Our Presidents and how we make them

by Alexander K. McClure

RUTHERFORD B. HAYES

I saw Blaine soon after the Cincinnati convention of 1876, and talked with him for an hour alone at the Continental Hotel, and I well remember the sad expression of his strong face when he said: “I am the Henry Clay of the Republican party; I can never be President.” He was standing by a window looking out upon the street, with his arm over my shoulder, and he spoke of his hopes and fears with a subdued eloquence that was painfully impressive. He was again defeated for nomination in 1880, thus suffering two defeats when the candidates chosen by the convention were elected. He was nominated in 1884 and defeated, thus completing the circle of the sad history of Clay and the Whig party.

Clay was defeated in the Harrisburg convention of December, 1839, by Harrison, who was elected; he was nominated by the Baltimore convention in 1844, and defeated by Polk; and in 1848 he was again defeated for the nomination in the Philadelphia convention by Taylor, who was elected. Thus both Clay and Blaine were twice defeated in their respective party conventions when their successful competitors were elected, and both nominated when their parties suffered defeats. Soon after Blaine’s nomination, in 1884, I sent a brilliant staff correspondent of my paper, who had intimate personal relations with Blaine, to stay with him at Augusta for several weeks. One pleasant afternoon they walked along the banks of the Kennebec River, when Blaine insensibly diverted the conversation into a soliloquy. He said: “Clay was defeated in two conventions when he could have been elected President, and he was nominated for President when his competitor was elected, and that competitor was one who had not been publicly discussed as a Presidential candidate before the meeting of the Baltimore convention of 1844. I was defeated in two conventions when I could have been elected. I am nominated now with a competitor alike obscure with the competitor of Clay.” He then brought the soliloquy to a climax by holding up his hand and repeating what he seemed to regard as talismanic figures, “1844–1884.” Clay was defeated in 1844, and Blaine was impressed with the belief that he would suffer defeat in 1884.

The prospect for Republican success was not flattering at the opening of the campaign of 1876. The Grant administration was severely criticised and the party greatly weakened by the scandals of the Whiskey Ring, the impeachment of Secretary Belknap, and by the general business depression that began in 1873. The Democrats had carried a large majority in the popular branch of Congress in 1874, and the Republicans were so seriously alarmed at the prospect of losing the election of 1876 that Senator Oliver P. Morton, the ablest of the Republican leaders, made an earnest effort to procure an amendment to the Constitution providing for the election of Presidents by popular vote, but the scheme failed. There was also some disturbance in the Republican party, caused by the evident desire of General Grant to secure a third term. He had written a letter to General Harry White, of Pennsylvania, that was very unlike Grant, whose habit was to express his convictions clearly and tersely, but in this letter he elaborately discussed the question of a third term, without distinctly declaring whether he would or would not accept it.

There was but one conclusion that could be drawn from the letter, and that was that Grant was more than willing to have a third nomination tendered to him. The State convention of Pennsylvania, over which General White presided, had declared with emphasis “opposition to the election to the Presidency of any person for a third term.” General White expected a letter from President Grant in accord with that expression, but the nearest that Grant came to a declination was in the single sentence of the letter, speaking of the third term, he said: “I do not want it any more than I did the first,” to which he added the suggestion that the Constitution put no restriction upon the period a President might serve.

Another pointed admonition to Grant not to press his candidacy was given by the adoption of a resolution in the House, declaring that the established precedent of Washington, who retired from the Presidency after the second term, had become “a part of our Republican system of government, and that any departure from this time-honored custom would be unwise, unpatriotic, and fraught with peril to our free institutions.” This resolution passed by 234 to 18, and was supported not only by all the Democrats, but of the 88 Republicans voting, 70 voted for it. One of the peculiar features of the contest for the Republican nomination was presented in the candidacy of Benjamin H. Bristow, then Secretary of the Treasury, who was not in harmony with the President, and yet refused to resign. He was the candidate of the most violent anti-Grant element.

The Republican convention met at Cincinnati on the 14th of June, and it was one of the most earnest and stubborn contests I have ever witnessed. Blaine had a clear majority of the delegates in the convention, and certainly would have been nominated with anything like fair play. On the Sunday morning immediately before the meeting of the convention, and when all the delegates and the outside political hustlers were earnestly at work in Cincinnati, a dispatch came from Washington that fell like a thunderbolt from an unclouded sky upon Blaine’s friends. He had fallen at the church door when about to enter for service, and was unconscious for some time, and the opponents of Blaine made the most of the misfortune.

The first reports of his illness were greatly exaggerated, and his friends at the convention were much disconcerted and discouraged, but when on Monday morning he telegraphed them himself that his illness was not serious, all were again thoroughly united to force his nomination. The friends of Blaine had a majority of the convention. There was not an hour during the sessions of that body that a majority of the delegates did not desire to nominate him for President, but many were held by instructions or other complications, as was the entire Pennsylvania delegation, made up almost wholly of Blaine men, but instructed for Governor Hartranft. Strange as it may seem, he received the votes of a majority of all the delegates in the convention, but not on any one ballot, and never was the wish of a nominating body so artfully misled from its intent.

The speech of Ingersoll nominating Blaine was the most powerful and impressive I ever heard before a deliberative body, and had a ballot been reached on that day no combination could have prevented Blaine’s success. The struggle was desperate for delay, and the opponents of Blaine, fearing that the session might be extended into the evening, and thus reach a ballot without adjournment, had the gas clandestinely cut off from the building, and an adjournment was enforced by darkness. The enemies of Blaine were very powerful. President Grant was one of the most aggressive and vindictive, and ex-Senator Cameron, who was then Secretary of War, was chairman of the Pennsylvania delegation, and pitiless and tireless in his opposition to Blaine.