio, whose political soil has often nourished rank and luxuriant outgrowth of Democratic heresies, and it came to be known distinctively as "The Ohio Idea." The apt response of the Republicans was, the best currency for both plough-holder and bond-holder! Mr. Pendleton was peculiarly identified with the Ohio Idea. If not its author he had been its zealous advocate, and had become widely known as its representative. The policy which typified the easy way of paying debts spread through the West and South, and brought to Mr. Pendleton a wide support. His popular address and attractive style of speech increased his strength as a candidate, and his partisans came to the Convention under the lead of able politicians, with the only movement which was well organized and which had positive and concentrated force behind it.
While the Pendleton canvass was earnestly, openly, and skilfully promoted it was also adroitly opposed. The keen and crafty politicians of New York were neither demonstrative nor frank in indicating their course, but they were watchful, sinuous, and efficient. Their plot was carefully concealed. They were ready to have a New-York candidate thrust upon them by other sections. If called upon to look outside of their own State and select from the list of avowed aspirants, they modestly suggested Mr. Hendricks of Indiana, a friend and co-laborer of Mr. Pendleton. But the favorite scheme in the inner councils of the New-York Regency, was to strike beyond the Democratic lines and nominate Chief Justice Chase. This proposition was little discussed in public, but was deeply pondered in private by influential members of the Democratic party. Mr. Chase himself presented no obstacle and no objection. He cherished an eager ambition to be President. He had desired and sought the Republican nomination in 1864, and though the overwhelming sentiment for Mr. Lincoln had soon driven him from the field, the differences he had encouraged led to his retirement from the Cabinet. His elevation to the highest judicial office in the land did not subdue or even check his political aspirations. For a time he looked forward with hope to the Republican nomination in 1868; but when it became evident that none but General Grant could be the chosen leader, his thoughts evidently turned towards the Democratic Convention.
Certain circumstances made the possible selection of the Chief Justice as the Democratic candidate a less inconsistent procedure than his long antagonism to the party might at first suggest. In the beginning of his political career Judge Chase had leaned towards the Democratic party, and at a more recent period had been promoted to the Senate by the aid of Democrats. He had consistently advocated the fundamental principles which originally distinguished the party. Recent circumstances had separated him from active sympathy with the Republicans and placed him in opposition to the policy of some of its leading members. He had taken occasion to criticise what he called the military governments in the Southern States. Other causes had tended to separate him from the Republican party and to commend him to the Democracy. When he took his seat on the bench of the Supreme Court a majority of the judges belonged to the Democratic party, and with them he soon acquired personal intimacy and confidential relations. He had secured many friends in the South by joining in the opinions pronounced by Mr. Justice Field for the court in 1867, in regard to the test-oaths prescribed in the Missouri constitution, and also in regard to the test-oath of lawyers known as the case ex parte Garland. All the impressions touching his Democratic tendencies had been deepened and increased during the Impeachment trial. It was evident that he was not in harmony with the Republican senators, and he took no pains to conceal his willingness to thwart them, so far as was consistent with his duty, in the position of Presiding officer.
This demonstration of political sympathy, made manifest through judicial channels, had brought Judge Chase and the Democratic managers nearer together. Both realized however that a complete change of position would defeat its own purpose. On one important point indeed Judge Chase never wavered and was unwilling to compromise. In all utterances and all communications he firmly maintained the principle of universal suffrage as the primary article of his political creed. If the Democrats should accept him they must accept this doctrine with him. Six weeks prior to the Convention Mr. August Belmont in a private letter advised him that the leading Democrats of New York were favorable to his nomination, and urged upon him that with the settlement of the slavery question, the issue which separated him from the Democratic party had disappeared. Judge Chase replied that the slavery question had indeed been settled, but that in the question of Reconstruction it had a successor which partook largely of the same nature. He had been a party to the pledge of freedom for the enfranchised race, and the fulfillment of that pledge required, in his judgment, "the assurance of the right of suffrage to those whom the Constitution has made freemen and citizens."
