After the Cincinnati convention a Republican Congress passed a General Amnesty Act, approved May 22, and in the interest of "a free breakfast table" placed tea and coffee on the free list. The reduction of the public debt at the rate of one hundred millions a year, as well as large annual reductions in the rate of taxation, also inspired confidence, while to the President and his Secretary of State belonged great credit for the Geneva arbitration. This amicable and dignified adjustment of differences between England and the United States, leading to new rules for the future government of Anglo-American relations, and making impossible other than a friendly rivalry between the two nations, sent a thrill of satisfaction through the American people. Until then the settlement of such irritating questions had not come by the peaceful process of law.
As the campaign progressed both sides indulged in bitter personalities. In his Cooper Institute speech, an address of great power, Conkling's invective and sarcasm cut as deeply as Nast's cartoons.[649] Greeley's face, dress, and manners readily lent themselves to caricature. "I have been assailed so bitterly," wrote Greeley, "that I hardly knew whether I was running for President or the Penitentiary."[650] The Tribune told of a negro woman who was heard cursing him in the streets of an Ohio river town because he had "sold her baby down South before the war."[651] Grant did not escape. Indeed, he was lampooned until he declared that "I have been the subject of abuse and slander scarcely ever equalled in political history."[652]
Early elections increased Republican confidence. North Carolina, then a doubtful State, gave a Republican majority in August.[653] Vermont and Maine followed in September, and Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana practically settled the question in October. Finally, the election on November 5 gave Greeley, by small majorities, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, Tennessee, and Texas, or sixty-six electoral votes to two hundred and seventy-two for Grant, whose popular majority exceeded three-quarters of a million. Dix carried New York by 55,451 majority.[654] Of thirty-two congressmen the Republicans elected twenty-three, with a legislative majority of seventy on joint ballot. To the surprise of Tammany, Havermeyer was elected mayor by over 8,000 plurality, although Greeley carried the city by 23,000 majority.[655] A comparison of the vote with that cast for Seymour in 1868 showed that a marked percentage of Democrats refused to support Greeley, and that a larger percentage did not vote at all.[656] Other slights added to his disappointment. "I was an Abolitionist for years," he said, "when to be one was as much as one's life was worth even here in New York, and the negroes have all voted against me. Whatever of talents and energy I have possessed, I have freely contributed all my life long to Protection; to the cause of our manufactures. And the manufacturers have expended millions to defeat me. I even made myself ridiculous in the opinion of many whose good wishes I desired, by showing fair play and giving a fair field in the Tribune to Woman's Rights; and the women have all gone against me."[657]
Before the vote of the State was officially canvassed Greeley had gone to his rest.[658] The campaign had overtaxed his strength, and upon his return from the western speaking tour he watched at the bedside of his wife until her decease on October 30. After the election he resumed editorial charge of the Tribune, which he formally relinquished on the 15th of the preceding May, but it was plain that the robust animal spirits which characterised his former days were gone.[659] The loss of his wife, the mortification of defeat, the financial embarrassment of his paper, and the exhaustion of his physical powers had broken him. The announcement of his death, however, although the public got an early intimation of the cruel work which his troubles were making upon a frame that once seemed to be of iron, came with the shock of sudden calamity. The whole country recognised that in the field of his real conquests the most remarkable man in American history had fallen, and it buried him with the appreciation that attends a conqueror. At the funeral President Grant, Vice-President Colfax, and the Vice-President-elect, Henry Wilson, rode in the same carriage.[660]
CHAPTER XXIV
TILDEN DESTROYS HIS OPPONENTS
1873-4
The Legislature which convened January 6, 1873, re-elected Roscoe Conkling to the United States Senate. There was no delay and no opposition. Cornell was in the watch-tower as speaker of the Assembly and other lieutenants kept guard in the lobbies.[661] The Republican caucus nominated on the 8th and the election occurred on the 21st.[662] A few months later (November 8) the President, in complimentary and generous terms, offered Conkling the place made vacant by the death of Chief Justice Chase (May 7). His industry and legal training admirably fitted him for the position, but for reasons not specified he declined the distinguished preferment just as he had refused in December, 1870, the offer of a law partnership with an annual compensation of fifty thousand dollars. Probably the suggestion that he become a presidential candidate influenced his decision, especially as the President favoured his succession.[663]