Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White — Volume 1

by Andrew Dickson White

The other circumstance of a political character was my attendance as an elector at the meeting of the Electoral College at Albany, which cast the vote of New York for General Grant. I had never before sat in such a body, and its proceedings interested me. As president we elected General Stewart L. Woodford, and as the body, after the formal election of General Grant to the Presidency, was obliged to send certificates to the governor of the State, properly signed and sealed, and as it had no seal of its own, General Woodford asked if any member had a seal which he would lend to the secretary for that purpose. Thereupon a seal-ring which Goldwin Smith had brought from Rome and given me was used for that purpose. It was an ancient intaglio. Very suitably, it bore the figure of a ``Winged Victory,'' and it was again publicly used, many years later, when it was affixed to the American signature of the international agreement made at the Peace Conference of The Hague.

The following winter I had my first experience of ``Reconstruction'' in the South. Being somewhat worn with work, I made a visit to Florida, passing leisurely through the southern seaboard States, and finding at Columbia an old Yale friend, Governor Chamberlain, from whom I learned much. But the simple use of my eyes and ears during the journey gave me more than all else. A visit to the State legislature of South Carolina revealed vividly the new order of things. The State Capitol was a beautiful marble building, but unfinished without and dirty within. Approaching the hall of the House of Representatives, I found the door guarded by a negro, squalid and filthy. He evidently reveled in his new citizenship; his chair was tilted back against the wall, his feet were high in the air, and he was making everything nauseous about him with tobacco; but he soon became obsequious and admitted us to one of the most singular deliberative bodies ever known—a body composed of former landed proprietors and slave-owners mixed up pell-mell with their former slaves and with Northern adventurers then known as ``carpet-baggers.'' The Southern gentlemen of the Assembly were gentlemen still, and one of them, Mr. Memminger, formerly Secretary of the Treasury of the Confederate States, was especially courteous to us. But soon all other things were lost in contemplation of ``Mr. Speaker.'' He was a bright, nimble, voluble mulatto who, as one of the Southern gentlemen informed me, was ``the smartest nigger God ever made.'' Having been elevated to the speakership, he magnified his office. While we were observing him, a gentleman of one of the most historic families of South Carolina, a family which had given to the State a long line of military commanders, governors, senators, and ambassadors, rose to make a motion. The speaker, a former slave, at once declared him out of order. On the member persisting in his effort, the speaker called out, ``De genlemun frum Bufert has no right to de floh; de genlemun from Bufert will take his seat,'' and the former aristocrat obeyed. To this it had come at last. In the presence of this assembly, in this hall where dis- union really had its birth, where secession first shone out in all its glory, a former slave ordered a former master to sit down, and was obeyed.

In Charleston the same state of things was to be seen, and for the first time I began to feel sympathy for the South. This feeling was deepened by what I saw in Georgia and Florida; and yet, below it all I seemed to see the hand of God in history, and in the midst of it all I seemed to hear a deep voice from the dead. To me, seeing these things, there came, reverberating out of the last century, that prediction of Thomas Jefferson,—himself a slaveholder,—who, after depicting the offenses of slavery, ended with these words, worthy of Isaiah,—divinely inspired if any ever were:—``I tremble when I remember that God is just.''

CHAPTER XI

GRANT, HAYES, AND GARFIELD—1871-1881

At various times after the death of Mr. Lincoln I visited Washington, meeting many men especially influential, and, first of all, President Grant. Of all personages whom I then met he impressed me most strongly. At various times I talked with him at the White House, dining with him and seeing him occasionally in his lighter mood, but at no time was there the slightest diminution of his unaffected dignity. Now and then he would make some dry remark which showed a strong sense of humor, but in everything there was the same quiet, simple strength. On one occasion, when going to the White House, I met Professor Agassiz of Cambridge, and took him with me: we were received cordially, General Grant offering us cigars, as was his wont with visitors, and Agassiz genially smoking with him: when we had come away the great naturalist spoke with honest admiration of the President, evidently impressed by the same qualities which had always impressed me—his modesty, simplicity, and quiet force.

I also visited him at various times in his summer cottage at Long Branch, and on one of these occasions he gave a bit of history which specially interested me. As we were taking coffee after dinner, a card was brought in, and the President, having glanced at it, said, ``Tell him that I cannot see him.'' The servant departed with the message, but soon returned and said, ``The gentleman wishes to know when he can see the President.'' ``Tell him NEVER,'' said Grant.

It turned out that the person whose name the card bore was the correspondent of a newspaper especially noted for sensation-mongering, and the conversation drifted to the subject of newspapers and newspaper correspondents, when the President told the following story, which I give as nearly as possible in his own words:

``During the hottest period of the final struggle in Virginia, we suffered very much from the reports of newspaper correspondents who prowled about our camps and then put on the wires the information they had gained, which of course went South as rapidly as it went North. It became really serious and embarrassed us greatly. On this account, one night, when I had decided to make an important movement with a portion of the army early next day, I gave orders that a tent should be pitched in an out-of-the-way place, at the earliest possible moment in the morning, and notified the generals who were to take part in the movement to meet me there.

``It happened that on the previous day there had come to the camp a newspaper correspondent named ——, and, as he bore a letter from Mr. Washburne, I treated him as civilly as possible.