Not long after this correspondence the Chief Justice caused a formal summary of his political views to be published, with the evident purpose of gaining the good will of the "American Democracy." The summary touched lightly on most of the controversial political questions, and contained nothing to which the Democrats would not have readily assented except the declaration for universal suffrage. To this policy all Democratic acts and expressions had been uncompromisingly hostile, and the sentiment of the party might not easily be brought to accept a change which was at once so radical and so repugnant to its temper and its training. Judge Chase hoped to induce its acquiescence and believed that such an advance might open the way to success. But his tenacity on this point was undoubtedly an obstacle to his nomination. Another difficulty was the strenuous opposition of the Ohio delegates and the zealous preference for Mr. Pendleton. Superadded to all these objections was a popular aversion to any thing which looked like a subordination of judicial trust to political aims. Incurring this reproach through what seemed to be inordinate ambition, Judge Chase had forfeited something of the strength to secure which could be the only motive for his nomination by his old political opponents.
Notwithstanding all these apparent obstacles, there was among the most considerate men of the Convention a settled purpose to secure the nomination of the Chief Justice. They intended to place him before the people upon the issues in regard to which he was in harmony with the Democratic party, and omit all mention of issues in regard to which there was a difference of view. This was a species of tactics not unknown to political parties, and might be used with great effect if Mr. Chase should be the nominee. The astute men who advocated his selection saw that the great need of the Democracy was to secure a candidate who had been unquestionably loyal during the war, and who at the same time was not offensive to Southern feeling. The prime necessity of the party was to regain strength in the North—to recover power in that great cordon of Western States which had for so many years prior to the rebellion followed the Democratic flag. The States that had attempted secession were assured to the Democracy as soon as the party could be placed in National power, and to secure that end the South would be wise to follow the lead of New York as obediently as in former years New York had followed the lead of the South. It was a contest which involved the necessity of stooping to conquer.
The Chief Justice was, so far as his position would permit, active in his own behalf. He was in correspondence with influential Democrats before the Convention, and in a still more intimate degree after the Convention was in session. On the 4th of July he wrote a significant letter to a friend who was in close communication with the leading delegates in New York. His object was to soften the hostility of the partisan Democrats, especially of the Southern school. Referring to the policy of Reconstruction, he said, "I have always favored the submission of the questions of re-organization after disorganization by war to the entire people of the whole State." This was intended to assure Southern men that if he believed in the justice of giving suffrage to the negro, he did not believe in the justice of denying it to the white man.
The strangest feature in Judge Chase's strange canvass was the apparent friendship of Vallandingham, and the apparent reliance of the distinguished candidate upon the strength which the notorious anti-war Democrat could bring to him. Vallandingham had evidently been sending some kind messages to the Chief Justice, who responded while the Democratic Convention was in session, in these warm words: "The assurance you give me of the friendship of Mr. V., affords me real satisfaction. He is a man of whose friendship one may well be proud. Even when we have differed and separated most widely, I have always admired his pluck and consistency, and have done full justice to his abilities and energies." The plain indication was that Vallandingham, who had come to the Convention as an earnest friend of Pendleton, was already casting about for an alternative candidate in the event of Pendleton's failure, and was considering the practicability of nominating the Chief Justice.
President Johnson had also aspired to the Democratic candidacy. Ambitious, untiring, and sanguine, this hope of reward had served him in the bitter quarrel with his own party. The fate of Tyler and Fillmore had no terrors and no lessons for one who eagerly and blindly sought a position which would at once gratify his ambition and minister to his revenge. He was using all the powers of the Executive in a vain fight to obstruct and baffle the steadily advancing Republican policy. The Democrats, instead of following a settled chart of principles, were making the cardinal mistake of supporting him in all his tortuous course of assumptions and usurpations, and it was not strange that he should expect them to turn towards him in choosing a leader to continue the contest. But it is an old maxim, repeatedly illustrated, that while men are ready to profit by the treason, they instinctively detest the traitor. Mr. Johnson had embittered the party he had sought to serve. By his attempt to re-establish the political power of the elements which had carried the South into rebellion he had acquired some friends in that section, but his intemperate zeal had so greatly exasperated public feeling in the North that even those who applauded his conduct were unwilling to take the hazard of his candidacy.
