CHAPTER XV
THE STATE CARRIED BY FRAUD
1868
Horatio Seymour’s nomination for President worried his Republican opponents in New York. It was admitted that he would adorn the great office, and that if elected he could act with more authority and independence than Chief Justice Chase, since the latter must have been regarded by Congress as a renegade and distrusted by Democrats as a radical. It was agreed, also, that the purity of Seymour's life, his character for honesty in financial matters, and the high social position which he held, made him an especially dangerous adversary in a State that usually dominated a national election. On the other hand, his opponents recalled that whenever a candidate for governor he had not only run behind his ticket, but had suffered defeat three out of five times. It was suggested, too, that although his whole public life had been identified with the politics of the Commonwealth, his name, unlike that of Daniel D. Tompkins, DeWitt Clinton, or Silas Wright, was associated with no important measure of State policy. To this criticism Seymour's supporters justly replied that as governor, in 1853, he had boldly championed the great loan of ten and one-half millions for the Erie Canal enlargement.
As usual national issues controlled the campaign in New York. Although both parties denounced corruption in the repair of the Erie Canal, the people seemed more concerned in a return of good times and in a better understanding between the North and South. The financial depression of the year before had not disappeared, and an issue of greenbacks in payment of the 5-20 bonds, it was argued, would overcome the policy of contraction which had enhanced the face value of debts and decreased the price of property. Pendleton's tour through Maine emphasised this phase of the financial question, and while Democrats talked of "The same currency for ploughboy and bondholder," Republicans insisted upon "The best currency for both ploughboy and bondholder."
The campaign in Maine, however, satisfied Republicans that the Southern question, forced into greater prominence by recent acts of violence, had become a more important issue than the financial problem. In Saint Mary's parish, Louisiana, a Republican sheriff and judge were shot, editors and printers run out of the county, and their newspaper offices destroyed. But no arrests followed. In Arkansas a Republican deputy sheriff was tied to a negro and both killed with one shot. In South Carolina a colored State senator, standing on the platform of a street car, suffered the death penalty, his executioners publicly boasting of their act. In Georgia negro members of the Legislature were expelled. Indeed, from every Southern State came reports of violence and murder. These stories were accentuated by the Camilla riot in Georgia, which occurred on September 19. With banners and music three hundred Republicans, mostly negroes, were marching to Camilla to hold a mass meeting. Two-thirds of them carried arms. Before reaching the town the sheriff endeavoured to persuade them to lay aside their guns and revolvers, and upon their refusal a riot ensued, in which eight or nine negroes were killed and twenty or thirty wounded. As usual their assailants escaped arrest and injury. General Meade, commander of the department, reported that "the authors of this outrage were civil officers who, under the guise of enforcing the law and suppressing disorder, had permitted a wanton sacrifice of life and blood."[433]
The mere recital of these incidents aroused Northern feeling. It was the old story—murder without arrests or investigation. The knowledge, too, that it was in part the work of the Ku-Klux-Klan, a secret organisation pledged to disfranchise the negro by intimidation, intensified the bitterness. It is probably true that many reported atrocities were merely campaign stories. It is likely, too, that horse thieves and illicit distillers screened their misdeeds behind the Ku-Klux. It is well understood, also, that ambitious carpet-bag agitators, proving bad instructors for negroes just emerging from slavery, added largely to the list of casualties, making crime appear general throughout the South. But whether violence was universal or sporadic Republicans believed it a dangerous experiment to commit the government to the hands of "rebels and copperheads," and in their contest to avoid such an alleged calamity they emphasised Southern outrages and resurrected Seymour's speech to the draft rioters in July, 1863. To give the latter fresh interest Nast published a cartoon entitled "Matched,"[434] which represented Grant demanding the unconditional surrender of Vicksburg, while Seymour, addressing a mob of foreigners wet with the blood of their victims, called them "my friends." Nast presented another cartoon which disturbed the Democracy. It represented John T. Hoffman standing before a screen behind which a gang of thieves was busily rifling the city treasury. The face of Hoffman only was depicted, but the picture's serious note of warning passed for more than a bit of campaign pleasantry. Frank P. Blair, the Democratic candidate for Vice-President, also furnished a text for bitter invective because of his declaration that "there is but one way to restore the government and the Constitution and that is for the President-elect to declare the Reconstruction Acts null and void, compel the army to undo its usurpations at the South, disperse the carpet-bag State governments, allow the white people to reorganise their own governments and elect senators and representatives."[435] Republicans charged that this represented the Democratic policy. On the other hand, the closing sentence of Grant's brief letter of acceptance, "Let us have peace," became the shibboleth of his followers, who claimed that the courteous and deferential spirit shown at Appomattox would characterise his administration. Indeed, the issue finally resolved itself to "Blair and Revolution" or "Grant and Peace," and after a contest of unusual bitterness Republicans carried the October States, although with greatly reduced majorities. Pennsylvania gave only 10,000, Ohio 17,000, and Indiana less than 1,000.
Though these elections presaged a Republican victory in November, Democrats, still hopeful of success, renewed their efforts with great energy. Blair went to the rear and Seymour took the stump. With studied moderation Seymour had written his letter of acceptance to catch the wavering Republican voter. He made it appear that the South was saved from anarchy by the military, and that the North, to the sincere regret of many Republicans and their ablest journals, was no longer controlled by the sober judgment of the dominant party's safest leaders. "There is hardly an able man who helped to build up the Republican organisation," he said, "who has not within the past three years warned it against its excesses." These men he pictured as forced to give up their sentiments or to abandon their party, arguing that the latter's policy must be more violent in future unless checked by a division of political power. "Such a division," he said, adroitly seeking to establish confidence in himself, "tends to assure the peace and good order of society. The election of a Democratic Executive and a majority of Democratic members to the House of Representatives would not give to that party organisation the power to make sudden or violent changes, but it would serve to check those extreme measures which have been deplored by the best men of both political organisations."[436]