The re-awakened opposition and designs of the Southern leaders were shown in the active participation of several of the conspicuous Confederate chiefs in the Convention. When the last preceding National Convention was held they were in arms against the Government. This was the first occasion upon which they could re-appear in the arena of National politics. It had been suggested to them from friendly sources that while the memory of their part in the bloody strife was still so fresh it would be prudent for them to remain in the background, but they vigorously resented this proposed exclusion. General Forrest of Tennessee published an indignant letter, in which he referred to "the counsel of timid men" that those who had prominently borne the flag of rebellion should abstain from any share in political action. He vehemently repelled the suggestion. Instead of exacting only secondary places he boldly asserted the highest claims. He appealed to the people and directly urged upon his associates, "that we, who are the true representatives of the greater portion of the true Constitutional men of the States, shall not exclude ourselves from the Democratic Convention." This spirit found a hearty response, and a large number of Confederate officers appeared in the National council of the party; of whom the foremost were Generals Forrest, Wade Hampton, John B. Gordon, and William Preston.
The Convention met in New York on the fourth day of July. Besides those active in the rebel armies, there were several leaders who had been conspicuous in the civil councils of the Confederacy. A. H. Garland of Arkansas, Benjamin H. Hill of Georgia, Zebulon B. Vance of North Carolina, and R. Barnwell Rhett of South Carolina were the most widely known. Louisiana sent two delegates whom she has since advanced to the Senate—Randall L. Gibson and James B. Eustis. Thomas S. Bocock, fourteen years a representative in the National Congress, afterwards Speaker of the Confederate Congress, came from Virginia. Montgomery Blair, who like his more impulsive brother Frank had fallen back into the party which seemed to be the natural home of the Blair family, came from Maryland as the colleague of William Pinckney Whyte. New York presented a strong array of delegates, among whom the most conspicuous were Horatio Seymour, Samuel J. Tilden, Henry C. Murphy, Augustus Schell, and Francis Kernan. Several of the regularly chosen delegates from Ohio gave way in order that the State might, in Mr. Pendleton's interest, secure greater parliamentary and debating talent; and to this end, Allen G. Thurman, Clement L. Vallandingham, George E. Pugh, and George W. Morgan appeared on the floor of the Convention. Pennsylvania sent ex-Senator Bigler and Judge George W. Woodward, whose ability was equaled by his rank Bourbonism. William R. Morrison and William A. Richardson of Illinois, William W. Eaton of Connecticut, Josiah G. Abbott of Massachusetts, James A. Bayard of Delaware, John G. Carlisle of Kentucky, Joseph E. McDonald and Daniel W. Voorhees of Indiana, were names familiar in Democratic councils.
Mr. August Belmont's lurid speeches had become the accepted signal-guns of national Democratic conventions, and he did not disappoint expectation on this occasion. His prophetic vision and historic recital were even more expanded and alarming than before. He drew a dark picture of evils which he charged upon the Republican party, and then proceeded: "Austria did not dare to fasten upon vanquished Hungary, nor Russia to impose upon conquered Poland, the ruthless tyranny now inflicted by Congress on the Southern States. Military satraps are invested with dictatorial powers, overriding the decisions of the courts and assuming the functions of the civil authorities; and now this same party which has brought all these evils upon the country comes again before the American people asking for their suffrages! And whom has it chosen for its candidate? The General commanding the armies of the United States. Can there be any doubt as to the designs of the Radicals if they should be able to keep their hold on the reins of government? They intend Congressional usurpation of all the branches and factions of the Government, to be enforced by the bayonet of a military despotism."
Apparently it never occurred to Mr. Belmont that each succeeding sentence of his speech carried with it its own disproof. With loud voice and demonstrative manner, speaking in public before a multitude of people, with his words certain to be quoted in the press on account of the accident of his position, Mr. Belmont denounced the policy of our Government as more tyrannical than that of Russia or Austria. What did Mr. Belmont suppose would have been his fate if on the soil of Russia or Austria he had attempted the slightest denunciation of the policy of those empires? How long would he have ventured upon a tithe of the unrestrained vituperation which he safely indulged in here? In his visions he now saw General Grant upholding a Congressional usurpation with bayonets. Four years before, he saw in Mr. Lincoln's election "the utter disintegration of our whole political and social system amid bloodshed and anarchy." Mr. Belmont had evidently not proved a true prophet and did not aspire even to be a trustworthy historian.
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 Cincinnati Enquirer. 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, the New-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.